The Property Academy Podcast
The Tiny House Plan That Backed Their Financial Goals⎟Ep. 2432
09 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello and welcome along to the Property Academy podcast by Obus Partners. I'm your host, Sam McKnight.
And I'm Andrew Nicholl.
And this is the show that helps Kiwis go from zero to five investment properties so you can be financially free. And stick around for the next 15 minutes because you're going to learn how this couple doubled their money with a tiny house, what it's really like living in just 26 square meters, and how they've built three houses in just three years.
And for this case study Sunday, we're welcoming back to the show, Michelle and Hilda. Welcome back to the show, guys.
Thanks, great to be back.
And obviously, I've worked with you guys, and I know that last time you were on, you were telling the listeners how you live in a tiny home, and you just settled your second investment property, I think, after the last case study. A lot has changed since then, so tell us about what's different.
Yeah, we bought a normal house and we sold the tiny house and it was time for us to upgrade to a bit of a bigger space. Not because we're tired of the tiny house, just because we wanted to change and this was the right move for us at the time. So yeah, we bought a two bedroom, one bathroom and one car garage house in Kaipoi.
When you say you sold the tiny house, how do you sell it? Because obviously typically you don't own the land. Do you just sell the actual house itself?
That's right. We were just selling a tiny house and then bought a new owner.
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Chapter 2: How did living in a tiny house impact their financial journey?
They were lucky they could leave it at the same spot as we were renting the land.
And so my question is, with a normal house, if you sell it, you typically expect that it's gone up in value, depending on the time that you've owned it, right? With a tiny home, because it's just the depreciating asset on top of the house, which I know houses do go up in value as well because the cost of construction does. But did you make money or lose money?
We doubled it.
Wow. So when you say doubled, tell me the numbers, if you don't mind.
So we built it eight years ago for $60,000 and it was just material because we did everything ourselves. And then I guess because tiny houses have become quite popular and somebody was happy to pay double for it when we were selling it.
And I think this just goes to show that when we sometimes have in our mind, particularly if we're older investors like me, that it's all about the land. That's what goes up in value. That's not actually the case. And I thought with a tiny home, maybe again, that's a smaller market. So maybe I could see an argument where you might lose money on the underlying asset, kind of like a car.
But the fact that that's not the case is really interesting. Now, my other question around you selling it with essentially the land already there, you'd have known the land. Did you have a formal lease in place that you could pass on to the new owner so they knew they had that certainty? Or was that something that was negotiated outside of your deal?
Outside our deal.
Okay, now the other question that I've got to ask you is how do you go about selling a tiny home? Do you get a real estate agent or do you just take some photos and put it on Trade Me and Facebook Marketplace? You get a tiny agent.
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Chapter 3: How did they successfully sell their tiny house?
Now, can I ask you guys as well a potentially offensive question? Oh, here we go. Where are your accents from? Dutch. Are you both Dutch? Because one question, Andrew's given me this look, he's like, where the hell is this going? Yeah. So my question is this. I assume you're probably Dutch because when we think about some of the Northern European countries, often...
We think of them as reasonably frugal and really, really good with money. And I mean, that is an exceptional compliment. Now I understand where he's going. He's calling you cheap. No, that's not what I'm asking. My question is, do you notice a cultural difference between growing up in the Netherlands and Holland compared to New Zealand when it comes to attitudes around money?
I would say so. Yeah. For us, we always grew up with being paid monthly, for example. So you just, your money lasts for the whole month and you need to pay everything for it. Might depend on the upbringing as well, but I think we, we're being taught a lot more about forward planning and thinking ahead with your money.
Okay. And Michel, what have you noticed? I think the Kiwis are pretty clever with money as well. I don't see a difference there per se. I think just the way Hild and I happen to be is that our parents had a different approach to money. We need to save before we can spend. And these days, of course, you can get credit easily, which wasn't really something back in the day that was available.
So I think the mindset, we've kind of probably taken it over while maybe our brothers and sisters... Maybe if not this much, I haven't really continued with that same mindset.
Now, having said that, that doesn't mean that all New Zealanders are bad with money and all Dutch people are great with money. In fact, I've got a friend who's Dutch. He's not particularly good with money at all. So be like Hilda and Michelle people rather than, I won't say the other person's name.
It's kind of just thinking about kind of overseas stuff and the fact that you guys like travel. I know that with you guys, you plan like these larger than normal sabbaticals. Talk to us about kind of how that comes together.
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, the reason to build a tiny house for us was to be able, so we don't have a mortgage and we can travel.
Do you work when you're overseas or is it strictly a holiday?
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