Comments by "Matthew Loutner" (@Matthew_Loutner) on "Las Vegas ‘tiny home’ gets overwhelming demand from desperate renters" video.

  1. Americans are NOT poor. In 1960 the average home size was 1200 square feet. Today the average home size is 2300 square feet. In Germany the average home size is 1173 square feet and Italy is 872 square feet.
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  2. But a lot and put a Home Depot shed in it.
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  3. The free market makes the rules.
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  4.  @Unknown16537  You may be living in the wrong state. It costs $105 a square foot to build a brand new house. You paid for the land. In most states, you can get a used 1200 square foot house for $180k.
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  5.  @mikeydude750  Anyone wanting a smaller house can hire a general contractor and have one custom built.
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  6. @mikeydude750  Dude. You have an awareness problem. The facts are that only 5% of the land in the United States is occupied. In most places in the United States you can find a desirable place to live or build within 22 minutes of your job. And you can build on any vacant lot in the city as long as it meets the minimum size for putting a house.
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  7. His zoning may not allow 2 houses on 1 lot.
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  8. He probably didn't.
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  9. If his insurance company finds out they will probably cancel him.
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  10. I bought a tax sale property in Arkansas for $2113.23 . . .
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  11. I cook in a toaster oven and microwave. I bought the toaster oven for twenty bucks.
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  12.  @jazzienicole  My toaster oven cooks in the same time that the recipe calls for with less preheating. In fact it is an air fryer and when set to air fry it is faster. I live in one room of my 3 bedroom house and do not want to make large meals. The big advantage for me is my house runs on solar and all of my appliances are 110 plug-in appliances. If I put in a regular oven, I have to buy one at $500 plus. Then I have to expand my solar system and add a bunch of wiring and controllers to handle the 240 volts.
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  13.  @jazzienicole  I always buy Black & Decker . . .
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  14. $70,000 is good money. And your wife can get a part time job . . .
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  15. "We the people" used to live in tiny one room log cabins. So what? In fact one American president is famous for it.
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  16.  @howdoyouhaveacarinmytruck  My mother grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana. I just received a text from her last week about this subject. Why don't you hear it from her? "We had screens and moved kitchen chairs outside to sit at night. Finally got a couple of fans. Was blistering hot when we were heating water and canning all day in the kitchen. Just the way it was. All we knew. My first experience with air conditioning was in large downtown dept stores and then movie theaters. Never saw air conditioned cars until in Lubbock, Texas when I was 21."
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  17. Our government already has that. It is called "section 8" housing. (But I am personally against government interference in the free market.)
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  18. If they did not want it they would not buy it.
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  19. He built it from scratch.
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  20. They do. Some have been bulldozed for not having water and sewer.
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  21.  @Varnaj42  I have no intention of visiting Portland. It is a city run by the living dead. Tents are temporary structures and there is no building code for temporary structures. Only permanent structures have to meet code.
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  22.  @jazzienicole  Why not? I bake potatoes and casseroles and make cookies and bread.
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  23.  @mikeydude750  Anybody can hire a general contractor to build a custom home any size they want it. But some people do prefer the larger home. My brother in law built his custom home at 3500 square feet because he wanted a large furnished basement for having people over for get togethers, including a basement kitchen and a weight room gym for his own private use. Other people want a pool room/game room. But I think people buy homes the same way they buy new cars. The first thing a car dealer does when you walk into a dealership is "establish how much car you can afford" (in monthly payment) and then show you cars in that price range. And people walk around looking at cars saying, "Wow. I like this one. Wow. I like this one." The best selling car is the giant SUV. Women love them because they have plenty of room for kids and groceries and they sit way up high giving you good visibility and a sensation of being in control. But they could do the same thing in the traditional station wagon, right? Men buy pickup trucks. There are plenty of cheap small-sized sedans on the car lot, but they go to single people who live in apartments. And, of course, Corvettes and Dodge Challengers are the most expensive and older rich guys buy them. Builders prefer to build the 2300 square foot home because it is easy to sell them to people who can make the payments and the builder makes a good profit on them. A 1200 square foot home a builder only makes half as much profit. Large homes is where the gravy is. What we are lacking in our society is more builders. If we had enough builders, some of them would be forced to build some smaller homes due to free-market competition and those would be "starter homes" for young couples just getting out of college and moving out of apartments into their first home.
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  24.  @mikeydude750 Of course you can. You have the option of building your 1200 square foot house on one of the lots that the housing developer currently owns. Zoning laws are usually written by the city and vary from city to city and usually are very reasonable. In my town the minimum lot size is 7000 square feet and the minimum house size is 400 square feet. And if your city is too strict, you build outside of city limits where the land is cheaper and there are no zoning laws at all. Also the land is not the majority of the cost. Land varies depending on location. But in my town a lot will cost you $1500 and a 1200 square foot house is $125,000. In San Diego, an equivalent lot will cost $75,000 and the house may be $200,000. In either case, the building is the major expense. It may be reverse in a place where the land is super scarce like Long Island. But I doubt you would want to build in that type of area anyway.
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  25.  @mikeydude750  Pay attention. I said it would cost that much to BUILD a 1200 square foot home.
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  26.  @mikeydude750  You live in California? There is a 250 square foot cabin for sale in Big Bear Lake for $89,000. The monthly payment is $583. You buy that and get a job working at Walmart in San Bernadino for $15 an hour. You will be making $2400 a month and paying $583 for your house.
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  27. @stanleymedrano  I am not wrong. I looked it up before I commented. There is only one country in the Europe that has homes 1475 and that is Denmark. Every other country in Europe is smaller.
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  28. @stanleymedrano  The median American home size is 2014 square feet. And recently built American homes are 2300 square feet. Only Australia is close to American home sizes.
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  29. To figure what is high or not you have to calculate it as a percentage of income.
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