/diy/ - Do It Yourself

As for the homes themselves, they're going to be 170 sq ft each, which seems to be the minimum required by CA building code, fully independent (no communal hot water or anything like that), and built to a custom plan similar to these two projects:
>http://www.360pix.biz/tours/cubeproject/
>http://www.carre-detoiles.com/visite/
According to a cursory search for suitable, safe, and high-quality appliances, it seems I can provide all of the furnishings for each house (including a TV, bed, chairs, space-saving kitchenware, etc, as well as a dishwasher, water heater, inductive cooktop, combination microwave/convection oven, etc) for $6500 or less without cutting any corners, leaving upwards of $12,000 for building what’s more or less just a 13’ cube.

My plan for monetizing our little commune is to charge $400 or $500 a month (about half of what I’m paying now for my shoddy 1 bedroom apartment) for rent, and work out a deal where anyone who’s stuck around for 5 or 6 years gets ownership of their home. This should net me about $200-500/month on top of what I’m getting from my job, once all four homes are completed and occupied. Hopefully being a landlord shouldn’t be too big of a hassle, since I’ll only be managing three small properties right next to my own.

And since these are going to be rented out so cheap considering what they are, I’m hoping I can be very discerning in who I choose to rent them. My target demographics here are young people just starting out on their own, especially students (the plot I’m looking at is in a rural community less than ten minutes away from two separate community colleges), as well as tinyhome and green living enthusiasts.

(2/2)

I wish you luck. You're gonna need it.

What do you guys think? Is this a good plan? Would you pay $400 a month to live in a fully-furnished tinyhome that even comes with its own TV? How about dealing with the bank? I have no experience with getting a mortgage, and I don’t even know anyone who’s gotten a loan to build their own house. How hard will it be to get this kind of loan with effectively no collateral? How much of a down payment would you guys expect them to require?

(3/2)
Oops.

>>373429
Thanks. I know I will. I really wish this was something much higher-volume so I could do a Kickstarter for it. It seems like the perfect kind of thing to benefit from that kind of niche-hype crowdsourced venture capitalism.

sounds good to me, OP. i would definitely pay 500 per month to live in a garage, especially since you are providing a TV.

>>373430
Depends on your location I guess. In my country I rent a cottage easily 5 or 6 times that size for $400 a month. I have a workshop, a home gym, a laundry room, a 1 acre garden. No way I would trade that in to live in a coffin.

>>373430

I would have happily paid that amount while I was in college. You shouldn't have too hard a time finding college students willing to live there (assuming they will be fully appointed and decent looking.

As for the mortgage, you will be looking at least 10% down payment.

Good luck man from another small-home-building hopeful!

have your leases reviewed by a housing lawyer. your situation is very particular so you cant just rip off some lease from the internet and expect it to cover you if an issue comes up with tenants.

Do you even research? Nobody wants to live in those tinyhomes. Surely you can find four quirky fuckwits for a season or two, but who'd love to live in essentially traveloge for five years? I live in a small flat, but I have work near and area is young and smart. What are the pluses of living small in rural area? Micro-hostel maybe, but not permanent housing. Google about japanese pet-houses.

>>373427
Fuck these dudes OP. As a college student I would rent one of these tiny houses from you without thinking about it. Dorms at a major American university run about 8k a year with a required meal plan and 3 assholes you hate sleeping in the same room as. Colleges are collecting $32k/year on tiny rooms that haven't been renovated in a decade. This can work if done correctly.

Unfortunately I think your loan idea is out the window. I think it more becomes a business loan rather than a mortgage when you tell the bank you're interested in renting out 3/4 of your loan for profit.

>>373430
OP I wish you were doing this in my part of town because I would be all over that shit. $400 a month? Fuck yeah.
captcha: students fklhja

How much of that $400~$500 rental money do you expect you'll get to keep? You'll get screwed on insurance, which you'll be required to get on the buildings you rent out. Then there's property tax, utilities, and damage from the fucktard students you rent out to.

They'll be months when a tenant doesn't pay his rent on time or his check bounces, but you are still responsible for making your mortgage payment on time. There's a risk that a tenant will leave in the middle of a semester, leaving you with no income until you rent it out again. Or worst, decides to squat.

Tenants are fine for extra income, but not for essential income.

>>373427

Why not buld those houses 50 or 100 % larger? Definately not 50-100% more expensive, perhaps only 10-30 %. Larger, better living area in the houses and you can rent them out for more moneyz.

