Surge in tiny home demand

As the housing affordability crisis continues to bite, more prospective buyers are looking into alternative housing solutions, one of which are tiny houses.

People need to be looking at alternative strategies at the moment and trying to help people with accommodation. Tiny homes are probably one of those things that we can [use] to help people. They present an affordable option to plenty of people.

People are also looking for alternative solutions to extension, [renovations], and holiday housing. A lot of businesses are using tiny house as short-term accommodation solutions.

It’s not just your normal mum-and-dad buyer or a person looking to put a tiny house onto a block of land where they generally couldn’t get council approval for a dwelling, it’s stemming right across every asset class and every market. Basically, people are looking at it like it’s a unique way of living.

As more Australians are looking at funding tiny homes, however, securing a loan has proved difficult for some.

But not everyone is successful in securing a loan because you often can’t borrow on the tiny home. Lenders that offer cash out are generally the ones that offer funding for people looking for a loan on tiny houses.

It depends on the property that people want to put tiny homes on as well. Which lender is taking that property’s security and where that tiny home is going. A lot of cases see parents give out money for their kids to buy a tiny home and they’ve put that on their own property.

The market has certainly seen a rise in interest for tiny homes and other “creative ideas for the younger generation” to try and buy houses or containers to sit on their parent’s property. They don’t have to buy the land, so it’s saving them a lot of money.

In reality these sorts of properties like tiny homes or relocatable or even modular home designs where it’s a lot cheaper and built off-site need to have both Government and Lender policy changes so we can help Australia’s housing, because at the moment it’s not really easy to get a lot of these properties, but it will solve some of the housing issues.

In September 2023, the Victorian Government announced reforms to the Victorian Planning System, aiming to “boost housing supply across the state” and make it easier for builders and buyers to navigate the planning system.

At least that’s a starting point.

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