5 ms·

In the future you will live in a tiny little house

20 points by sleepingbot 16y ago

marknutter 16y ago
I think a more accurate prediction is that people will be living in smaller houses than they have been in the past 20 years. I live and grew up in a quad home townhouse in a pretty rich community, and my mind would always boggle at the size of some of my friends' houses. It seemed insane that some people had second dining/living rooms that they only used for special occasions, but sat collecting dust the rest of the year. This kind of opulence is part of what got us into the whole housing crisis, so I suspect that the next generation will be a little more practical when it comes to these McMansions.
- nhangen 16y ago
  No, that's not what got us into the housing crisis. What got us into the housing crisis is wild west like lending practices and a really poor economy. People couldn't afford their houses because of balloons, variable APR's, and losing their job, not because they had an extra room.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    People couldn't afford their houses because of balloons, variable APR's, and losing their job, not because they had an extra room. Um, no. A balloon payment or variable APR would not hurt you if you bought a smaller house that you could afford. Neither would short term (read: 1-2 years) job loss [1]. It's fun to blame the banks, but real estate speculators (aka "homeowners", as the media calls them) are just as culpable. [1] There are likely to be several recessions over the next 30 years, and you have a reasonable chance of losing your job. If you don't plan for this, it's your fault.
    - krschultz 16y ago
      I agree with your assesment that banks and speculators are equally to blame, but it is easy to label people who got screwed by this as being irresponsible and or stupid. I don't think that is true (and for alot of people, irresponsible moves might have actually been economically rational) So lets say I bought a house during part of the bubble well within my means at the time. I put 20% down, and then had a fixed rate mortgage. I had 6 months to a year of living expenses in cash in my bank on top of the cash I had to put down on the house. I lose my job, 1 year goes by, 18 months goes by. I have no more emergency fund, and the house is now worth less than I bought it. I'm fucked. I have no money left and I owe a huge amount, my mortgage is under water, and up until that moment I made completely responsible decisions except that I bought the house at the top of a bubble that I didn't know existed. I hypothetically had not only 20% down, but an emergency fund equal to 2 years mortgage payments plus food and utilities (which at that point you have close to 40% of the value of the house in cash, who had that?) Compare that to somebody who had no money in the bank, put no money down, lost their job, but the house had appreciated in value. You sell the house quickly, net about no money gained or lost, and move back into a rental apartment. Really its not that big a deal. I could even move in with a friend for free while I find a job. The big assumption that screwed so many people was that house prices always rise. You can be perfectly responsible on every move, assume house prices always rise and don't realize there is a bubble, and be completely screwed. You can also be completely irresonsible, luck out on your timing of when you buy and when you sell, and come out ahead like a bandit. Actually the conclusion I come to from that is the "safest" option is to put nothing down, take the longest mortgage you can at the lowest rate, and have heaps and heaps of cash in the bank. Take the 20% you could have put down on the house and just keep it safe. You will pay more money over the life of your mortgage but if shit hits the fan you can survive for months or years without going bankrupt, which is counter to the advice of minimizing the cost of your mortgage over the lifetime of it (i.e. lots of cash down, shorter term)
      - yummyfajitas 16y ago
        Say I bought $400k worth of stock options in $MY_COMPANY in a highly leveraged bet which requires me to make monthly margin payments (which may or may not depend on interest rates). Note that $MY_COMPANY is a highly illiquid stock - unlike GOOG or MS, I'll be hard pressed to sell $400k shares of it quickly except at a huge discount. I had enough liquid cash to make margin calls for 1 year, even if I lost my job. Also, the terms of my contract with my broker impose significant financial penalties on me if I change my address. (Notice how virtually all my investments are now strongly correlated with each other? My investment, revenue stream, and ability to make margin calls will all tank simultaneously?) Would you also describe me as making "completely responsible decisions"? Replace $MY_COMPANY's share price with some variable describing the local economy, and you've just described a mortgage. Buying a house is a really bad investment strategy for most people. The only exception is if your goal is to lock in a fixed rent on a fixed address for 30 years into the future.
    - nhangen 16y ago
      So with your logic, we shouldn't buy a house at all because we'll probably lose our job and won't be able to afford it anyway, regardless of the size. Should people who signed ridiculous deals be blamed? Absolutely, but that's not the majority of cases.
      - yummyfajitas 16y ago
        In general, if completely normal events will cause you to lose money an investment, it's probably not a good idea to sink your life savings into it. Make up reasonable numbers and apply the Kelly Criterion to evaluate whether buying call options on a home is reasonable. Wikipedia even gives you code: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion
        nhangen 16y ago
        I don't think anyone said to sink a life savings into an investment. We're talking about buying reasonably sized and priced homes.
mise 16y ago
There is nothing about living in a tiny little house in the future in this video. But I like the approach. Heck, forget houses, many apartment dwellers already live in tiny spaces.
- zazi 16y ago
