Tiny houses are trailer trash

The dwelling Satanists at Domain just won’t let it go:

With the housing market becoming increasingly difficult to enter, people are turning to the same place for a home that they would for a secondhand coffee table – eBay and Gumtree.

Rising house prices and young people staying at home longer are reasons more and more Australians are choosing alternative living, such as tiny houses.

Now, buying your new home is as easy as a quick online search, 10 days and a basic tool kit.

The tiny house movement is making it possible for more people to become “home owners”. Some homes are selling on eBay for as little as $12,000 and others have dimensions similar to that of a small apartment.

This is rebranding trailor trash. How does having a tiny house on wheels, a caravan in other words, make you a “home owner”. There’s no land. There’s no title. There’s no security. There’s not even a home.

The only tiny houses that should be bought by Millennials are a great pile of them to be parked outside of Parliament, doused with petrol, and set alight to protest the total failure of affordable housing policy:

• tax rorts:
• mass immigration;
• supply side choking;
• gutted public investment.

That said, if you can get your hands on one of these bigger options from Amazon then it might be worthwhile:

Residential builders have found a new home: Amazon.

Prefabricated and modular housing — with homes prebuilt in factories — is having another moment. From 2013 to 2018, industry revenue grew an annualized 8.6% to nearly $10.5 billion, including growth of 4.1% in 2018 alone, according to research firm IBISWorld.

Previously associated with Dwell and other shelter magazines and websites, these often-tiny homes have now hit Amazon AMZN, +1.51% in a big way — and are apparently selling out there. Indeed, multiple news outlets, including real-estate sites Curbed and the Real Deal, reported that one 172-square-foot, $7,250 prefab cabin, which the manufacturer claims can be built in eight hours and ships free from Amazon, had sold out. (Reports that the home was back in stock followed, as did some consumer warnings and social snickering.)

And it’s not the only home for sale on the internet giant — and some can even become full-time residences. “I’m not surprised to see [homes for sale on Amazon],” says Trae Bodge, a shopping expert at TrueTrae.com, as “selling these homes online presents a new level of opportunity for the retailer to reach consumers who are outside of their local area.” Here are a few homes for sale on Amazon — ranging in price from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands.

The company says that this 292-square-foot cabin (the square footage does not include its sleeping loft) “is large enough to function as a summer house, home office or even a stand-alone retail building” and that “by adding the utility hookups this cabin can be converted to a residence.” Of course, that will cost extra, and the company notes that if you live in a cooler climate you’ll need to add insulation. Two adults can assemble this home in two or three days, the company says.

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At least you get some land that way.

But I’d hurry. If this really took off then authorities are almost certain to shut it down one way or another. The last thing they want is affordable houses for kids.