Tiny Houses and Apartments Gaining Popularity Amongst Younger Generations

The American dream for the most part is dead for generations now just graduating from college or university. The dream that if you get a job and work hard, you too can afford a beautiful home with a white picket fence, 2.5 children and a Labrador Retriever. After the 2008 financial and mortgage crisis, many of the baby boomer generations can’t afford to retire leaving less jobs open for new graduates and those that are open are paying, adjusted for inflation, less than in the past. In addition, those who had cash during the mortgage crisis, specifically rental companies purchased large amounts of property and now rent it out at exorbitant rates.

For new graduates, the only solution seems to be to stay with their parents until they can save enough money, which can sometimes be a decade in some cases. With additional expenses like extremely high tuition and loan payments, saving also seems to be a problem. Children aren’t leaving their childhood homesteads until later and later as they try to find a partner or friend that they can live with. However, those without the luxury or those just looking for more freedom and independence on their own are taking an alternative path, living in Tiny Houses and compact apartments.

By the names, “Tiny houses and Apartments”, it sounds like people are living in the equivalent of Harry Potter under the stairs, but in reality new and inventive technology mixed with proper planning is giving people a much greater quality of life. Countries like Japan who have a noticeable lack of living space have been using these techniques for years and now they are making their way over to the states. There are even entire shows on channels like HTV dedicated to living reasonably on a budget. While you may think that living in a small apartment is cramped and not for you, the savings might be too much to pass up on. Not only do the homes and apartments Im about to show cost less, but they also lower your global footprint on the earth by a large percent.

Let’s first begin with apartments and see what some people are doing in order to save space. Because in apartments you have a set amount of space and no land to build on, the key to creating space is to create a system that will transform a room into whatever you need it to be in seconds. How current systems are doing this is with pull out and fold out beds, tables, ect. If you look at the picture below, you can see that almost everything in the apartment if foldable and can be moved up into the wall. The room might be cluttered and small if you fill it with furniture, but with foldable panels, an open space is possible. There are people using this system with rents in Manhattan around $600 which is insane. The key with micro apartments is realizing that much more is possible than it looks like with the square footage you have. You can even implement these types of systems if you have room in your apartment, you just wish you would have more.

Next are the tiny homes which usually are built on land that is cheap and affordable. In the majority of places, the land is actually more expensive than the house, so living cheap in a tiny house of your dreams starts with a good location. Tiny homes are usually constructed by companies in pieces and you can just put them together when they arrive. Sort of like an Ikea built home, these companies make it possible to build them in a day. Many of the homes are also semi mobile so can be moved to a new destination if you would like. Some can be built multiple stories or include many amenities like an outdoor hot tub. If you are looking to live cheap on a budget and don’t worry too much about living in a smaller place, this might be the life for you. Most of these homes are priced very reasonably which means you wont have a mortgage and can save your money for other activities. Here is an article which shows a few homes, all for under 50k. http://inhabitat.com/6-tiny-homes-under-50000-you-can-buy-right-now/

The key to living in smaller places is to use public areas as much as you can when they are available to you. If you live in a city like New York, there are many places open where you can just sit buy a coffee , do work ect. Also with many jobs now offering benefits to workers like meals, it makes it easier to think of your work place as a second home. If you are like many looking to save as much money as you can or if you are just interested in leaving a lower carbon footprint, getting a micro apartment or tiny home might be for you.

-Calaber24p