Tiny home project aims to stabilize Detroit neighborhood

[Richard]

I wonder what the property taxes are,if it costs $48,000 to build or $160 per sqft what is the finial price?

Is this the new version of a starter home?

Starting way back when you could mail order a Sears home there was and still is a company that you can order a expandable home.

You buy a city lot and the 1st phase was a one room with bathroom,you paid cash for it then as you saved more cash you could expand up to 2500 sqft if you wanted and it was all designed to look like it was supposed to verses somebody added on a bunch of additions.

In reply to Bust ... It was Mrs. Roosevelt that started government housing,she was driving through the immigrant slums of New York where they lived 10 in a tar paper shack with newspaper stapled or glued to the walls for insulation.

The whole concept was to provide a decent roof over ones head with indoor plumbing and a bathroom temporary until they got on their feet and could afford to move up and out.Utilitarian,nothing fancy as somewhat as an incentive to move up.It was never meant to become a long term or comfortable solution.

In Tampa the cigar factories built what they called Casitas for employee housing,narrow houses which evolved into the shotgun house.

You walked through the front door into the living room,then you went through the bed room and had a small bath on the side and the kitchen in the back.So maybe 10 foot wide and 25 foot long,they were called shotgun because you could stand in the front door and providing the bedroom door and back door was open you could shoot a shotgun straight line from front to back.

If you had guests everybody would know if you did not make the bed because they had to pass through the bedroom to get to the bathroom or kitchen.

They had a front porch and looked much like any other house of the day.

I could see if one was single,and scrimping to save money to buy a real house,but this seems to be more of selling a concept verses a financially viable situation for the buyer.

But as they tell me ...You make money off of the poor and not the rich.

I think it is limited to the percentage that could actually deal with the confined space aspect long term verses just a place to lay ones head at night temporary.

I tried it,living on a boat,then a houseboat,then in a RV,it was cool when I was young but it was stupid because it is not cheap living and it would have been cheaper just to rent an apartment or buy a house.Then I discovered hoarding.

The Casitas in Tampa that survived the termites and countless attempts at demolitions,arson etc. were restored and became a kinda neat little transient artist community who unfortunately do not really keep them up.

The rent to own puts some skin in the game so to speak,so who knows maybe this may work,maybe long term or maybe a revolving door of sorts.I do not see it really as a way to start out cheap then sell in a few years gaining equity to purchase a larger home as in a starter home.It seems at today's prices of homes in the city comparatively it seems to be a equity trap.

But if it works to put somebody in a home for $500 a month and they can save to buy something it would be worth it I guess.

But you will not take a homeless person and stick them in there on a rent to own and expect them to be able to pay rent because if they could they would not be homeless to begin with.

I would kinda lean from that aspect it maybe better to give the $48k to the people that bought the building that had the phone on top at least they are dealing with the whole process.

So is it an answer for those that are under employed? Can they find a decent apartment for $500 a month where they do not have to worry about maintenance or if a boiler breaks.

I am kinda also leaning towards this is feasible in a market where the real estate is very expensive.Most of the stories I have seen about the tiny house concepts have been kids putting them in their parents back yard or on a piece of land way out in the sticks.

If it is done with donations I guess nothing ventured nothing gained and it can be a write off in the end,looks neat and tidy in the pictures anyways.