Photo credit to Evan and Gabby

Camping trailers are a common sight – mobile tiny houses are still a bit of a novelty. Some of the aesthetic differences are immediately recognizable but then the similarities begin to blur. Below is a quick run down of how these two housing choices compare & contrast.

Camping Trailers

• Construction: Manufactured to RV industry standards in a factory setting. Typically built with a thin shell of metal, wood, and composites. The base trailer is usually custom engineered for the home it supports.
• Plumbing: Built with standard RV toilets, plumbing, water, and waste tanks.
• Electricity: Typically built to connect to grid power with standardized plugs & outlets and use on-board backup generators. Can also be built with off-grid systems.
• Weight & Portability: Relatively lightweight and easy to tow.
• Size: Camping trailers are often shorter (in height) than tiny houses. The maximum road height for most (if not all) U.S. States is 13 1/2 feet (without special permits).  You may find some 5th wheel trailers coming close to this height, but not your average trailer. This makes camping trailers easier to pull into gas stations and other tight places.
• Insurance: Relatively easy to insure.
• Financing: Lenders understand RVs well and many financing options are available.
• Warranty: Like many manufactured products warranties are often available.
• Taxes: Generally recognized as a second home (but check with a tax advisor).
• Immediacy: The moment you take possession of a camping trailer it’s usually fully functional and ready roll – the benefit of buying a turn-key manufactured product.
• Cost: Used camping trailers can be found on craigslist, curbsides, and through dealers – often for very little money. In fact in terms of bang for your buck, used (and even some new) camping trailers can be a good deal.
• Fit & Finish: The interiors of manufactured homes are typically finished off tastefully and carefully. But like most manufactured products long term reliability and longevity will vary.
• Year-Round Living: Lighter weight frames and siding also mean that trailer homes will cost more to heat and cool.

Tiny Houses

• Construction: Handmade, typically by owner-builders in backyards and driveways. Built like a normal framed house on a heavy duty flatbed trailer.
• Plumbing: Can be built with RV plumbing but owners often choose to install composting toilets, gray water outlets, and garden hose inputs. From time to time you’ll even see some rain water collection systems being used.
• Electricity: Can be built to connect to grid power or built with an independent off-grid system.
• Weight & Portability: Typically heavier than camping trailers making it more costly and difficult to tow.
• Size: While the side walls of a tiny house are shorter than most normalhomes, a 12/12 pitched roof can easily cause the total height of the house to come to just under 13 1/2 feet. The side eaves also often extend the house to a full width just under 8 1/2 feet (the road limit for trailers). So while tiny houses are tiny for houses – they are in fact very large trailers (watch those overhangs).
• Insurance: Sometimes easy to insure – depending on your local insurance agent and their ability to imagine how tiny houses fit into existing definitions.
• Financing: Rarely financed and somewhat difficult to finance because lenders are typically unfamiliar with tiny houses – making them difficult to underwrite.
• Warranty: When you build something yourself – you are the warranty.
• Taxes: Generally not recognized as a second home (but check with a tax advisor).
• Immediacy: Months after buying your flatbed trailer you might have a habitable home if you’ve worked hard long days or had lots of help. Building your own home often comes with the cost of investing real sweat equity. The smaller the project the faster it goes but tiny houses take time to build.
• Cost: I’ve seen tiny house owner-builders report spending anywhere between $5,000 and $50,000 to build their home. Labor costs can be offset by doing a lot of the work yourself. Materials costs can be cut by making frugal choices.
• Fit & Finish: It’s up to you to choose what kind of custom finish your put into your home – and the quality of the work. Many tiny houses are finished off with a lot of natural wood but anything you can imagine is possible if it’s in the budget.
• Year-Round Living: Many tiny house homeowners live year-round in their homes. They are built like real houses with materials that typically do a much better job of keeping the weather outside.

When you boil it down camping trailers are better for those who need more mobility and are content with giving up comfortable year-round living and some aesthetics. Tiny houses are better for those who intend to mostly stay put, need the year-round comfort from the weather, and want a custom home.

Both solutions can help you find a way to live more simply, untethered from some building restrictions in the gray area between rentals and normal homes. Lastly, they can also both provide a safe, mortgage-free home to those needing or wanting to downsize their lives. In questionable economic times having the added security of owning one’s own home – no matter the size – can provide that needed safety net.

This is Owen Geiger‘s entry to The $300 House Open Design Challenge. Owen is an earthbag expert and the former Director of Builders Without Borders and Founder and Director of the Geiger Research Institute of Sustainable Building.

The design challenge started out as an idea described by Vijay Govindarajan and Christian Sarkar in a blog post at the Harvard Business Review. In a nutshell, they proposed that it might be possible for a simple home to be built for less than $300. At this price point a viable alternative would become available for millions of people currently living in hazardous makeshift housing around the world.

The initial idea was met with many positive responses, so they decided to take it to the next level and invite people to submit their design concepts through an open design competition.

Take a closer look at this earthbag home design at Earthbag Building Blog.

To learn more about the competition and review the entries visit The $300 House website.

In the following interview with Tumbleweed Tiny House Company founder Jay Shafer, he describes some of his initial motives for choosing to live in a tiny home. Civil disobedience was one item that topped the list. Demonstrating that size was not a requirement for safety, prosperity, or happiness was (and still is) one of Jay’s primary motivators.

Most of us can identify with this aspect of tiny houses, and it’s true, in some circumstances living in a tiny house can be illegal. But there are a lot of good reasons beyond Civil disobedience for choosing extreme downsizing. There are also many people who are uncomfortable with the possibility that living in tiny houses might be illegal.

Jay does go on to describe some of the loopholes, like setting up tiny house communities on former mobile home park sites, where the zoning would permit tiny houses. But I wonder if these notable exceptions are overshadowed by his primary message.

I’m not knocking Jay for leading with his convictions – quite the opposite. But I wanted to emphasize that tiny houses can be legal to live in. The reason I’m taking a moment to point this out is that the number one question I hear is… where can I live legally in a tiny house? People want an affordable and legal tiny house option.

The problem is that tiny houses break many of the conventional rules for single family zoning. So if you were to ask your local building department for a permit to build a tiny 120 square foot dwelling on a permanent foundation, it’s likely that many changes to your design would be required including increasing the square footage.

This is not the case in all communities. Some places have far less restrictive rules, but determining which communities would allow tiny houses is as complex a puzzle as the diversity of the codes themselves.

There is an ebook on the topic titled, No Building Codes by Terry Herb. It covers the state-level codes and is best for those seeking out a general direction, but it doesn’t go into the specifics for tiny houses. Read my full review of the ebook No Building Codes.

But the easiest way to avoid the building departments’ fees and regulations (typically speaking) is to build your tiny house on a trailer foundation. This was the loophole Jay used initially. The trailer typically puts the house in a category not covered by building departments – and under the much less restrictive governance of the highway departments.

So if you like the Civil disobedience aspect – more power to you. If you’re uncomfortable with breaking laws there are plenty of legal loopholes for you to work within. At the end of the day those looking for solutions will succeed and those looking for obstacles will stumble and fail.

For more ideas about where you can live legally in tiny houses read my post titled, Locating Land for Tiny Houses.

If you’re like to learn more about Jay Shafer visit the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company website.

Here is the interview with Jay Shafer.

I’ve noticed an increase in interest around the topic of tiny house business opportunities. Things seemed to get jump started sometime after July 17, 2010 when Jay Shafer‘s story was featured on the Yahoo homepage. The media seemed to really like the idea that tiny houses were thriving while McMansions continued to suffer. Variations on that theme were retold by many mainstream media channels for months following that initial story.

From what I hear from the larger community tiny house businesses are doing well, but not in the areas you might expect.

What People Want

The order of this list is based on my general impressions of our micro-segment.

1. Books – Books seem to be the biggest money maker.
2. Plans – House plans help folks visualize how to build a house.
3. Free information – Blogs, and social media in general, is a wonderful way to help people connect and build communities. Blogs are commonly monetized through advertising and revenue increases with popularity.
4. Workshops – Hands-on workshops are a great way to get a crash course in building and design.
5. Finished Homes – Professionally finished turn-key homes.

How Tiny Houses Boom

I imagine the journalists reporting that tiny houses were growing in popularity compared to McMansions were assuming that tiny house sales were booming, but I don’t think that’s true. The sales of physical tiny houses actually seems to be soft compared to the sales of how-to information.