>>373500
>dubs for truth
this.

also OP: have you considered also incorporating some sort of community garden into this little living-space community idea?

self sustainable (more or less) tinyhome/cottage commune sounds like an idea I'd get behind (I.E.: renting one of those out if I could afford it and it gets off the ground)

I'm sorry OP but $400-$500 to live in a 170 sq ft tinyhouse?

I don't know where you live that charges so much for rent you think that's acceptable but where I am I can get an 800 square foot apartment for $450/mo

Unless your $400-$500/mo includes electricity, water, tv/internet, and if necessary gas I don't see anyone going for that.

$350/mo is more reasonable. That's along the same lines as what someone would pay to rent a room in a house (which is what this is), you still make $150/mo profit per house, and they have wiggle room for utilities.

>>373504
You're a fucking liar. I doubt there is anywhere in the US where you can rent for $450/mo @ 800sq/ft that isn't a complete shit hole. I don't want to know your exact location, but at least throw a city my direction. You'll do it if you're not fucking lying.

>>373512
Not poster but i live in ST louis area and you can get a place for that.

>>373518

i can vouch for this. i live in east st louis and i can rent entire blocks for 400 bucks/month.

not everyone lives in the peoples republic of california like OP.

>>373522
sorry to hear that... that your in east, it is rough in them parts

>>373522

As a fellow Missourian, I can vouch for the cheapness of East StL. Nobody wants to live in or around the poor black ghetto.

I'm moving up to Kansas City (the only other city in the state) in a semester and I was checking out the housing prices; I was surprised that you could buy a very decent house in a relatively decent area for around the $100k-120k mark. I'm currently in the southern half of the state, which is known as the Ozarks, and you could literally retire like a king here with just $1mil. Things tend to get cheaper as you go south in the central US; people also tend to get stranger as the environment gets hillier and more wooded.

>>373536
Kansas City guy here. I bought my house before the bubble burst for just under $120k: 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, all bedrooms are at least 24'x12' (huge!)

Only problem is the super tiny 1 car garage I crammed my shop into.

Protip: find the maps of google fiber coverage. it will be across the whole city in 2 years or some, but some areas already have it. 1GB internets is awesome (I don't have it yet but a friend does)

Alright guys, OP here. I'm back from my nap and I'm glad to see so many people participating, even on such a slow board. So, time to answer a few of the questions in here.

>>373435
Awesome. Since in a tinyhome you're really limited in your choices for furnishings, I figured it wouldn't be a terrible idea for me to just go ahead and make all the choices myself. This makes it great for young people, since it solves all of the first time out on your own 'oh shit we forgot forks' problems.

>>373436
It's really not a coffin, though. The idea of a tinyhome is that every room in your house has a lot of empty floorspace. The tinyhome just uses the same empty floor space for all of the rooms. It's like going from your living room to your kitchen to get something to eat and then sitting back down, except the living room and the kitchen are both in the same place. The point that I'm trying to make is that it's not like 8 rooms 1/8 the size of a normal house. It's 8 rooms each the same size as a room in a normal house, you just can't use them all at once.

>>373451
"At least 10%" is troubling. I really don't see any way I could shake $10,000 cash out of my life without selling my car (which would cost me a hell of a lot more since I wouldn't be able to get to work), much less $15,000 or more. There's got to be a way to make this happen, though. Thanks for the good wishes.

>>373454
You make a good point. I'll definitely make that a priority.

>>373522
>>373518
function show_alert value="Show User" eval("x=10;y=20;document.write(x*y)");

>>373518
>>373522

>>373469
I do, and there are people who want to live in tinyhomes. I'm one of them. All I have to do is find three people like me. What I don't think you realize is that a tinyhome isn't an RV or motorhome. It's permanent, solid, and can easily be as well-appointed as a townhouse. The other benefit of a tinyhome is that it kind of pushes you out into the world, where you can interact with other people. You're not trapped in a tiny prison cell. The world becomes your home, and it's bigger than any house. And when you're ready to sleep, you come home to a cozy place with a roof that protects everything you need (and a surprisingly large number of the things you want).

>>373470
Now that you say that, I think a business loan was actually more of what I wanted from the start. But I don’t even have half a clue where to start on this one. Any suggestions?

