Small/Tiny House Movement

Why are you americans even bothering with trailers?

Jesus, when I went down from North Dakota to New York we stayed in hotels the whole time. They ended up being substantially cheaper than any sort of rent we have here in Canada.
 
SteamDNT said:
Why are you americans even bothering with trailers?

Jesus, when I went down from North Dakota to New York we stayed in hotels the whole time. They ended up being substantially cheaper than any sort of rent we have here in Canada.
Trailers are part of the road-trip/camping experience for some people.
 
Because with a trailer you can just leave your flax in the dresser rather than having to unpack and pack and unpack and pack every Dang time.
 
ttsgeb said:
Because with a trailer you can just leave your flax in the dresser rather than having to unpack and pack and unpack and pack every Dang time.

what is this "packing"

From my personal experience, if you have to pack, you've brought too much stuff.
 
It's also worth noting that there's a pretty massive swing in what hotels cost. Down in Dallas/Ft. Worth, you can get a month of hotel room for like $600, without even resorting to a flax-tier hotel. Up here, you can't even do 2 year contract rent on a one bed one bath apartment for $1200/month - and Denver is hardly the most expensive city around, to say the least. Hotel rooms in my area start at around $89 per day month. I'm sure you could work out some discount if you were staying longer term, but even still, it adds the *Can'tSayThisOnTV* up.

[edit] I words wrong
 
samjc3 said:
It's also worth noting that there's a pretty massive swing in what hotels cost. Down in Dallas/Ft. Worth, you can get a month of hotel room for like $600, without even resorting to a flax hotel. Up here, you can't even do 2 year contract rent on a one bed one bath apartment for $1200/month - and Denver is hardly the most expensive city around, to say the least. Hotel rooms in my area start at around $89 per month. I'm sure you could work out some discount if you were staying longer term, but even still, it adds the *PLAQUE* up.
Isn't Denver supposed to be the most affordable good city?
 
grossaffe said:
Isn't Denver supposed to be the most affordable good city?
I don't claim I've ever heard that, but in my experience, it's roughly in the middle. Most affordable place I've been is probably Cuenca (probably doesn't exactly count, but hey), most expensive would be any number of the big bullflax cities, LA, NY, etc. Texas in general is a lot cheaper than here, and Cali and such are a good bit more. So ultimately, I guess it depends on how you define, "good."
 
SteamDNT said:
Why are you americans even bothering with trailers?

Jesus, when I went down from North Dakota to New York we stayed in hotels the whole time. They ended up being substantially cheaper than any sort of rent we have here in Canada.
Because we don't live in places that have stupid expensive rent?

For where I live, I get a housing allowance of about $1200 being in the military, about $40 a day (varies according to the local housing market). A quick search of local hotels shows about $50 a night ($1500 a month) to be the norm for a decent hotel without negotiating a long term rate. You can rent a decent 1-2br apartment for $800-1200 when you include utilities. The RV park I stay at is about $450 a month with utilities (plus whatever you pay/paid for your RV). Also, most of those cheaper hotels don't have a kitchen, so you'd probably eat out for lunch and dinner (breakfast is usually included).

We didn't choose to live in a fifth wheel purely for cost reasons, because it really isn't that great of a deal if you're staying at a park all the time. We mainly did it to see how we like living in a small space and to downsize our stuff. We actually stayed in a hotel for a night while travelling over Christmas and were amazed at how much room it had. :p If we stay in an RV, we'll probably switch to a Class A or C motorhome and travel; I'd rather rent an apartment if stationary. Just have to see how life goes.
 
Little update for anyone that's interested. I got out of the military and we moved last month. We're now renting a ~1200sq ft house with a 1 car garage (1 car=my toys/junk). Bigger than we need, but we wanted a house instead of an apartment and it's about the same price. Truck and trailer will be getting sold.

RV/tiny house experience wasn't bad. I probably wouldn't live in one stationary again unless it ended up being much cheaper than renting/buying a house or apartment. I would not mind living in a Sprinter van or Sprinter based Class C (or similar, more options are coming out) and travelling full time, but something like that is probably a ways off in the future, if ever.
 
Holy flax, 1200 sqft, who needs all of that?
I mean, I can understand if it's 200 sqft of house and then 1000sqft of workshop, but like... man, that's huge.
 
Holy flax, 1200 sqft, who needs all of that?
I mean, I can understand if it's 200 sqft of house and then 1000sqft of workshop, but like... man, that's huge.
Trust me, if I could have found a place like that, I would have been all over it. ;)
So are you done with the tiny-house thing, then? Or is this a temporary situation?
I would say there's a pretty good chance of us never building or living in a tiny house in the sense of one that's built on a trailer. To me, that small is just tiny for the sake of being tiny. Ya, there are teens who have built one for $10k over a couple summers, but the reality is that they generally cost much more than that and it's super difficult to find a place that'll let you legally use one as the primary residence on a property. The tiny house concept isn't bad, it just doesn't work out as nicely as some of the stories you hear and everyone expects to be able to get results similar to those stories.

We'll be staying in this house for at least the next few years. Beyond that, I don't see us ever living in a place much bigger than what we have now. I think the only way we'll go below 300sq ft again is if we got a van/small RV to live in and travel. A space that small for 2 people gets old, so it would only be worth it to me if I had the ability to go anywhere (of course, a remote job or fat investment portfolio would be desirable for such a living arrangement).
 
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