Are Tiny Houses Great? 77 Reasons People Love Them

Every once in a while I see lists pop up on all the reasons that tiny houses are bad.  After a quick glance, it’s usually easy to see these are opinion pieces from people who have zero interest in tiny homes. I find these articles sad because you never know how that really effects someone researching.  I want everyone who is interested to have all the support they need to pursue this lifestyle! It’s probably worth it!  😉

So, in reply to the latest article (linked at the bottom) I’ve complied a list of 77 reasons why tiny houses are absolutely lovable!

77 reasons that people who live in tiny houses LOVE tiny houses.

(This is an opinion piece but it’s informed opinions.  Informed by real life tiny house living!)

Who Can Benefit:

1. If you have a traveling job, tiny homes area way to take your home with you from location to location without having to re-settle. (There are a lot of traveling professions, nurses, teachers, construction, these are big industries. A normal part of that career choice used to include regular displacements from home, now, because of tiny homes it doesn’t have to!)
2. For anyone who wants to create (and everyone should!) and build with your own hands – it’s an amazing and rewarding experience.
3. If you have an aging person in your family who needs monitored but would like to maintain independence they can come live near a relative, generally providing an improved quality of life for both the aging person and the other family members.
4. This can also save substantial amounts of money considering an assisted living facility costs & on average $3,628 a month. Whether that comes from the patient or the family doesn’t change the savings potential.
5. Some empty-nesters can downsize, profit from selling their family home and thus live out their retirement dreams in style.
6. Every city can benefit by adding density to urban centers. Tiny homes can double occupancy on inner city lots. Therefore providing the same services with existing infrastructure to twice the residence.
7. Provide work force housing in resort areas so minimum wage laborers don’t have to subsidize rich people’s coffee (and other services) with their daily commute costs.
8. Provide owner occupied affordable housing for anyone.
9. Owner. Occupied. Affordable. Housing.  (That one needs to sink in.)  That is a very good thing and something all cities should strive for.
10. Tiny homes can provide financial relief for families tasked with caring for a high needs individual.
11. They can provide housing and independence for a high needs individuals.
12. They are a great way to provide real experience to school children. There is nothing more empowering that equipping a person with the knowledge they need to build your own house. If you can do that there is nothing you can’t do. And that is a pretty valuable lesson for any kid to learn!
13. Tiny homes make great civic partnership projects. Also providing a great solution to homelessness.
14. Families with young kids can REALLY benefit, to quote Doug Stone,
    

    “love grows best in little house
    With fewer walls to separate
    Where you eat and sleep so close together
    You can’t help but communicate
    Oh, and if we had more room between us,
    think of all we’d miss
    Love grows best, in houses just like this”

