The Tiny r(E)volution History
In our initial manifesto for Tiny r(E)volution we talked about the motivating factors that caused us to even look at tiny houses. Surprisingly a primary motivator was that of the past and current (and by current I mean 2010) real estate market.
In 2007 the nation entered a real estate crash fueled almost entirely by over-extended home buyers, inflated prices, and shaky mortgages. According to RealtyTrac by the close of 2010 some 3,825,637 foreclosure filings had been issued on American homes. It was time for us to act and act quickly. We knew we couldn’t afford a traditional home and at that point we didn’t even know what a traditional home was to us. Was it three bedrooms and two bathrooms? Did it have a fenced in yard, a detached garage, and a tool shed? One thing was for sure. Nothing we looked at seemed to fit our desires. It was at that time that we initially came across Tumbleweed Tiny Homes and the idea to shed a standard mortgage, build cash-on-the-barrel, and create a home we could not just survive in but thrive in that focused on our needs rather than wants, took shape.
In January of 2013 we moved in to our 240 square foot, single level, beach cottage inspired, tiny house trailer. Using non-traditional building products, state-of-the-art hardware, and a good mix of reclaimed wood, we looked forward to the adventure we had just begun. By this time we had an infant to look after and our needs had already started to change. We had, of course, designed our tiny house to be transitional in so much as “secret” doorways and passages had been framed in for easy access should we decide to make the tiny house trailer the foundation of a larger home that changed with the needs of our family.
But by Christmas of that year we had already started to notice that with a growing daughter and a very active lifestyle we wanted something different. for starters we wanted to travel more and the tiny house was a little too large (at 30′ long) to tote all over the country. Secondly we weren’t sure a single level, no interior wall, tiny house was going to be right for us beyond the next year. We needed to do something; something that promoted our ideals and ethos of simple living but that also gave us a bit more space for a growing family. Before anything though we had to deal with the bittersweet thought of selling our tiny house to recoup some of our investment and to give us seed money to move forward.
For Sale
We knew we didn’t want to approach the sale of our tiny house in a traditional way. Because we had brought on sponsors to help build our home and because we only spent just at $16,000 out-of-pocket during the build AND because we didn’t feel we could put a price on our labor since it was initially done for our own benefit rather than to turn a profit, we knew that a standard MLS style listing would not cut it. So how did we choose to sell the house?
1. Decide on a price. With $16k cash invested we decided that a 100% recoup was sufficient. We priced our house at $16,100 which we felt was sufficient and gave us an extra $100 for a celebratory dinner once it sold!
2. Network. Before we officially announced the sale we spoke with other tiny house community members, wrote a telling blog post, and talked to family members. We want to first offer up the home to people who had a hand in creating it. We then let them know when the sale would be made public and when they could announce it.
3. Take photos. This part was so important and we took extra care in how we presented our home online and in ads. We wanted to capture what we thought made our house so special. We were careful to leave signs of life though so potential buyers could picture their own lifestyle in the tiny house.
4. Create a listing. What made our house special? Why? In this step we focused just on those questions and answers and then wrote a listing around them.
5. Go public. We started the morning of “sale day” by posting first to our blog. The post had several links that showed visuals, floorplans, included materials, budgets, etc. We then posted to Craigslist to allow the simply curious to have a shot. We then contacted Tiny House Listings and created a post. It made the most sense to do and the eventual buyer came from that source. We then networked the listing on Facebook, Google+, and other social networks. We were fortunate in that it was shared hundreds of times and seen by thousands.
Within 33 hours we had been contacted by a number of buyers and had scheduled several visits ultimately showing us the new couple that would call our tiny house their own. It was not a hard decision and even now we feel the key to our quick sale was being reasonable, sticking with our principles, and remembering why we joined the tiny house community so we could help others do the same.