Americans seek home for tiny house
A few kitchen items. Clothes. A set of golf clubs.
Those were the essentials two American chefs brought with them when they moved to New Zealand two years ago. Steve Perlstein and Jennifer Block left their adult kids and a lot of possessions behind in the United States.
It was the start of their journey to a simple life and they’ve been steadily downsizing since.
“When our kids were at home, we had a four-bedroom house [in the US], half an acre, and we’ve been, in stages, simplifying, getting smaller and smaller. When we moved here, we got rid of most of our stuff in the US and started over.”
They are now downsizing their home, getting ready to move from a two-bedroom rental in Waterview to a 10m x 6m tiny home. They just need to find somewhere to put it.
The couple have put the call out on Facebook for some new neighbours. They need a patch of land big enough to put their home and build a garden. The house is fully self-contained; they just need access to water and power.
“We’ve had four different houses over the course of 27 years in the US,” Perlstein said.
“This is really going to be the first place we’ve had that we’ve been able to really have total control over, deciding the layout, the colours, the materials.”
Perlstein was against tiny homes when they were still in the US.
“My wife was interested . . . I was resistant. You have an idea in your brain, like a caravan, really. It’s not that at all. We have a full-size kitchen and a full-size bathroom and a washer and dryer.
“[House prices] are exorbitant here. I can think of one or two places in the States that are comparable to here. San Francisco, New York City, maybe Los Angeles, but besides that, [all states are] cheaper than here.”