Auckland company Coastal Cabins is selling tiny houses through weekly rent-to-buy schemes. Photo / Coastal Cabins
Auckland company Coastal Cabins is selling tiny houses through weekly rent-to-buy schemes. Photo / Coastal Cabins
Finding it hard to break into the Auckland property market? This rent-to-buy scheme for a tiny house could be your way in.
Dairy Flat-based Coastal Cabins is selling tiny houses through a weekly rent-to-buy scheme for weekly payments from $180 which works out to be cheaper than renting a room in Auckland.
The tiny homes which feature a bathroom and kitchenette vary in size and come in studio one and two bedroom options, priced at $33,900 and $54,950 respectively - that's less than half the price of a deposit needed for a mortgage for an average-priced $1 million Auckland home.
Last year the median weekly rent for a room in an Auckland property was between $175 and $342, according to figures from the Tenancy Services.
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Coastal Cabins sales and social media manager Sharna Salthouse told Stuff that the company hoped the rent-to-buy scheme would help people get their foot into the housing market.
"People are paying up to $600 rent, $700 rent these days and they don't get anything out of it. I think it's just a such important thing to give people [another] option," Salthouse told Stuff.
Coastal Cabins has four tiny homes ranging in size on offer through the rent-to-buy scheme - a 4.8m x 2.4m house, 6.0m x 2.8m, 7.2m x 2.8m and the largest sized at 8.0m x 2.8m.
The smallest studio costs $180 per week through rent-to-buy, and the largest $290. The homes can be paid off over a five-year period at an interest rate of 9.95 per cent.
Most buyers set the houses up on family members' and friends' property, Salthouse told Stuff.
The tiny houses each have a kitchenette and bathroom. Photo / Coastal Cabins
Increasing numbers of Kiwis are now living big in tiny houses.
In January 2017 the Herald interviewed 32-year-old Aucklander Bryce Langston who had spent three years turning his dream of living free from rent, mortgage and utility bills into a reality.
Langston is among a growing tribe of Kiwis embracing the "tiny house" movement - a phenomenon sweeping the United States, largely as a result of the recent economic troubles where many have lost their homes.
The weekly cost of buying a tiny house is less than renting a single room in Auckland. Photo / Coastal Cabins
Tauranga man Leo Murray told the Herald in May he loved living in his tiny house in Matapihi which he built and that it replicates the tiny houses being built and lived in the US.
Langston, an actor and musician, spent about $70,000 designing and building his own miniature house on wheels. He said he hoped the project would offer him an alternative lifestyle in his own home after being priced out of Auckland's booming property market.
The Herald has approached Coastal Cabins for comment.