15. Digital nomads can travel the world with a permanent home.
16. Millennials (the growing housing market) have different priorities when it comes to how they live. Tiny homes can provide a way to achieve goals without consuming money and much needed free time maintaining a larger home or apartment.
17. They help communities.
18. Tiny houses keep rental rates in check by providing a different/competing housing option.
19. Enable people more free time with their family rather than working to pay bills. Our family units are crumbling. And that’s just become ‘Normal’ it’s not healthy though. Stronger families make for stronger communities.
20. Reducing tax budgets on jurisdictions by enabling owner occupied affordable housing.
21. People in tiny houses naturally support their communities because they have more expendable income and generally more free time.
22. Places value on people interactions instead of suburban isolation.
23. Tiny houses and tiny house dwellers thrive in, demand and fully support walkable communities, and that benefits everyone.
24. They promoted high design priorities instead of low cost priorities.
25. The provide a new market for builders to supply
26. Tiny House dwellers can engage in their community more.  Not because they ‘need to get out’ but because they have the extra time and money to do so!
27. In doing that you can support your local economy. Small businesses thrive when your money stays in you area.
28. You can do more for your community.  Those things you always want to get more involved with but never have the time for become easier to prioritize when you don’t have so many bills to keep track of.
29. They can benefit landowners who may be in debt by allowing a rental income with minimal investment cost, offsetting our current ‘house poor‘ trends’. Allowing existing residents to patronize existing community assets.
30. People who live tiny are natural problem solvers and entrepreneurs, they are assets to their community since they can find ways to take action on any problem at hand!
31. They Help the Environment
32. Less material in builds, saves embodied energy costs, which produces less waste to pollute the environment.
33. The most effective thing you can do to help environment is to use less space.
34. Costs can be saved by building off site with efficient construction. Potentially lowering transportation costs of goods.
35. Tiny homes can typically be built using scrap material, therefore diverting waste from landfills.
36. Much of a tiny house can be recycled, not using up raw materials.
37. They Help Individuals!
38. You get to engage more with your day to day processes. (yes, this is a good thing!). and it’s not hard! When you are aware of your impact (water, sewer, trash) you can make consciences decisions about that that effect you and your bottom line.
39. When it’s time to move you don’t have to pack as much.
40. You don’t have to work near as many hours to pay bills.
41. You can get out of the ‘rat race‘
42. Your time becomes yours to do with as you want.
43. once you have basic needs covered you can self-actualize and live to your full potential.
44. Are you passionate about something but not confident you can make enough money to live off of the income, maybe writing, photography, art, fitness, teaching, or anything really… reduce your costs and you can safely give it a go!  I NEVER would have chosen to be self employed if I didn’t build my tiny and reduce my expenses.  I would have never known how rewarding it is to be bold and go out on my own!
45. You can pay off your debts!
46. You don’t have to entertain! (because not everyone likes that!  But, if you do, there are still plenty or ways.)
47. You get to live an intentional life.  Whatever that means for you.
48. ‘Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. It is an overt expression of ‘doing what you damn well please!’
49. No lawn mowing.
50. Clean the whole house, spotless in an hour!
51. No mortgage.
52. Tiny Houses Help Families
53. It becomes easier to get control of over gifters and focus more on time and experiences.  Setting boundaries as a parent is easier.
54. You [likely] won’t be supporting slave labor in other countries as much in the form of cheap plastic mass produced goods.
55. You’ll be the envy of almost every kid on the block.
56. You will show those kids that it is ok to follow your own path! Leading by example!
57. You’ll be a better neighbor via ‘forced interactions’ and opportunities for interactions (novelty!).  You’ll also contribute to a safer neighborhood by having more ‘eyes on the street’
58. It just makes sense
59. Parking is becoming much less of an issue Tiny House Hosting, Try it tiny, Tiny House Parking
60. The people who live in tiny houses are overwhelmingly nice and friendly! If you need a digital cup of sugar they will send some your way!  I have not been a part of a community more willing to help and look out for each other.
61. Spend your time on relationships and experiences instead of paying bills for things.
62. There are no surprises, you know your whole house, inside and out!
63. Having less stuff to maintain means less stuff needs maintaining!  Your stuff doesn’t own so much of your time!
64. I see them as a way to help keep big banks in check.  If we are no longer in NEED of a loan to buy housing they may just compete more for our attention.
65. Price per square foot may be more but price per house can be significantly less! (Why Price Per Square Foot is a Bad Metric)
66. There are thousands of people who choose to live tiny, and continue to because they love it.
67. I have saved a [conservative] estimate of 16,352 gallons of water per person, per year (212,5716 gallons!) from being chemically treated by composting waste instead of flushing it with clean and potable drinking water.
68. If you need to move for any reason you don’t have to find a new rental or a new house, you just take yours with you!
69. A tiny house pays you back in savings ‘right now’ rather than as an investment, if you make it to the end of the loan cycle.
70. Have more mental clarity with less clutter.
71. You can actually live on your retirement saved.  Using your retirement years for all those things you had hoped for instead of trying to keep up with inflation.
72. It will be far more achievable for you to ‘age in place’
73. Less space to heat and cool, dramatically cutting your utility costs while keeping you perfectly comfortable.
74. Presents an opportunity to learn skilled labor.
75. Have safety and security knowing that if you fall ill and cant work you will still have a home of your own.
76. They can be built on REALLY low budgets. (mine was under #12,000)
77. In almost EVERY other country small spaces are normal!  They have worked for our ancestors,  they can still work for us too!

It’s not just me, other folks in tiny houses also shared with me why they love them:

1. Kathi MacNaughton shares, “Buying a tiny home and renting space in a lovely mobile home park allowed us to live in our dream town (which is super expensive), even on a teacher’s and fitness instructor’s salary.”They can be found at livingtinyandsimple.com
2. Security checks and weird noises can be figured out from in bed Athena Lilly says, “I feel so much safer in my tiny house. I can see every window and door. Being home alone in my previous 2200 ft house, many times after hearing a noise on the other side of the house, I would feel the need to check every closet and corner with a baseball bat in hand.”
3.  Tim Davison says, “Tiny House = Less resources = more sustainable = better for the environment and better for wildlife. Less building materials go into the construction process, less furniture when moving in, less energy usage to heat/cool. The list goes on and on.” Find him at www.creativeanimal.org
4. Karin Mandell Parramore says “Definitely freedom for me. The ability to just up and go if I want, or offer someone else the tiny house experience while I gallivant around the world. Also, as someone who built her own, the knowledge of what exactly is going on in my walls, in my floor, my roof–knowing what i have, no surprises.”
5. Jim Moses “If it is used as an avenue to avoid debt then it is always a good thing.”
6. Wendy Anne Darling says “A tiny home helps limit consumerism.”
7. Johnye Gober “[tiny homes equal] more financial security! More money for travel, more money for retirement, more saving for medical spending accounts.”
8. Johnye Gober “More date nights!”
9. April Hansen “Peace of mind: fewer bills/more affordable living; fewer chores/chores not taking as long; you don’t have to work as hard to get by; smaller carbon footprint; less stress/better health.
10. Cheryl Spelts put it well,  “I can have the fanciest house on the block, designed by me, for me. It’s my ultimate art project!”

*This has been written to show the other side of tiny houses as presented in OregonLive.*

Yes there are code challenges, those things tend to change when enough people ask for it.  There is now an official tiny house appendix in the 2018 International Residential Code (IRC).  This is allowing HUGE strides forward, you simply need to ask your local jurisdiction to adopt the appendix early to start now, otherwise you can just wait until it’s adopted organically in a few years.  Tiny Houses are more then a fad, I think that much is clear.  They solve too many conflicts to just go away.  It doesn’t have to work for you but they are worth the consideration.

PS-the one that really annoyed me was the reason that ‘People make fun of tiny houses’ …SO what!  Peer pressure has never once resulted in something good! Ignore it! Do what is right for you, find your helpers and go! That is a reflection of them, NOT tiny houses. Certainly not YOU!