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Family of 3 escapes high rent with a tiny house


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This is the story of Spencer and Bela’s tiny house. They’re a family of three who used a tiny house on wheels to escape outrageous real estate prices in the Bay Area.

Spencer & Bela were fed up with paying outrageous rent prices and decided to invest in living tiny.

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Family escapes high rent with this BEAUTIFUL tiny house

Video tour – Family Of 3 Escape Bay Area Rent && Invests In An Absolutely Gorgeous Open Concept Tiny House

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YouTube | Tiny Home Tours Channel | ThisXLife | @belafish

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Alex

Alex is a contributor and editor for TinyHouseTalk.com and the always free Tiny House Newsletter. He has a passion for exploring and sharing tiny homes (from yurts and RVs to tiny cabins and cottages) and inspiring simple living stories. We invite you to send in your story and tiny home photos too so we can re-share and inspire others towards a simple life too. Thank you!
{ 10 comments… add one }
  • Eric
    June 24, 2019, 4:25 pm

    When you say “Bay area” are you referring to San Francisco? Coz as I understand it there are a number of places that are referred to as the Bay area across the States.

  • Dawn
    June 24, 2019, 9:22 pm

    Beautiful home and I really appreciated all of the times you both explained how things could be improved upon, etc.

  • Linda Baker
    June 24, 2019, 10:10 pm

    since there was no mention of solar-wind power I’m assume they are somehow connected to electric/gas, do they rent the site and how much cheaper do they live now vs apartment living – this home must have cost plenty to build with all the customization done

  • Matt
    June 24, 2019, 10:23 pm

    I’d be interested in knowing as well. I used to think tiny homes only had a select few places where they would be worth buying over a traditional home but now that I’ve moved around, i’m seeing more practicality. Basically my formula to figure if you should buy a tiny home is “do rich people like it there?” If you answered yes, the tiny home is cheaper.

    • James D.
      June 26, 2019, 1:38 am

      More complicated than that… Cost of any house, including tiny houses, depends on multiple factors. So they won’t all cost the same nor what they provide will all be the same.

      Tiny houses can be built for as little as a few thousand on up but that depends on how it’s built, what materials are used, how big it is, and what’s included. We’re talking as small as around 50 Sq Ft on up to over 400 Sq Ft and very basic on up to the best of everything that’s available on the market…

      Apples to apples, if you got a traditional house that was custom built with every square inch well designed then that will easily run into the millions vs a tiny house of that standard that’ll go over $100K… So the tiny house is cheaper, it’s just has the caveat that it’s only guaranteed to be cheaper than the same type of house and standard it is being built to would otherwise cost at a larger scale.

      A spec or tract house would be much cheaper than a custom built high end house and size is still a factor even for tiny houses…

      Another thing to not confuse is new vs old, virtually all tiny houses are being built new. So there isn’t any depreciated value yet but there will be over time as older homes get resold. The average national cost of a new traditional home is reaching $309K but a thing to consider with older houses is they will be in more need of repairs, renovations, etc. that could make them ending up costing more than a new house…

      While a major problem with home ownership that most people almost never consider are the long term costs. The average home will cost thousands every year in maintenance and other hidden costs… Realtor sites like Zillow put the average at around $9000 but some parts of the country it goes even higher and there are other costs variables that estimate doesn’t include.

      Like a large home means it’ll cost more in utilities, heating and cooling, furnishings, property taxes, HOA fees, and a litany of other costs… Worse case a 1998 study by the wall street journal estimated that with a 30 year mortgage a home owner could actually be paying up to 4 times what the house original cost to purchase when all those additional and ongoing costs are accounted for… and there’s no actual guarantee the home will have significant appreciation to compensate or worse depreciate like the housing bubble crash showed can happen too.

      Vs a tiny house where virtually all of those costs are reduced and some even eliminated…

      So it’s more a issue of finding where to put them and being allowed to live in them… So long as people understand the costs and what effect their choices will have on it then it’s possible to have a tiny house tailored to work anywhere and fit the desired budget…

      Even commercial builders like Incredible Tiny Homes has options for THOWs for as little as $15K and DIY’ers could possibly get it even lower. But like with most things in life it depends what you want to get out of it and how you do it…

  • Heather HJ
    June 25, 2019, 3:15 pm

    ❤💗this house! I bet it was a pretty penny, but when your customizing your dream home it’s worth it. So many things I just LOVE, too many to mention. This house has so many things I’d want to incorporate in my tiny house. We will definitely take some of the advice in the video when building ours. Beautiful tiny house masterpiece.

  • DArcy
    July 9, 2019, 6:30 pm

    Love all these stories… the million dollar question however, where do you put them? There’a no place for them in my city unless I found an owner with acreage that would agree to one. Stories on how people overcame this hurdle would be great!

    • Alex
      July 10, 2019, 7:34 am

      Great question, Darcy. People usually have to get kind of creative to find a place for them. More and more, we’re seeing legal communities for them. You can also usually find lots where RVs are allowed, and tiny homes are usually allowed there too. But with stories like this, we usually learn that they worked it out with someone who owns the land. You really just have to reach out and ask people and tell them about what you’re doing. Once enough people learn about what you’re doing, someone will usually lead you to the right person, and that’s where you can usually create a win/win situation with a landowner to secure a spot for your tiny.

  • Linda M Gero
    March 14, 2020, 10:52 am

    Hello,
    Do you have the floor plans or blueprints? I love the way you set this up?

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