3 reasons why Tiny Homes aren’t trending in New Braunfels

The Tiny Home Trend is gaining popularity everywhere. We get it, everything is adorable when you make an itty-bitty version of it. And it’s certainly sensible to make the most of every square foot you can call home. In Japan or Manahattan, there are less square feet up-for-grabs. In New Braunfels, on the other hand… There is no good reason to cram everything you own into a Storage Container and then live there.  In general. . . According to The Tiny Life, These ‘3 L’s’ limit the widespread movement:

1. Land: people want a balance of having land and being close to city or town centers where they can access services, entertainment and employment.  These things are often in conflict with each other.  The closer to the city center, the smaller and more expensive the lots.  To have a Tiny House, you don’t need much land for the actual house, but you do need enough to be able to obscure the house from prying eyes in order to fly under the radar of code enforcement and curmudgeons.

2. Loans: At this point, banks don’t feel that Tiny Houses are a viable option because they don’t have a good resale value.  This means their loan isn’t secured with collateral.  It is this dynamic that means for us to get access to loans, we need to get creative.  Some borrow from a family member, some save up years to pay with cash, others use credit cards and carry a balance.  There isn’t a good answer in this area yet, it’s a tough problem to crack.

3. Laws: Despite the approach of putting a tiny house on trailer, this isn’t the magic bullet that it is often claimed to be.  The issue comes when you look at your municipality’s minimum habitable structure definition.  These definitions almost always exclude Tiny Houses from being a dwelling and give code enforcement a strong leg to stand on when it comes to condemning your Tiny Home and/or levying fines.  This code does serve a good purpose; it prevents abuse on the part of slum lords and gives a mechanism for the courts to hold slum lords accountable. (excerpted from: Barriers To The Tiny House Movement)

There are many reasons why the Tiny House movement isn’t moving through New Braunfels.  If you’ve encountered the ‘3 L’s’ and still find yourself dreaming of living in a Tiny Home, think about the reasons why they’ve gained traction and just how you can implement those elements into something a little more. . . reasonably sized.

TOGETHERNESS: Home is a place where we eat, rest and play.  With so many different areas to do that in a larger house, you may start to feel disconnected from the other people who live there if you don’t make time to gather.  People are forced to gravitate toward one another in tiny homes.  For more togetherness, get a dinner bell and devote yourself to having dinner as a family. Or, make every Monday a Game Night, find a game you love and announce a standing invitation to play in the Living Room.

NATURE: People are not meant to live indoors, in a tiny home they are forced to spend more time outdoors and have fuller yards and gardens because the houses themselves have a smaller footprint, leaving more nature to be enjoyed.  How about making it a part of your routine to step outside each morning and breathe in some fresh air.  Maybe get supplies to start a vegetable garden or get a dog that will require you to go on walks.

SIMPLICITY: With less area to cover, there’s a lighter load when it comes to housework and even utility costs like heating and cooling your space.  In smaller homes, the designer has less room to create divisions that interrupt the flow of the home and in doing so things simply feel more spacious.  Combine efforts with a Home Stylist to remove clutter to create more space, buy a home with an open floor plan, schedule your Thermostat to reduce utility expenses.  

If you can recreate these qualities of a tiny house within your existing home, you may find that you love it more than ever. But if not, let us know and we’ll get you squared away  . . . even if you still really want one of those tiny houses.