Читать книгу The Tiny House Handbook - Charlie Wing - Страница 10

Shelter accounts for the largest expense in most homeowners’ budgets. Monthly and annual payments go to mortgage principle and interest, property taxes, insurance, water, sewer, maintenance and repair, lighting, and fuels for cooking, heating, and cooling. Phew!

Of course, the smaller the home, the less the expense. The wealthy have always afforded large homes, even mansions, but while the housing trend of the recent past has been toward mini-mansions for all, incomes have not kept pace. The disparity in income between the wealthy and the rest of the population has never been greater.

In response there has been a surge in interest in smaller, even “tiny” houses. Of what does the market for tiny houses consist?

 young couples looking for starter homes

 renters finding it impossible to accumulate a $50,000 downpayment

 empty nesters no longer needing four bedrooms

 the elderly desiring to live in on-property accessory dwellings in lieu of assisted living facilities

 and, of course, the homeless

In this first chapter we will introduce—or should we say, “reintroduce”—the outlandish idea of living on less in less space, even a tiny space.