When it comes to getting on the housing ladder, things certainly aren’t cheap.
In the UK, the average property now costs £282,000, as figures from Gov UK show. In London, this skyrockets to £687,134 – more than £400,000 higher than the national average.
But it’s not just us Britons who are suffering, as over in the US, figures average out at $492,700 (£380,055.38) – even worse.
So, it’s little surprise that one man went in search of an affordable antidote: a £30,077.98 ($38,999) tiny home on Amazon, which came wrapped in the typical brown cardboard packaging with the logo on the side. Is this, perchance, the largest parcel we’ve ever seen?
Posting under the username @unspeakable_fanytb, Nathan Graham seemed delighted with his purchase.
Noting that it was relatively compact, but that it did come with a shower and toilet, he quickly realised that there was more to the home than first met the eye.
The sides of the metal home, which came in one piece and required no further construction, needed to be folded out to create extra space – just like a giant Lego project.
Perhaps the most dystopian feature was that the front door keys came glued to the house.
Bargain or bizarre investment?
Similar ready-made homes are available at even cheaper rates, as a swift Amazon search for ‘folding house’ delivers options that cost £10,000 and £22,000 respectively.
‘I’ve never folded a house together,’ Nathan can be heard saying in the TikTok video, which has now received more than 1.2 million likes.
‘This thing is so easy to build. You literally just unfold it,’ he added, noting that he’d be leaving a five-star review.
However, it’s not all roses in the world of build-your-own homes, as the Tiny Houses Reddit thread shows. Though there are many love stories dedicated to living in compact spaces, there are plenty of gripes, too.
Arguably one of the most disgusting – and generally worrying for health and hygiene – is the lack of plumbed toilets.
‘Let me tell you, once you get sick and instinctively rush to the bathroom only to stare down at a DIY composting toilet, you reflect a little,’ @badvoodoo68 wrote.
‘Retrospectively, a bag would have been a better choice.’
@KoreKhthonia said that they and their partner had been using a camping toilet since moving into their tiny home, and have looked into buying a composting toilet, but they’re ‘certainly not cheap.’
Elsewhere, while @MyGiant described themselves as a ‘minimalist,’ they said their wife struggled with the lack of storage space.
‘Her clothes are more than mine and our daughters combined. And she leaves them everywhere,’ the post read.
‘So I would probably have asked her to start trimming down clothing a year or more in advance to get down to a manageable level before we moved in.’
Is it worth buying a tiny home?
While tiny homes are providing a foot in the door for people wanting to get on the housing ladder (without spending their life savings on a deposit), experts are concerned that they don’t accumulate in value as a conventional property would.
‘Tiny houses also differ from regular homes in that they don’t appreciate in value over the years,’ the experts at Ramsey Solutions write on their website.
‘If your tiny home is built on wheels, then you can bet it’ll depreciate at the same rate as an RV or a truck.
‘With that in mind, selling your tiny house might be hard – especially since you’d have to buy a super specific buyer and you’d have to sell that buyer on the customisations and style of house you chose for yourself.’
Notably, the experts acknowledge that most people who do buy tiny homes aren’t looking to build equity.
It’s a lifestyle – and a sense of adventure – that they’re buying into with the knowledge that what they’re doing doesn’t fit into the societal norms expected of homeownership. So, what’s the loss of a few pennies here and there if you loved every experience you had along the way?
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