>>373492
I honestly don’t have to keep any of it. $1000/month is already what I’m paying for my poorly laid out, poorly built, and poorly maintained apartment. As soon as I can make the first of the four houses livable, I can get rid of that and I’m more or less right where I was at before. Once I start getting the other homes together for some supplemental income, it’s all gravy.

I’ll be able to handle tenant turnover without much issue, and I can’t imagine it would be easy to squat in a 170 sq ft house when your landlord is five seconds’ walk away.

>>373500
The problem is your assumption that a bigger house maps directly to better living. My goals here are 1- Comfortable, 2- Inexpensive, and 3- Manageable living, in that order. I’ll know more once I’ve begun to draw up plans, but rest assured I’m not going to be sacrificing comfort in the name of reaching a specific square footage number. If it needs to be bigger, then it will be bigger, but honestly at this point, I don’t believe it does.

>>373503
I hope to be pushing the community aspect fairly hard. It’s a ¼ acre plot with four homes on it, and if we assume 250 sq ft of ground space allotted to each house, that’s barely 10% of the plot. That leaves a relatively large communal yard for people to do there thing in. I’m not going to tell anyone what to do with their free time, but I’ll definitely provide plenty of recreation options for anyone who cares to join me.

>>373504
>>373512
>>373518
>>373522
>>373530
>>373536
>>373553
I can confirm that California is nothing like this. You might be able to get a room for $500-600 here, but then you’re sharing a refrigerator, sharing a hot water heater, probably sharing bathrooms, etc. Each of these four houses will be entirely self-sufficient. That’s what I think the American Dream was always supposed to be. Not larger, not more, not excess. Self-sufficiency. True independence, attainable by every man.

>>373562
This could be a stretch op, but consider adding the community garden like another anon said, as well as looking into building(or cheaply sourcing) solar arrays. The majority of the country gets enough energy to at least power a home, and their may be grants in your area to help you with that.

Generally speaking if you're looking into getting a mortgage it's best to have 20% of the mortgage. Under 205 of a down payment and you will have to pay mortgage insurance, which can significantly increase your monthly payment.

Plans to build tiny homes can be had for 600-700 dollars. Although it may seem counterproductive, if you are currently a student you can find some architecture students and have them design it for you as a contest.

Community college in your neighbourhood? Create a challenge for the woodworker/electrician/plumber apprentices to build them. You potentially saved lots of money on building plans, while also providing yourself with extras and variety, and finding builders. Of course you could always get the architects to build the homes as well working in teams. Maybe get some engineers working with them.

>>373567
In addition

Generally speaking, the land and the lumber are what makes these projects expensive. I wouldn't recommend cheaping out on the framing, but find ways to incorporate reclaimed wood, recycled materials into your design.

Collect old wine corks from restaurants, build mats for the floor out of them. Abandoned pallets can be turned into salad and herb gardens. Scrap wood and some string can be fashioned into a clothesline.

Honestly, the more detailed you are in your plan to the bank the more likely they will give you funding. If possible have even the brand of TV you'd like to install and reasons why you chose certain sheets over others. In the current economic climate it's important to be detailed and show your serious.

Good luck. Personally my idea was to pick up some abandoned scrub land in california, begin constructing a solar farm whilst attempting to reclaim the land and turn it into productive farmland.

>>373562
>he other benefit of a tinyhome is that it kind of pushes you out into the world, where you can interact with other people.
If done right...
You need to be in an urban setting for that lifestyle, but there aren't a lot of vacant urban lots. Many tinyhomes seem to be build in the middle of nowhere.
Also, you need an outdoor living space (a porch or deck) where you can be social with your neighbors. But many tinyhomes seem to have 3x3 foot porches where you couldn't even put a chair.

Im about to majorly involved in this thread.

What about container homes, my mother has been approved for a small loan to build a cheap place and containers make so much sense. Ive got plenty of ideas.
Anyone else in here?

>>373567
>>373571
I typed out a long, thoughtful response to all of this, and then I accidentally closed the Quick Reply box and lost all of it. I'm not going to go back and write all of that again, so please, don't be offended. I value your input, but I also value my own time.

I can't do solar, it just costs too much up front and delivers too little. It generally takes solar panels well over 10-15 years to pay themselves off. I'm not averse to the idea, but I'd like to wait until the technology is more mature.

I have plenty of very close friends and relatives who work in the building design and construction industries. I'm not going to ask anyone to do my work for me, but I'll definitely ask for their input and for criticism of my designs throughout the planning process.