  > many apartment dwellers already live in tiny spaces. True that. People in Hongkong or Japan are already living in teeny tiny house/apartments. And some go to extreme lengths to maximise their space. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg9qnWg9kak http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg9qnWg9kak - Apartment with movable modules in Hongkong )
  - wladimir 16y ago
    Indeed, this article is very focused on North America with its huge houses. Then again, I do expect houses to become even smaller in the future, in any country. After all, there will be more people in the same space. Even further into the future, people might spend their entire days in virtual environments so 'real space' will start to matter less.
tibbon 16y ago
I like what he's got here. One of the things with small spaces is making sure they are well laid out. You can make 96 sq/ft more functional than 400 sq/ft if you have a great layout. From 2007-2009 I lived in a tiny ~180 square foot apartment on Saint Botolph's Street in Boston. It was fairly well laid out fortunately, and I was able to fit a ton in there, including a desk with 36 rack spaces, several keyboards, a 5-piece drumkit, 8 guitars, two guitar amps, a 700 piece vinyl collection, a few hundred books, a wine rack, a twin bed, filing cabinet, an aeron chair, etc. When it was clean and together it was very nice and didn't feel crowded or cluttered at all. Fitting more than 4 people in there though was exceedingly tight. I'm actually always impressed when I go to Ikea. The 'rooms' they have setup on the floor seem highly functional and spacious, but are actually pretty small. The worst thing that kills most small apartments is poor layouts, too many doors/windows, all the footage being in the wallway, poorly placed radiators, inaccessible electrical outlets (only one in the room or something silly like that), or random pipes right in the middle of the room. One of my friends has a random 4 inch pipe in the middle of her bathroom in her NYC apartment, and another in the hallway. Worst architect ever. You just have to squeeze around it.
- artmageddon 16y ago
  >One of my friends has a random 4 inch pipe in the middle of her bathroom in her NYC apartment, and another in the hallway. Worst architect ever. You just have to squeeze around it. I absolutely abhor these. Even with the insulation wrapped around it you would still risk getting burned pretty badly if you were to mistakenly brush your hand across it.
  - tibbon 16y ago
    I really can't figure out for the life of me what architect/engineer/builder thought these were a good idea. I'm sure it was in some remodel, but that's the type of thing that I couldn't even show to the client and keep a straight face. Its like handing someone a website you did for them, turning on comic sans and misspelling the company's name in the h1. Just sloppy.
- mikecarlucci 16y ago
crpatino 16y ago
In the Future? sigh...
wheaties 16y ago
No I won't. In the future I'll live in a normal house but I'll read about these little houses. I might even be inclined to purchase one and put it on a lake somewhere for fishing trips or by a beach for surfing trips but live in it full time? Tell that to a wife and children.
RyanMcGreal 16y ago
"People are starting to get a clue, I think." Sigh. Moral suasion does not work and has never worked to promote environmental objectives. What works is a rebalanced system of incentives and disincentives in which consumers make decisions. The median house size went down over the past couple of years because we've been in a sharp, deep recession triggered in part by the collapse of an overheated housing bubble, not because "people are starting to get a clue" that they don't need 4,000 square foot houses.
- roqetman 16y ago
  I think that energy costs (heating and cooling) also had a hand in the search for smaller homes.
rickmode 16y ago
The following quote from the Weekly World News link is suspect. The most environmentally sound way for humans to live is in dense urban cities. Leave the countryside alone. Quote: “People’s reasons for living small vary a lot, but there seems to be a common thread of sustainability,” Shafer said. “A lot of people don’t want to use many more resources or put out more emissions than they have to.”
michaelfeathers 16y ago
If you look at the video, you'll see he's wearing a wedding ring and he claims to have lived in the house for ten years. Something's not quite right.
- malloreon 16y ago
  If you watch the video, he says that he's lived in small houses for years, but no longer lives in this one. He and his wife live in the 500 sq foot house next to it, as they're expecting a baby.
  - michaelfeathers 16y ago
    Ooops. That's what I get for cutting out before the end.
nhangen 16y ago
I might buy one for my kids so they can go camping in the yard while I watch from my pool deck.
steveplace 16y ago
Funny, I didn't know the Weekly World News was a legitimate news source.
JonnieCache 16y ago
If we could get around the planning issues this would be the PERFECT solution to the housing problem faced by the young, single and poor in the UK. If we can get these classified as temporary dwellings, it could be both an energy efficient way to house people who are currently being stiffed by society/the economy, as well as a great big fuck-you to the housing market.
edw519 16y ago
If I were ever to get a house that small, I would want one that I could take with me: http://www.lazydaze.com/photogal.htm http://www.lazydaze.com/photogal.htm
- wwortiz 16y ago
  See I can seriously see the utility of a mobile home with a bed and such small space but when you are planting down some things are nice to have: like running water and a washing machine. The articles tour looks terrible (from youtube) as you would feel constantly squished and adding a second person to the mix would make the house feel even more like a prison cell.
- malloreon 16y ago
  In fact the house in the link is a trailer, so he should be able to hitch it to a truck and take it with him too!
jbail 16y ago
I already do --- and it was built in 1885. How's that for keeping emissions and resource usage down?

20 points by sleepingbot 16y ago

I think a more accurate prediction is that people will be living in smaller houses than they have been in the past 20 years. I live and grew up in a quad home townhouse in a pretty rich community, and my mind would always boggle at the size of some of my friends' houses. It seemed insane that some people had second dining/living rooms that they only used for special occasions, but sat collecting dust the rest of the year. This kind of opulence is part of what got us into the whole housing crisis, so I suspect that the next generation will be a little more practical when it comes to these McMansions.

nhangen 16y ago
No, that's not what got us into the housing crisis. What got us into the housing crisis is wild west like lending practices and a really poor economy. People couldn't afford their houses because of balloons, variable APR's, and losing their job, not because they had an extra room.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  People couldn't afford their houses because of balloons, variable APR's, and losing their job, not because they had an extra room. Um, no. A balloon payment or variable APR would not hurt you if you bought a smaller house that you could afford. Neither would short term (read: 1-2 years) job loss [1]. It's fun to blame the banks, but real estate speculators (aka "homeowners", as the media calls them) are just as culpable. [1] There are likely to be several recessions over the next 30 years, and you have a reasonable chance of losing your job. If you don't plan for this, it's your fault.
  - krschultz 16y ago
    I agree with your assesment that banks and speculators are equally to blame, but it is easy to label people who got screwed by this as being irresponsible and or stupid. I don't think that is true (and for alot of people, irresponsible moves might have actually been economically rational) So lets say I bought a house during part of the bubble well within my means at the time. I put 20% down, and then had a fixed rate mortgage. I had 6 months to a year of living expenses in cash in my bank on top of the cash I had to put down on the house. I lose my job, 1 year goes by, 18 months goes by. I have no more emergency fund, and the house is now worth less than I bought it. I'm fucked. I have no money left and I owe a huge amount, my mortgage is under water, and up until that moment I made completely responsible decisions except that I bought the house at the top of a bubble that I didn't know existed. I hypothetically had not only 20% down, but an emergency fund equal to 2 years mortgage payments plus food and utilities (which at that point you have close to 40% of the value of the house in cash, who had that?) Compare that to somebody who had no money in the bank, put no money down, lost their job, but the house had appreciated in value. You sell the house quickly, net about no money gained or lost, and move back into a rental apartment. Really its not that big a deal. I could even move in with a friend for free while I find a job. The big assumption that screwed so many people was that house prices always rise. You can be perfectly responsible on every move, assume house prices always rise and don't realize there is a bubble, and be completely screwed. You can also be completely irresonsible, luck out on your timing of when you buy and when you sell, and come out ahead like a bandit. Actually the conclusion I come to from that is the "safest" option is to put nothing down, take the longest mortgage you can at the lowest rate, and have heaps and heaps of cash in the bank. Take the 20% you could have put down on the house and just keep it safe. You will pay more money over the life of your mortgage but if shit hits the fan you can survive for months or years without going bankrupt, which is counter to the advice of minimizing the cost of your mortgage over the lifetime of it (i.e. lots of cash down, shorter term)
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      Say I bought $400k worth of stock options in $MY_COMPANY in a highly leveraged bet which requires me to make monthly margin payments (which may or may not depend on interest rates). Note that $MY_COMPANY is a highly illiquid stock - unlike GOOG or MS, I'll be hard pressed to sell $400k shares of it quickly except at a huge discount. I had enough liquid cash to make margin calls for 1 year, even if I lost my job. Also, the terms of my contract with my broker impose significant financial penalties on me if I change my address. (Notice how virtually all my investments are now strongly correlated with each other? My investment, revenue stream, and ability to make margin calls will all tank simultaneously?) Would you also describe me as making "completely responsible decisions"? Replace $MY_COMPANY's share price with some variable describing the local economy, and you've just described a mortgage. Buying a house is a really bad investment strategy for most people. The only exception is if your goal is to lock in a fixed rent on a fixed address for 30 years into the future.
  - nhangen 16y ago
    So with your logic, we shouldn't buy a house at all because we'll probably lose our job and won't be able to afford it anyway, regardless of the size. Should people who signed ridiculous deals be blamed? Absolutely, but that's not the majority of cases.
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      In general, if completely normal events will cause you to lose money an investment, it's probably not a good idea to sink your life savings into it. Make up reasonable numbers and apply the Kelly Criterion to evaluate whether buying call options on a home is reasonable. Wikipedia even gives you code: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion
      - nhangen 16y ago
        I don't think anyone said to sink a life savings into an investment. We're talking about buying reasonably sized and priced homes.

mise 16y ago

There is nothing about living in a tiny little house in the future in this video. But I like the approach. Heck, forget houses, many apartment dwellers already live in tiny spaces.

zazi 16y ago
> many apartment dwellers already live in tiny spaces. True that. People in Hongkong or Japan are already living in teeny tiny house/apartments. And some go to extreme lengths to maximise their space. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg9qnWg9kak http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg9qnWg9kak - Apartment with movable modules in Hongkong )
- wladimir 16y ago
  Indeed, this article is very focused on North America with its huge houses. Then again, I do expect houses to become even smaller in the future, in any country. After all, there will be more people in the same space. Even further into the future, people might spend their entire days in virtual environments so 'real space' will start to matter less.

tibbon 16y ago

I like what he's got here. One of the things with small spaces is making sure they are well laid out. You can make 96 sq/ft more functional than 400 sq/ft if you have a great layout. From 2007-2009 I lived in a tiny ~180 square foot apartment on Saint Botolph's Street in Boston. It was fairly well laid out fortunately, and I was able to fit a ton in there, including a desk with 36 rack spaces, several keyboards, a 5-piece drumkit, 8 guitars, two guitar amps, a 700 piece vinyl collection, a few hundred books, a wine rack, a twin bed, filing cabinet, an aeron chair, etc. When it was clean and together it was very nice and didn't feel crowded or cluttered at all. Fitting more than 4 people in there though was exceedingly tight. I'm actually always impressed when I go to Ikea. The 'rooms' they have setup on the floor seem highly functional and spacious, but are actually pretty small. The worst thing that kills most small apartments is poor layouts, too many doors/windows, all the footage being in the wallway, poorly placed radiators, inaccessible electrical outlets (only one in the room or something silly like that), or random pipes right in the middle of the room. One of my friends has a random 4 inch pipe in the middle of her bathroom in her NYC apartment, and another in the hallway. Worst architect ever. You just have to squeeze around it.

