Originally published at: This new pre-fab Singaporean tiny smart home costs less than $100K | Boing Boing
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A little small for a hang out.
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They are going to need to get the price down to about half of that (if the price is in Singaporean dollars, then down to about 2/3 of that) for even a starting point toward sustainable, affordable housing.
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Put wheels on it and it might cost less.
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Right? Costs the same as a merely small house.
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Could be a neat path forward for small, sustainable, affordable housing.
Assuming you have someone willing to give you space on their land for free.
I love small-space design like this but the only truly affordable examples of tiny homes I’ve seen so far are in the pilot project villages for the unhoused.
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And if you’re in a city where land is expensive and you manage to get a tiny sliver of land, you’re still going to want (and be able to afford) more house even on that tiny piece of land. Now, if these were modular and stackable and quite a bit less per unit, then maybe…
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Remember when 100k could buy a good sized home in the burbs?
Me either.
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Up until a couple years ago, it still could in perhaps a few states like Maine. But I think that’s all gone now. Investors have snapped up properties (including Realtor.com apparently), and pandemic flight to the more remote states have jacked up prices to unaffordable and unsustainable amounts. When you can get 20k over asking the day you list your home, the market for affordable housing is toast.
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Sounds like another bubble.
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Sounds like the interest rate shouldn’t have been depressed for the last decade.
Put the interest rate back around 7% and a lot of this would stop.
And for those who say it’s too expensive, at $260 per sq ft. it’s pretty much in the middle of housing prices in the US. Watching HGTV a lot of stuff in California is well above $500 per sq ft, while rural places are down to $125-150.
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Yep. I live in a 114-year-old house with hardwood floors and, in my opinion, a lot more character and appeal than this box. The county’s assessed value of the house is roughly the same as this thing despite being almost 4 times the size. But, being in Southern California, the value of the land that it sits on is quite a bit more.
If we’re talking about single-story structures then figuring out the solution for affordable land in places where people want to live is a much bigger challenge than the structure itself.
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If the speculators & hedge funds take a bath; the interest rate can stay down. Demand will push it down.
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What a… deal?
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Like, for example, Singapore.
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Come to think of it, in Japan, they have this weird thing where you own the house, but rent the land under it. Maybe that’s what this is for? I suppose it could be relocated at least.
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My parents got a 3 bedroom townhouse for a bit less than that circa 1980. Those same townhouses are now in the $500,000 range.
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This is still the tiny pre-fab home I want. Apparently available in the USA now.
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Pretty much has been my thinking the past year or so. We never truly ended the first one, it simply deflated a little after the 2008 crash, then took off again once the recovery began.
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