This makes perfect sense to me because tiny houses perfectly illustrate how living with less can buy back some of the freedoms lost by living in debt. So they naturally attract large numbers of hopeful do-it-yourselfers and people looking for a better way to live.

Potential Opportunities

I suspect there are several business niches that have not been fully explored yet. Here are some ideas that may have potential.

• How to DVDs – I’ve not seen any high quality tiny house construction DVDs, and I suspect this would be a very popular item.
• Empty Shells – Imagine an empty tiny house with a ‘closet’ at one end; a closet big enough to be turned into a small bathroom. This simple shell could function as a home office/studio or be converted into a living space. Empty shells might appeal to do-it-yourselfers as well as those needing an extra room.
• Rentals – This might be a bit tricky legally speaking… but it might be a shoe-in for campground owners looking to expand their offerings.
• Cottage Industry – Some small businesses might find a tiny house an ideal place to do business.

Peering into the Future

It’s hard to say where tiny houses will go in the next few years; after all nobody can predict the future. But we all notice trends and can learn lessons from observing the results of cause and effect – so I’ll take a stab at peering into the future.

The future of abundant energy supplies seems to be the question on everyone’s mind – even if they’re not talking about it yet. I suspect this is due to the the uncertainty we all feel about the topic.

But I think there are some things we can be certain about. If we do begin to run out of gas we’re going to need to learn to live differently and our homes will need to change.

So from a business perspective I’d have to assume that anything that empowers people to live more sustainably will have a real future. How the economics will all work out in the end is anyone’s guess; but things that provide true value, like food and shelter, will continue to be in demand. Things with market-determined values will continue to be a gamble.

Just food for thought, and not investment advice

Randy has a blog called Mobile Kodgers where he writes about the freedom he finds on the road. Today Randy told the story of a long-time friend who lives in a private location on the Mogollon plateau in Arizona.

The land she found is part of a giant failed real estate development where parcels regularly sell for just a few thousand dollars. Before you whip out your checkbook be forewarned that low prices like this often come with challenges most folks wouldn’t choose to face.

But Taylor cleverly adapted to this rugged and remote environment. The house was built around a small 5th wheel trailer after she spent time freezing in the winter and baking in the summer. First the roof went up, followed by walls to keep out the wind. She even collects rain water from her small roof, 300 gallons from 1-inch of rain.

Read more about Taylor’s Tiny House on Mobile Kodgers.

Photo credit to Randy. Love your house Taylor!

Imagine an enormous intentional community of 2,000 residents, all living sustainably off-the-grid. This is what Nick Rosen is noodling over since working on his book, Off the Grid.

As he traveled while researching stories for his book, he met many people making off-the-grid lives work in remote places. But he also learned how tough it can be to do it all alone. Nick found that the folks making it work well, relied a wider network of people. From this exploration the idea to create a sizable sustainable off-grid community came together.

To do it right he figures he’ll need to raise about $200 million. That seems like a lot of money but he’s of the mind that to make it successful from the start there would need to be the right mix of infrastructure and expertise in place. The cost of an average home would cost in the $150,000 range.

Nick says he is currently working to build the multi-disciplinary team, and the secure the funds that will be needed. He’s also on the lookout for land, possibly in the form of an investment in the project. In fact he told me, “I will swap my first edition of Walden for 25 acres of South facing mixed farming and woodland.”

We’ve not chatted about the possibilities of tiny houses, but I suspect Nick would be open to listening to just about any off-the-grid sustainable living strategy. Who knows… maybe this off-the-grid city dream of Nick’s could include a tiny house eco-village as one of the neighborhoods.

To learn more about living off-grid visit Nick’s website, off-grid.net.

If the story of Heimo Korth, the trapper that lives in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, was a bit to extreme for you, as it was for me at times; you’ll appreciate this trailer for a movie about Punkle’s Farm.

It’s a sustainable farm in Eastern Ontario that grows salad greens, fresh herbs and vegetables. They also raise chickens, turkeys, ducks and pigs. They use no chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, antibiotics, or growth hormones which is why the food they produce is 100% Nasty Free!

While this is a bit off topic, much like the Heimo Koth post, it’s another good example of how people are learning to live on the land. So I thought it was worth sharing with you.

NASTY FREE – Documentary Trailer from Punkle's Farm on Vimeo.