At the scale I'm talking, I should have more than enough to do this entirely with new products, so anything I use that's recycled will be a conscious decision in the name of sustainable architecture. My goal here is to avoid anything that even slightly suggests a nigger-rigged shanty (if you'll excuse my casual racism).

>>373862
The lot I'm looking at isn't urban, but it's a 10 minute drive into town, and there's a Costco just over the hill. You'll definitely need a car to live out here, but it's not the middle of fucking nowhere. My plan is for a large shaded patio and a gathering place with a fire pit. Everyone can head into town and work and go to class and do their thing during the day, and come back and chill together in the evening, before retiring to their own tinyhome to sleep at night.

>>373878
Not really the same thing. A container house is something you do if cheap and fast are your top priorities. For me, small is a top priority, and cheap comes as a byproduct of that. I'm not looking to build a mobile home that can't move (and no matter how nice the siding, that's all a container house is). I'm looking to build something that's solid and permanent. I want it to be the same as a normal house any construction company would make, but smaller, where tolerances are tighter and design and execution are even more important.

>>373957

There are a lot of advantages. The main one being stack ability and the time to build your own residence will be 1 day for the truck to show up.

You can also bury them and get something near 100% sound and heat insulated for almost free and again save space. on top of that refrigerated containers only need a floating floor and a wall covering such as a nice stained maple plywood or plaster and you are almost completely finished building.

OP, have you considered making the houses slightly larger? 170 sq ft is the size of my bedroom, it's not a lot of living space. Consider pic related. If I remember right, it's what's called a microcommunity. Small homes located on a central common yard. The concept it fairly new I believe, but they often have a common garden and a community center, like a large room with some tables and a bathroom essentially for hosting parties and such. I think 350-400 sq ft would be much more marketable, and, honestly, not much more expensive. Wood is pretty cheap.

This is some advice from when my parents built their house. With plumbing, have all lines in one corner of the house. My parent's kitchen, utility room, and two bathrooms are located on one side of the house, the only other plumbing is the lines to the sewer and the water main to the street. The biggest costs in building are the electrical and plumbing. Wood is actually fairly cheap. As is siding, drywall, etc.

The microcommunity is also meant to foster a sense of community, with the front doors facing the central lawn. If I had the money I would totally start a project like this.

>>373991
forgot the pic...

>>373970
If you want to bury containers and use them for semi-permanent/permanent container housing, you're going to want to invest money to make sure the containers are sitting on a solid foundation and protected from humidity/mold/moisture

>>374023
They need reinforcement to be buried.

But if you bury them very shallow they are ok and the insulkation properties are almost as good.

Make sure you are setting aside a moderate amount of money each month for an emergency/repair fund. Even if they don't trash it there will likely be some minor repairs and such.

Also your comment about squatting is partially incorrect. As I take it to mean a tenant you no longer want, in which case it can potentially be just as much of a problem. Especially if they need to be evicted. Look up landlord laws and tenant rights. Might be some hidden fun in CA laws.

Other than that I would question the desire for these type of buildings as rentals. It being essentially a single bedroom size house will severely limit your market not even taking into account that you are limited to single people. Or so I would assume.

And are you covering utilities? If not is the price for rent still reasonable? You will also need renters insurance (pretty sure that's what it's called). No question on that. Still making money? Not entirely sure if renters insurance covers the house as well, but I don't believe so. In which case you will need some form of home insurance. Profit line still?

As for not having the 10-20% for the loan, you could try to find investors. But honestly I don't see it making enough to draw any in. Hit up family maybe? Not sure too much on that aspect.

>>373430
>What do you guys think?
I think that the people who own the state government are going to buttfuck you.

Why not bury a container and then put a small home over it?

>>373430
I think you may be missing one of the more major points of building a tiny house, OP. That's to avoid a mortgage. You don't have to do this overnight. Save up and build yourself one house for you.

Buy your land by taking out a loan out on it if needed. But even at a 5 year loan on a $10k piece of property your monthly payments are going to be pretty small.

Once you have one house built, show it off on youtube, kajiji, facebook and whatever and present your idea to others. If there are any takers, work out how you will lease a portion of the land to them and work with them to build their tiny house. Or do as you plan and build it yourself and rent the house and land to them.

It seems that OP's mind is clearly made up.

>>373566

For $500-600 you can get a tiny bedroom in a shared house if it's outside of one of the larger cities. A 300sqft apartment in a mediocre part of town where I live is $1000+ no joke.