Design your life to include more money, health and happiness with less stuff, space and energy.

Design your life to include more money, health and happiness with less stuff, space and energy.

Site Provides Real Estate Guide for Tiny Home Movement

In the market for a 300 sq ft geodesic dome in Seward, Alaska? Perhaps a 264 sq ft log cabin in Idaho? Or most any size yurt? If you answered yes, an appropriately-named website called Tiny House Listings has you covered.

If you’re not familiar with the tiny (or small) house movement, it is a movement by and for people who build and/or inhabit tiny (or small) homes–usually well below 500 sq ft. Many are so small as to be considered illegal for living; builders get around regulations by putting the structures on trailer carriages, thereby avoiding normal building code.

This is not merely an aesthetic or financial choice, but a philosophical one. Small house folk–because their homes afford no room for extraneous stuff–test the boundaries of what people really do and do not need to live happily. Freedom from mortgages, a contradictory stance to the McMansion status quo and the grey legality of the movement all make it all the more subversive.

Tumbleweed Houses out of California and Sarah Susanka, author of “The Not So Big House”  are the movement’s main exponents, though there are many others cropping up around the country.

If you’re considering joining the movement, the listing site has a good stock of tiny houses–some with land, some without, some on wheels, some out east, some west, some square in the middle. Few exceed $50K and many are well under that figure; prices seem to be more related to the land than the structure.

The site also links to small house plans (most, if not all, direct to Tumbleweed), builders (we found a company out of Maine that will make your own Hobit Hole), workshops and other resources.

While we tend to promote urban solutions to high density, small-space living, the small house movement shows how you can achieve simple, small footprint living further afield. If you’re considering a tiny house–either as a primary residence or part time one–The Tiny House Listing site is a good resource.

Any small house people out there? We’d love to hear your experience.