It’s always fascinating to me to run across the story of someone who lives off the land in remote places. One of my favorite stories is of Dick Proenneke, a man in his 50′s that moved out into the woods in Alaska in 1968, built a tiny cabin and lived there for 30 years.

Tonight I ran across a similar story of a trapper named Heimo Korth that currently lives with his wife Edna in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge above the arctic circle. I can’t imagine living like they do but it sure is an eye opener to see this kind extreme tiny house living. It’s humbling really.

It’s also interesting to hear what he has to say about civilization and humanity. Maybe the view from the top of the world provides an especially clear view of things.

One warning before you watch the film. They carve out their existence by hunting and trapping, so there is some extremely graphic imagery related to this activity.

The internet is brimming with cheap raw land for sale and many of the deals seem too good to be true. Land can also be very difficult to finance. This is because it’s difficult for lenders to really assess the true value of raw land because there are so many unknowns, making it nearly impossible to calculate the investment risk.

One increasingly popular way to buy land is through online land brokers. These companies buy and sell land and often provide financing. The benefit is that they make raw land easier to buy, often offering low monthly payments with no credit checks. Common sense tells us that there’s a greater need for due diligence when any deal sounds too good to be true.

Researching land developers

I recently had a dialog with the folks at Classic Country Land.  They have taken their real estate investment company to the next level, and have made the primary focus of their business developing larger tracts of land into accessible parcels.

Antler Ridge is one example of the kind of communities that Classic Country Land develops. This particular development is located in the south-east corner of Missouri on the border of the Mark Twain National Forest. It was once a much larger single tract of land and is now split into smaller parcels averaging 21 acres each. Each parcel appears to have deeded access by private dirt road and there is a county maintained road to the development.

They’ve also setup some high level covenants, but unlike many developers they don’t make it hard for folks to build something simple, small, and off-the-grid. For example, the Antler Ridge Covenants (pdf) defines a few limitations that are intended to keep neighbors from setting up something other than a place to live. This protects everyone that buys land there but doesn’t add so many restrictions that construction is prohibitive. Missouri is also well-known for flexible building laws, so a good choice for those looking to build alternative housing.

The following photos are from the Classic Country Land website and show what Antler Ridge looks like.

Doing your due diligence

When you discover a property you like online be sure to do some careful research on the parcel and seller. If the land is being sold by a developer check with the Better Business Bureau to see what kind of reports have been filed for the company. This can give you an idea of their track record; Classic Country Land has an A+ rating for example.

Also be sure to understand the terms of the sale and when you actually get the deed. Some seller financed agreements state that the seller holds the title until the property is paid in full; others put you on the title while you’re making payments like a traditional mortgage.

It’s possible that in the fine print you may find that defaulting on the loan causes the property to revert back to the seller. This would be bad, very bad, since you could loose any equity you’ve built-up. Read the fine print purchase agreements carefully.

If the seller offers financing be sure to review the loan terms carefully too. The folks at Classic Country Land have a strait-forward lending model. They will often discount the purchase price of the land if it’s a cash deal; and the bigger the down payment, the lower the interest rate you’ll pay.

Many of these seller financed land deals also do not require a credit check. This can be a bit of a double-edged sword because it’s the buyer’s responsibility to determine if they can really afford the loan. Many people want to think they can afford monthly payments on their dream property, but often fail to do their own due diligence on themselves. Try to avoid getting caught-up in the excitement and carefully consider all the risks before making the commitment.

The most important part of doing your due diligence may be getting out there and visiting the place in-person. Google Maps and other online research tools can give land shoppers a false sense of security that should really be tempered with a visit in the flesh.

Finding a good deal

If you were to buy land with cash from anyone you increase your chances of getting a good deal. It’s also a sure thing you’ll pay more when you choose a payment plan. But if you’re looking for low-cost, off-grid property to park a tiny house and don’t have the cash, paying the premium to have a place to live while making payments may be a good deal in the greater scheme of things.

Inexpensive land also comes with a natural built-in red flag, which is simply that it is inexpensive, there’s always a reason for that. In the case of Antler Ridge I suspect the low cost is due to it’s remote location, off-grid status, and dirt road access. If you plan to live their full-time and need a local job the cost of your commute may far outpace any savings on cheap land.

