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Comment by p1necone | Hacker News Reader

I don't get the tiny house thing. They seem to have become a fad because house prices in a lot of places are currently out of reach of a lot of people. But isn't the part of the equation that's grown astronomically the cost of the land, not the cost of building the house?

I know that I couldn't afford a house where I am now (without a large down payment and mortgage repayments that were an unresponsible portion of my income) even if I just bought an empty plot of land.

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While I'm not a fan of tiny tiny houses, I personally don't feel comfortable in houses that are too big. I would prefer a tiny house to a large suburban house in which I'd feel lost.

I think it's probably similar for a lot of people; feeling that a smaller house is just right for them.

It's probable that the "tiny" part is a lot more reactionary to big suburban castles, and I'd posit that those into the tiny house fad are likely more interested in houses that are more compact/dense, than an actual tiny house.

That's completely valid but there's a world of difference between 300 sq feet and 500-600 sq feet per person. The McMansion is rediculious but that doesn't mean that the opposite extreme isn't also crazy.

Admittedly, my family of three lives in 1800 sq feet and we probably have at least 200 sq feet that only gets used a handful of days a year. I wouldn't want to go smaller than about 1300 sq feet for our family though.

The other part of the fad is the gorgeous photography of tiny houses and articles extolling the concept that was shared widely on social media. It romanticized the idea, and generally avoided the downsides.

100% that the “pintrest-izaton” of Tiny Homes contributed to the rad.

They’re also photographed as cabins in lush environments - not wedges behind an Eichler off University Ave in Palo Alto.

The first wave of tiny houses seemed to be mostly self-built and people had poured a lot of love & hours into construction. Then they were all over Instagram/Pinterest. This has paved the way for a second wave, where some occupiers aren't quite as enraptured: mass production (or at least not self-built), living this way by more by necessity than choice.

Some folks like to live more sustainably and believe a smaller house comes with a smaller ecological footprint (I do not have sufficient data to argue whether it does or does not.)

In many ways it would (lower heating/electric) needs but it also decreases food storage spaces and increases take-out usage. If you need to travel somewhere to perform similiar tasks those costs need to be accounted for as well.

I would have assumed that they would have put the tiny houses on tiny plots of land, possibly existing land that has been subdivided.

I guess if you lived in a country where there weren't legal limits on subdivision size that would make sense. Is that the case in the USA?

"I live in a trailer on my parents backyard" doesn't quite have the same ring to it as "I built my own house at 19 you lazy bastard".

Generally, in the US, tiny homes are below legal minimum sizes for permanent homes. So, most are built as trailers, even if installed permanently.

Similarly, most towns and counties are subdivided such that tiny plots aren’t available.

There is a growing movement to allow ADUs in urban spaces, but it’s far from universal. If memory serves, Arlington VA (next to DC) allows an ADU within the main house (converted basement) with some fairly strict limits. No ADU in the back yard.

Basement apartments are problematic from a fire code perspective, especially if it's a "true" ADU that doesn't connect into the main house.

Correct. The basement ADUs I've seen in this area are on partially exposed "walk out" basements, so there's a dedicated door and window(s) for egress. Most retain a door to the main area, just dead-bolted (so no use in a fire).

That would be a problem. There seems to be a lack of tiny plots to go with tiny houses. I get the feeling cities are about as happy with any concept of tiny plots as they are of trailer parks.

I would imagine if you allowed tiny subdivisions you'd end up with slums, not hipsters instagramming their tiny houses.

This. Tiny house plots aren't distinctly different than trailer parks, and tiny houses aren't that distinct from a single wide.

There are nice trailer parks with new or maintained and addons porches. But there are also trailer parks where maintenance, but particularly septic and sewage were ignored

And that's why we won't get affordable housing.

It reminds me of the wave of ads and hype for open office environments where you actually want to save some cash and squeeze in more people in less space.

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