SLP149 Tiny House: Build, Finance, and Regulations

The Sustainable Living Podcast

Emily Gerde is exploring with Brian Eck and Tucker Roe the ever-growing Tiny House Movement. Brian is the owner of Eck Architecture. He is building tiny homes for his clients and knows that fiancing, insuring and finding a good place for the home are important issues. He is negotiating with several banks right now to make it easier to get financing for the built.

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Some Highlights:

• Code development is important to be able to get insurance and so forth - but you want to make sure that you are safe.
• RV regulations are not sufficient for what the tiny house movement stands for - to have homes people live in permanently.
• Parking is still a real problem and many find that they need to park far from the city which adds a daily commute and all the cost associated with that to the affordability consideration.
• Eck is working with banks to try to find financing for their clients. The loans typically will not be 30-year loans but need to be paid off in a much shorter time period.
• Regulations are good for the consumer as well. Many builders are starting to offer their services and it is hard for the future homeowners to know who is legit and who is not. If there is a regulatory body, they at least will know if a builder is part of a quality control organization.
• If a tiny home was built to certain standards and inspected during the building process - then financing, insurance, and eventual resale are all easier.
• What about the DIYers?
• Having guidelines and inspections - the stamp of approval so to speak, will help the DIY builder to be accepted into a community or a mobile home park if that is their choice.
• Tiny Houses: An investment opportunity. Use it as Air B&B or participate in HipCamp.
• Or an investor could build a tiny house community and either sell it or rent it out.
• How do you see the future?
• Hoping for strong regulations to bring it to the larger community. The hope is that politicians will recognize the movement as a way to bring affordable housing to their cities. Allow a tiny home to be part of a large property or even be parked in a driveway. For many, home ownership could become a reality.
• Eck is specializing on figuring out what the particular person really wants and needs instead of cramming everything in.