Kasia and Jake Walker's tiny home is located on rented land in west Auckland. Photo/Supplied
Kasia and Jake Walker's tiny home is located on rented land in west Auckland. Photo/Supplied
Kiwis are offering up their land for tiny home buyers to move their portable houses on in temporary and permanent deals.
A new website, Landshare has been set up to provide a place for people looking for or offering up land for tiny homes in New Zealand.
Whether you are a landowner wanting to utilise your property and earn some extra cash, a young couple trying to get on the property ladder by starting small or a family hoping to downsize, Landshare is your go to.
The website was started by Nathan Orr in July as a response to the growing tiny home trend. He wanted to test the market and see whether people would be interested in what he had to offer.
"When the cost of housing, like we've all seen lately, gets to the point where it's too expensive for people to afford, they start looking for alternative solutions."
Landshare founder Nathan Orr. Photo/Supplied
Current listings on the Landshare website included people offering land in Manawatu, the Bay of Plenty, Coromandel and Waiheke Island. There were also people looking for land on the website.
Orr, 28, who did his masters in sustainability, was drawn to the way tiny homes allow people to downsize, including their energy use and building materials.
Tiny houses, as the name suggests, are self-contained small homes, typically built on wheels.
Many tiny homes are off grid, meaning they need little more than land to sit on.
Orr said the ultimate goal of Landshare was to assist people, including millennials like himself, find more affordable housing solutions. He has recently started building his own tiny house.
"A small house, relative to a normal conventional house, is quite cheap ... the land part of the equation is the really expensive part. Using an alternative like tiny houses, if you can get on to the property ladder by buying the house first and not necessarily the land, you can then save up to a position where you might be able to own your own piece of land."
Orr said a lot of Kiwis who doubted their ability to afford a house needed to rethink the traditional notion of a home and consider options like a tiny house.
Tiny homes give renters options. Photo / Jemma Wells Photography
Kasia Walker, 26, and her husband Jake, 28, have been living in a tiny home on rented land since December 2016.
The 7.2m by 2.4m off-grid house was the only dwelling on a 2.5 acre plot in West Auckland.
And the rent? Just $100 a week.
"We basically have a lifestyle block with no houses surrounding us. We've got horses as neighbours, so it's really nice," said Kasia.
Prior to buying their tiny home, they were renting a room in a three-bedroom house in West Auckland for $450 a week.
"Instead of putting that money in someone else's pocket, you are putting money into an investment that you own and can on-sell in the future if you want to," said Kasia.
