ONE couple has shown how they spent less than $20,000 and now have a luxurious tiny home with zero monthly mortgage payment.
Tiny homes have grown popular across the nation as more Americans look to lower their monthly spending.
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While traditional homes often cost upwards of $300,000, you can create your own tiny home by converting a shed or van for anywhere between $10,000 and $100,000.
Young couple Hena and Vita, who go by CREATIVE COUPLE on YouTube, recently took viewers on a sneak peek into their life building a tiny home with a low budget of just $18,000.
While their neighbors might have judged them when they first started the process, it’s been worth it.
They have a home with everything they could ever need and avoid monthly mortgage payments.
Read more about tiny homes
Hena and Vita originally began building the tiny home for elderly parents and then quickly got invested in the tiny home lifestyle.
THE PROCESS
To start a tiny home from scratch, you’ll first need to find a plot of land and begin drilling in the unit’s foundation.
After getting their parts on the ground, Hena and Vita put in cement for the bottom of the home and started piling on the blocks to create the house’s walls.
At the top of the home, Hena and Vita added wood paneling for a loft and then even more wall blocks.
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Once they topped the unit with specially crafted wood, they added on the roof paneling and added in windows to create a spacious and light environment.
There was still a ton of work left to do inside, however, so Hena and Vita had to get down to business and lay down the flooring and plumbing.
Air conditioning, water, and electricity are just a few of the utilities you’ll have to install yourself in while creating a tiny home completely from scratch.
Also in the tiny home, Hena and Vita added doors and stairs to bring their space to the next level.
Insulation material is also needed to ensure the house stays warm and cold depending on the season.
One of the more exciting parts of the build was painting the walls and adding marble tile for the floors, which gave the place a more luxurious, homey feel.
While purchasing a tiny home-like shed straight from a retailer like The Home Depot might prove more hassle-free, creating the build itself, with all its underlying requirements, allows you to design a place completely customized for you.
It can also be cheaper than buying a premade unit.
The entire process involves a great deal of patience, but once the finished product is ready, it’s often more than worth it.
At the end of Hena and Vita's project, the unit held a bathroom, living room, kitchen, and even a stairwell that led to a lofted bed.
The home also boasts a massive garden and ample room to host dinner parties for an entire group of extended family.
The house’s total space comes down to 640 square feet, with exact dimensions of 18 by 22 feet.
Because the house was designed to be simple and is completely composed of just light blocks and aerated concrete, Hena and Vita didn’t end up spending that much money on the unit.
“We like to create with our own hands, in this we find ourselves,” the duo wrote on their YouTube. “We love making videos and try to make them useful.”
They built it with only a small budget of $17,000 and completely without loans.
That cost also included the purchase of the land for a mere $2,000.
TINY HOME VILLAGES GAIN MOMENTUM
While there’s no requirement that a tiny home must exist in a larger community of mini-houses, many Americans have been joining niche neighborhoods that only offer units specifically designed for the tiny home lifestyle.
These villages combine low-cost, minimalist housing with community events and additional amenities.
In Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, Tiny Estates offers 58 tiny homes, and rent begins at just $650.
At first, the space operated more like a hotel, but owner Abby Shank said over time, it became the community it is today, far different from its past as a mobile home park.
“Everybody kind of has a different lifestyle and a reason for having their tiny home, but it’s created this nice, well-rounded sense of community,” Shank said.
The space includes a community garden, firepit, mailbox space, and laundry facilities.
Meanwhile, in Wilmington, North Carolina, the Eden Village offers a solution for homelessness, providing a 32-unit tiny home community for those who fit the criteria of “chronically homeless.”
To live in the village, people also must have a physical or mental illness that makes them a high-cost burden to the public.
Once approved, you’ll pay only a small portion of your monthly earnings.
Orlando, Florida has also built a tiny home community with rent as low as $350.
The Orlando Lakefront at College Park community officially launched in 2015 when the 1950s RV park transformed into an upscale tiny home village.
“We offer available lots to tiny housers who wish to legally park, live on the shores of a beautiful lake and take advantage of all that a nearby metropolitan area has to offer,” said Adam Money, the owner of Orlando Lakefront.
To date, 27 RVs and 23 small houses line the property, but many more are interested in joining the tiny home neighborhood.
HOW TO GET STARTED ON YOUR OWN TINY HOME
While tiny homes generally save money on upfront costs and rent, you’ll often need to be actively involved in finding and building your unit.
The most common type of unit tends to be either a shed or an RV, and there are advantages to both.
While RVs give you the flexibility of traveling wherever you’d like, many town ordinances require them to only be parked in certain spaces for a short period of time.
Sheds likewise require you to know your state and county’s zoning laws, as you typically won’t be able to fully live in a shed on someone else’s home property.
Many sheds are on sale at The Home Depot, but in most cases, you’ll be responsible for adding all the required plumbing and electrical services.
You’ll also need to ensure you have a space to put your tiny home.
This means you’ll likely need to search for land to rent.
Spaces are routinely put up for auction on sites like Facebook Marketplace, or you can apply for a lot in an established tiny home community.
Etsy is selling a tiny home for $6,000, but shoppers need to act fast before the item runs out.
Another tiny home that sold at The Home Depot for just $5,000 even has enough space for a King size bed.
