Ah, the American Dream. A beautiful home in a tree-lined suburb. A white picket fence. A couple of cats in the yard. A front porch swing and a happy family to fill it.
But is the American Dream still a reality? Or has our rapidly changing world changed the Dream — and the Dreamers — as well?
If the extraordinary rise of the tiny home trend is any indication, then the answer is a resounding yes. Nowadays, more and more people are looking for a different kind of lifestyle than the one their parents and grandparents pursued.
The desire for a simpler life, greater financial freedom, or a non-traditional lifestyle has more people than perhaps ever before considering tiny home living. But what role might a tiny home have in your American Dream?
Does it mean committing wholeheartedly and buying your own cozy casa? Or does it mean making tiny living just a part of your larger story? Perhaps you prefer to rent for a while, perhaps you’re more comfortable dating rather than marrying just now.
Or, what’s more likely, you’re just not sure if renting or buying is best for you. The fact is that tiny living is a distinct lifestyle choice. It’s not for everyone. But for the right person, it truly can be a dream come true. This article provides important guidelines to help you determine which tiny living option is right for you.
Consider Needs and Priorities
The first thing you need to do when you’re deciding whether to rent or buy a tiny home is to get clear on what your short-term and long-range goals are. Why are you interested in a tiny home? Are you just looking to downsize so that you can have some time to pay down your debt and get your financial house in order? For example, if you’ve recently been turned down for a traditional mortgage, you might want to focus on cutting expenses and building savings and credit.
If so, a shorter term solution, such as renting, might be the best option. After all, the average cost to rent a tiny home is often significantly lower than a traditional apartment or home — and it is certainly less than a monthly mortgage. Your typical tiny home, for example, rents for around $500, while the cost of building or buying can soar into the tens, and even the hundreds, of thousands.
However, if you’re looking not only to minimize your housing costs but also to maximize your tiny living lifestyle, buying may be the right choice for you. Owning a tiny home is about far more than living small. Tiny home owners are a true tribe.
Investing in your own petite palace can give you the chance to join a truly exceptional community of like-minded individuals. Odds are, you’ll be living a lot closer to the land than would be possible in a traditional home or apartment, and that can yield extraordinary benefits to your physical and mental health. Indeed, if living off-the-grid and in an exceptionally environmentally-gentle manner is your dream, then committing to tiny home ownership may well be the ticket for you.
Best of all, this lifestyle can open up an entire world, one that would be financially inaccessible if you weren’t willing to embrace this minimalist lifestyle. Tiny home living in Hawaii, for example, can be a nature lover’s paradise come to life. But to snag this corner of Heaven, you will likely need to be willing to commit to buying.
Know the Risks
As intriguing as going small-scale may be, there are particular challenges both to renting and to buying. First, tiny home rentals may be growing more abundant, but they’re still pretty scarce, especially for longer-term rentals.
The largest rental inventories are typically for vacation homes with very short-term leases (by the night or the week, for example). So if you’re looking for a six- or 12-month lease, you might have some difficulty. And if the tiny home trend continues, you may well find yourself competing with a host of other prospective renters — meaning low rental prices might not last very long.
Given the relative scarcity of long-term rentals, you might think that buying or building is the best option. But that, too, has some drawbacks, the most significant of which is that mortgages for tiny homes can be particularly difficult to secure.
This means you might have to get creative when you’re looking for financing options, such as exploring personal loans or even RV loans. Be prepared though, to pay higher interest rates on these loans than you would for the average home loan.
The Takeaway
When it comes to diving into the tiny home lifestyle, it can be hard to determine whether renting or buying is the best choice for you. The key, though, is to determine what your needs and goals are, both for today and tomorrow. This also means understanding the particular challenges associated with each option. Armed with such information, you’re well on your way to building the tiny home lifestyle that’s right for you.