artmageddon 16y ago
>One of my friends has a random 4 inch pipe in the middle of her bathroom in her NYC apartment, and another in the hallway. Worst architect ever. You just have to squeeze around it. I absolutely abhor these. Even with the insulation wrapped around it you would still risk getting burned pretty badly if you were to mistakenly brush your hand across it.
- tibbon 16y ago
  I really can't figure out for the life of me what architect/engineer/builder thought these were a good idea. I'm sure it was in some remodel, but that's the type of thing that I couldn't even show to the client and keep a straight face. Its like handing someone a website you did for them, turning on comic sans and misspelling the company's name in the h1. Just sloppy.
mikecarlucci 16y ago

crpatino 16y ago

In the Future? sigh...

wheaties 16y ago

No I won't. In the future I'll live in a normal house but I'll read about these little houses. I might even be inclined to purchase one and put it on a lake somewhere for fishing trips or by a beach for surfing trips but live in it full time? Tell that to a wife and children.

RyanMcGreal 16y ago

"People are starting to get a clue, I think." Sigh. Moral suasion does not work and has never worked to promote environmental objectives. What works is a rebalanced system of incentives and disincentives in which consumers make decisions. The median house size went down over the past couple of years because we've been in a sharp, deep recession triggered in part by the collapse of an overheated housing bubble, not because "people are starting to get a clue" that they don't need 4,000 square foot houses.

roqetman 16y ago
I think that energy costs (heating and cooling) also had a hand in the search for smaller homes.

rickmode 16y ago

The following quote from the Weekly World News link is suspect. The most environmentally sound way for humans to live is in dense urban cities. Leave the countryside alone. Quote: “People’s reasons for living small vary a lot, but there seems to be a common thread of sustainability,” Shafer said. “A lot of people don’t want to use many more resources or put out more emissions than they have to.”

michaelfeathers 16y ago

If you look at the video, you'll see he's wearing a wedding ring and he claims to have lived in the house for ten years. Something's not quite right.

malloreon 16y ago
If you watch the video, he says that he's lived in small houses for years, but no longer lives in this one. He and his wife live in the 500 sq foot house next to it, as they're expecting a baby.
- michaelfeathers 16y ago
  Ooops. That's what I get for cutting out before the end.

nhangen 16y ago

I might buy one for my kids so they can go camping in the yard while I watch from my pool deck.

steveplace 16y ago

Funny, I didn't know the Weekly World News was a legitimate news source.

JonnieCache 16y ago

If we could get around the planning issues this would be the PERFECT solution to the housing problem faced by the young, single and poor in the UK. If we can get these classified as temporary dwellings, it could be both an energy efficient way to house people who are currently being stiffed by society/the economy, as well as a great big fuck-you to the housing market.

edw519 16y ago

If I were ever to get a house that small, I would want one that I could take with me: http://www.lazydaze.com/photogal.htm http://www.lazydaze.com/photogal.htm

wwortiz 16y ago
See I can seriously see the utility of a mobile home with a bed and such small space but when you are planting down some things are nice to have: like running water and a washing machine. The articles tour looks terrible (from youtube) as you would feel constantly squished and adding a second person to the mix would make the house feel even more like a prison cell.
malloreon 16y ago
In fact the house in the link is a trailer, so he should be able to hitch it to a truck and take it with him too!

jbail 16y ago

I already do --- and it was built in 1885. How's that for keeping emissions and resource usage down?