5 Reasons Why We Didn't Buy a Tiny House

Let me start off my saying we are not against tiny homes, we still LOVE them and want one in Montana or Wyoming. We probably would have bought or built one if we moved to Montana (remember that one time we almost moved to Bozeman?!) or if we already owned a large piece of land to do with whatever we wanted. We posted on Instagram and Snapchat (hesheeatclean) the many times we went and looked at tiny houses so we wanted to explain our decision. The tiny house just wasn't for us at this time and below are the reasons why.

It's hard to find a place to actually park it.
- Some states and cities might be different but we couldn't find any county around us that would allow a tiny house. While fighting the government sounds like fun, we just weren't up for that at this time in our lives. A friend of a friend (you know these stories are always good) ;-) actually had a container home and the county made them move it. They literally could not live in their own home. We live in the outer suburbs of Atlanta but I think some rural communities or even more urban areas might be easier to work with regarding parking.
It's hard to find a vehicle to actually pull it.
- We both have cars. These tiny homes are heavy and usually require a large truck to pull them. Sure, we could have someone pull it and park it for us but what if we wanted to move it somewhere else? We aren't up for buying a truck right now. Be sure to do your research on actually transporting the home before buying!
The resale value.
- Tiny homes seem to be something that is a fad right now. We feel there will probably not be a huge market for it later. I had a feeling we would have a hard time "getting rid of it" when/if the time came.
The price is too high.
- Have you looked at the actual price of a house that is 250-300 square feet? The prices are crazy high! If you want anything remotely nice it's going to be in the $50,000-$80,000(+) range. That's pretty expensive per square foot. While the overall price sounds great, it's not a great price per square foot. We don't have carpentry skills or the space to build our own so we would have to pay someone else to do it.
They are too small.
- While we wanted to downsize (and did!), we didn't want to downsize quite that much just yet. The house we ended up buying is larger than what we wanted (we wanted something around 1,200 square feet) and our new house is 1,700 but it's 700 square feet less than our old house and perfect for us right now. When we moved from our old house most of our boxes were food items, kitchen supplies, and hiking/backpacking gear! We do try to live simply so the things we do have we love (like food and hiking!) :-) and it's just too much for a tiny home. We could have rented a storage unit but doesn't that defeat the whole purpose?!

As I mentioned before, we are not against tiny homes we just want the conversation to be open and wanted to share our thought process. We encourage anyone thinking about downsizing to do so. It's SO freeing! Downsizing and living simply do not necessarily mean living in a tiny home or even moving, you can get started in the home you already own! Use some of the resources we've shared like our 30-Day Minimalism Challenge and our list of 10 Things to Get Rid Off for a Clutter-Free Home.

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