Tiny Homes Australia: A Practical Housing Solution as Rental Affordability Breaks
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What is the context of Australia's rental affordability crisis?
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Hey, welcome back to the Real Estate Property Podcast right around Australia from Darwin and Bundaberg to the Sunshine Coast. And good morning if you are on the Sunshine Coast enjoying that quality living. We are streaming on your favorite platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts. And if you want to get in touch, don't forget our email address, as always, is myrealestatepodcast at gmail.com. Well, it's a Monday, February the 2nd. And unfortunately, all four major banks are now saying the Reserve Bank should lift the rates again tomorrow after the inflation came in hotter than expected late last year. The consensus is a move to 3.85%. The big question is whether this is a one-off reset or the start of something more uncomfortable for mortgage holders.
And it's on that note from mortgage holders to tiny living. Because after years of high rents, stubborn interest rates and stretched household budgets, tiny homes are no longer this novelty factor. They're a coping strategy for many people. What started probably fair to say as a fringe lifestyle choice has quietly become this pressure valve for renters and self-employed Australians looking for affordability. You've also got to have that flexibility in the mix and a calmer way to live without leaving the country altogether. So on this note, I want to take you to Melbourne and catch up with Brad Boussatoul from Deluxe Tiny Homes. And welcome back, Brad, onto the Real Estate Breakfast podcast. We have featured you before.
Last year, we were talking all about the tiny homes. You were extremely busy and you probably would have reveled in the Christmas New Year break after all those tiny homes that you were busy making.
Hey, Greg, thanks for having me back on. Yeah, spot on. I was really looking forward to having a bit of a break, but unfortunately that wasn't the case. We were able to build 26 homes in the last 12 months. And over this break, it's just been chaos with inquiries. We're already booked out to the end of April and on track to do another 40 builds this year.
You know, as I mentioned, tomorrow looks like we might get an interest rate rise from the RBA. The banks are certainly pushing for it. This mortgage situation, it's just not going to go anywhere, particularly for first home buyers. The rise of people being interested in this type of tiny living, it's for a reason. They've decided to, right, let's just make our space smaller and have a smaller mortgage and sort of reclaim claim our life back?
Yeah, definitely. So with all the mortgage pressure that's happening, container homes or tiny homes in general are starting to be a lot more affordable for people. Most of the time you can get a container home fully installed for $120,000 plus the block of land and it's a much faster turnaround time. So a lot of people are coming to us wanting to downsize and really take their life back and start living within their means.
Also, I'll just get you to explain sort of the breakdown of people that are coming to you because a lot of people want these Airbnbs, don't they, to put them on their backyards. You crane them in, you're building them off site. So I guess from a completed project, it's pretty easy to do that.
Yeah, it's definitely easy. And we're seeing about a 50-50 split at the moment. So half of those people are either downsizing or putting their kids or parents into the backyard and using that as full-time living for themselves. But then you've got the other half that are really using them for Airbnb and putting them in places where it's a bit harder to build. And because we can build them off-site, it's that much quicker and easier to do.
Tell us a little bit about the main dwelling. Last time I spoke to you, I found this quite interesting that these tiny homes can be used as a main dwelling on a parcel of land. So long as you're checking with the council, that's key because you don't want people to come to you and they haven't done their homework because then you've got this completed project and you say, well, you know, we can't put that on your land because it doesn't comply.
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