Could you live in a 10sq m house?
COULD you sleep in a tiny home with your bed just a metre from your toilet if it meant you didn’t have a mortgage to pay off?
Gold Coast company Tiny Blox has had more than 560 inquiries and 35 sales of its tiny houses in a fortnight from people who reckon they can.
Tiny Blox sells tiny homes – 10sqm shells that are designed to contain a whole “home’’, including the bedroom, kitchen and bathroom.
They come in ready-tobuild flatpacks, can be built in two days using one tool and require no council approval.
Owner Chris Henry said with rising costs associated with living, Australians were ditching luxury for necessity and with the tiny homes starting at $15,000, it was realistic for people to live debt free.
“Now with what we’re doing, people can buy a tiny block of land for 20 grand, a tiny home for 15 (thousand) and allow $5000 for everything else and you’ve got a home forever for $40,000,” he said.
The Tiny Blox homes come in four different shapes and sizes.
The most standard order comes with Colorbond shell, prefabricated steel frames, glass sliding doors, light fittings, insulation, floorboards and cladding.
From there, buyers choose colours and can select addons such as aircon, a shower, toilet and hot water system, or they can leave it as a shell if they wish to use it for other purposes.
Mr Henry said buyers could also choose to buy multiple Tiny Blox and add them together to create a home for families.
“Considering how small they are, there are so many things you can do with them,” he said. “We quoted a fivebedroom house that fit under 100sq m.
“We’re doing quotes for a tiny village down in Sydney who sell tiny blocks of land, so when people buy these small allotments they can offer a shell to put on it.
“We’ve been doing granny flats out the back of people’s properties for late teens, young adults who want to stay at home a bit longer while they save or grandparents who still want a bit of independence.
“Or we’ve seen people buying them just as a shell for a house for their pets, a man cave, an outdoor nursery, a recording studio – people use them for everything.”
Jordan Williams, managing director of Kollosche Prestige Agents, exclusively sells multimillion-dollar properties, but said there was “definitely a market” for the tiny homes.
“As crazy as it sounds, I think with land being so expensive, costs of living going through the roof and wages not increasing to match, this is the way we could be going,” he said. “It’s expensive to buy homes and for first home buyers it’s incredibly hard to get into the market. I don’t know about 10sq m … but it could be going that way.”