Good deals are really in the eye of the beholder. It’s only a good deal if it serves your needs and empowers you to reach your goals. Be patient and choose wisely and more often than not, you’ll be happy with the deals you negotiate.

Avoiding owners’ associations

In my humble opinion property and homeowner associations should be avoided, or at least well-researched before you put down your money. These organizations are setup to add another layer of governance to a community and might work well for those who want to live on the 18th hole, but for most of us they just add a major pain in the neck.

Wrapping up

Buying land is not easy and should be approached with lots of caution. It’s not rocket science either, so spend the time to educate yourself and connect with people who’ve done it. Here are a couple of posts I’ve enjoyed from people who’ve gone through the process.

• Finding Land for Living – Urban Rancher
• Land! – Parts One, Two, and Three. – Laptop and a Rifle

If you have any personal experiences with buying raw land or doing business with land developers I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Thanks!

One of the most common questions I hear centers around where people can live in tiny houses legally. The challenge is that in many communities the definition of what qualifies as a residential home has been too tightly defined. For example, one of the things you’ll find are square footage minimums that define the smallest size a home can be, which can often be several hundred or thousand square feet.

I personally think all these rules are insanity because who in their right mind could determine a fixed minimum house size for everyone in a community. If the powers that be are trying to protect home values in the neighborhood they’ve also lost touch with reality because real estate appraisers will typically use similar properties for value comparisons. Luckily there are some ways to work within the system – to get around the system.

Photo credit Kahili Mountain Park via Tiny House Blog.

Some Loopholes

1. Avoid building codes – Begin by finding communities that don’t have a lot of building restrictions. There’s a good ebook to start your search called No Building Codes written by Terry Herb at Containerist. The ebook outlines the building codes for each US State, at the state-level. If you are open to relocating and want to a quick reference by your side when seeking out states with few (if any) restrictions this is a good ebook to have.
2. ‘Camp’ on your land – Trailer-based tiny houses are usually seen by most municipalities as RV trailers since they are built on wheels. So you can typlically live in a tiny house anywhere it’s legal to ‘camp’ on your own land. This is not always permitted so check the local ordinances with local law enforcement and/or the planning department. Other issues may still apply like how you’ll need to deal with waste water and drinking water.
3. Alternate zoning – Look for multi-family zoned land. Typically there is no minimum unit size defined for multi-family zoned property which allows apartment building to have small apartments. It’s possible that with the right proposal, a planning department may approve building the first unit of a multi-unit tiny house development.
4. Trailer park – Rent space at a trailer park. Some trailer parks have restrictive requirements like many homeowners’ associations, so avoid those. But many will be happy to have you park your custom trailer home in along side the other trailers.
5. Build an eco-village – Consider buying an existing trailer park or campground with friends and turn it into an eco-village. This is one of my favorite tiny house community concepts because the zoning and infrastructure are already in place at these kinds of properties; although I’ve yet to see someone give it a try.
6. Move out to the countryside – Many rural areas, even near major metropolitan areas will be more flexible with living solutions. There are many areas where migrant housing has already set precedents and paved the way for tiny house living.
7. Backyard camping – A friends backyard might be a viable option if ‘camping’ is be allowed in your area. Setting up a tiny home in a backyard may also legally comply with the laws that support ADUs (accessory dwelling units). Even here in regulation-ridden California we have laws that permit the addition of in-law units.
8. Hide in plain sight – I’m not advocating breaking the law but many people have found that simply setting up housekeeping in plain view works fine. The reason this works is that something so cute and in plain view is seen as a quality contribution to the neighborhood, not an eyesore. Onlookers seem to assume it’s some kind of cute shed, playhouse, or home office and just smile and continue on their way. Few would assume someone actually lives there, after all, who could live in a house so small? LOL
9. Seek a variance – This is essentially asking the local planning department to consider an exception to the rule. If you work the green angle and diversity angle you may get more traction. There is quite a bit of risk with this approach because you have to buy the land before you can apply for building permits.

Wrapping Up

Finding a place to live in alternative housing requires thinking outside the box and looking for pre-existing loopholes. By all means try to avoid breaking the law and risking loosing your home. Building your home on a trailer can reduce the risk because you can simply move it if asked to by authorities. But it’s alwasy much nicer to find a place where you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.