Why Getting a Tiny House is Harder Than It Looks

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This is the digital nomad quest podcast with Sharon Tseung. teaching people how to build passive income, become financially free and design the best lives. Hey guys, it’s Sharon from digital nomad quests. And today we’re going to talk about why it’s been really hard trying to get a tiny house. So if you know me, you will know that I’m kind of obsessed with getting a tiny house. I’m obsessed with trying to build a house. I’ve been wanting to have homes all over the world, I want to be able to get my hands dirty and like make one and in the last like month or two I’ve been really looking into a lot more when I say looking into it a lot more. I’ve been studying YouTube videos, I bought a course I started looking into the tools I need to buy. I even have them on my Amazon cart like ready to go buy them start getting my hands dirty and building stuff and then multiple opportunities that come up where I’m like, hey, maybe I can do this. Maybe I can handbill, tiny house, maybe rented out on Airbnb, make some profits, and then own it like around the world. Like, that’s my dream. Okay, so I was like really excited. I was talking with someone who has done stuff like this before. And I was like, oh, shoot, maybe this could work. Okay, so then basically, I learned a lot of reasons why I can’t do it, which kind of really sucks. Every time I have this opportunity. I’m like, yo, like, this could be it. This could be it and then like, my dreams get crushed. And I’m like, Okay, well, anyway, let’s talk about the first instance right first instance was maybe I could build something in my backyard, like a small little home in the backyard. And then I learned more about regulations and permits and stuff like that. So I’m kind of a newbie, let me tell you guys this straight up. Okay, I’m still unclear about the laws. So you should consult with some legal advisor. Don’t quote me on any of this. All right. But let me tell you guys about my experience. And it looks like you need permits. So you pay for that. As well as you need to make sure that the home clinic qualifies for that. So you need to have your water, electricity, sewage all figured out. And a lot of the ones I see on YouTube, they’re doing composting toilets. Those aren’t even allowed, like, I don’t know how people are doing that and getting permits or something like that. And then I was thinking, oh, maybe they’re doing it on wheels. If you’re doing on wheels, maybe it’s okay, because you can kind of move it if something goes wrong, I guess. But like, it’s still not really allowed. And you’re not really allowed to just park that anywhere for a long period of time. Like you’re supposed to move it to maybe like a mobile home home park, I believe you can have on your property if you’re just like going in and staying for a little bit like that shouldn’t be your primary residence for sure. And you’re not really supposed to rent that out either. So for example, I saw this one on Craigslist. I was like, Oh, that looks pretty good. And then I look I asked them, oh, why are you selling this tiny house and then they told me the city won’t let them keep running it out. And I’m like What happened? And basically it looks like from what they research about their city. You’re only allowed to have a trailer in your property and stain it yourself or have non paying guests in it for up to 72 hours of time but not allowed to rent it. Okay, maybe there is some leeway because if it’s 72 hours of time you could do like little short term rental type of things with Airbnb maybe that could work But see, this is what you got to study you got to like see if any of this can work. So I mean, after all this we realized we needed to pay a lot for like that electricity, sewage, water hookups and all that stuff. And then we’re like, okay, maybe this might not work. And then we looked into buying this piece of land that was like only four grand and I was like, Oh, this might be an opportunity for us to just purchase one of those like kits and then like drop that onto the piece of land and then start renting that out. So I was thinking maybe a tiny house on wheels or one of those manufacturer ones are you put you pop it onto the land, I have no idea okay, like I’m a new, but basically, when it costs any planning, it looks like we need to bring the electricity over the water like the water over, like drill a wall or something like that. And then bring the sewage over like, you have to use a septic tank instead, I don’t, I don’t even know it’s complicated. And that would have cost another like 30,000 just to get that part settled. But then we talked to city planning even more. And then they’re saying you have to have a minimum of 1000 square feet for your home. So it’s not even a tiny house anymore. You can’t even put a tiny house on a piece of land and I was like,

so like, I’m just surprised that there’s so many of these tiny home owners and a lot of it seems like not legal, and maybe it’s that they are mobile. So that may be like they start moving around all the time, and they park it in a mobile home park or something like that, but it just seems a lot more complicated than I thought. So I really wanted to just be simple where I put a little composting toilet I put like solar panels and get that situated and then maybe start Airbnb being out or just like leaving it there for kind of vacation home for me to just go like check out but it seems a lot more complicated than I thought and maybe cost a lot more than I thought then just paying like 20 to 50 k from, you know, I see it all the time on eBay and Craigslist and like other sites where they sell it for 20 to 50 k for like kits that you can assemble yourself and I’m like that seems so simple. I just need to plop it on a piece of land. But no, it’s not that simple, but let me know if I’m incorrect. Okay, let me know because I’m all about tiny houses. I still want to make my dream come true. So let me know if I’m correct. So that concludes this episode on why Tiny Homes are a lot harder than I thought a lot more complicated than I thought. So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Please make sure to rate review and subscribe. It really helps our podcast grow. And thanks again. I’ll see you guys in the next one.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai