Tiny House Builder Shares Real Costs & Important Considerations BEFORE Buying or Building

You can follow and find out more about Acorn Tiny Homes here:

And you can tour a couple of D'Arcy's builds here:
- Domek Tiny House

- Purple Heart Manor Tiny House

Some of the costs D'Arcy covers in the video include:
- Labour and paying staff including carpenters, cabinetmakers, designers, social media managers, etc.
- An indoor building facility (shop rent) to protect staff and materials during the build
- Materials, which have gone up in price dramatically due to inflation
- Trailers, which need to be specifically built to handle the weight of a tiny house
- Certification: In Canada, tiny homes are certified to CSA standards, and in the US there are a number of certifications, including but not limited to RVIA, NFPA, UL, etc.
- Tools: including woodworking, plumbing, metalworking, welding, etc.
- Custom: the added cost of designing and building a custom home compared to a model tiny home on wheels
- Profit: Despite wanting to build as affordable as possible, it's also important to ensure that the business will be sustainable, which requires some profit

We hope this video helped shed some light on why the cost of a professionally built tiny house can be so much higher than a DIY build.

We want to thank everyone at Acorn Tiny Homes for letting us film them during a regular workday at the shop! Y'all are awesome and we appreciate you :)

Thanks for watching!

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COMMENTS
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CREDITS
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Music Credit: Exploring Alternatives

Editing Credit: Exploring Alternatives

Filming Credit: Exploring Alternatives

#tinyhouse #tinyhousemovement #tinyhousebuild

[evanduffy]

Love the transparency here, the detail and specifics behind each part of the process was really enlightening - really appreciate this guy!

[royal]

I think it’s just frustrating that something that was supposed to be a nice cheap alternative to our modern day capitalistic daily lives and now these tiny homes and can conversions are on par with the price sad really 😢

[carolewarrenrealtor]

Totally appreciate the descriptive detail and calculation of costs involved with building a tiny or custom home. It educates and provides clarity for areas the consumer may overlook like labor, the trailor, flooring and certification - wow 😳. We are better prepared because of your video. Thanks

[DavGreg]

It amazes me that so many people think you can get a high quality home for very little money in 2023.
Anyone who strolls a Home Depot or Lowes and looks at the prices for stuff should have some understanding of how expensive it is.
The other thing is why would any one want to cheap out on the place they call home and will share life with their loved ones.

IDK what the 2023 number is, but years ago the cost of building a stick built home in the US was 70% labor - 30% everything else.

[DanaVastman]

Well done and I appreciate all of your insights. I'm 73 now. Spent my life creating amazing spaces, urban farms and edible gardens. Every point you made was a solid one and people objecting to costs are objecting to reality as it is today.
The author encourages anyone who can to do it themselves and just provides some cautionary tales in the process. He's also trying to explain why it DOES cost a lot when being done in a commercial venture...a VALUABLE perspective. I think this is a wonderful! Discussion. As one who has frequently considered downsizing from a nice home to something more concise and mobile... It's fantastic to have someone described to me why things cost what they do. So many comments here are beloveviating bullshit and have nothing to do with the subject matter. Yeah our society sucks... It does not encourage freedom and exploration. Yeah of course.... We're all caught up in a F'd up world controlled by a bunch of evil a-holes with all the money. Has nothing to do with this video.

Thanks so much! I appreciate the clarity and insights you provide. I wish you well and respect your endeavors.😮

[kathylowry]

Thanks to D'Arcy for a very honest and informative tutorial. I would hire Acorn Tiny Homes in a minute if I were younger. But at 75 I'm set where I am now, however I love ALL the tiny house videos you make. Keep up the good work you do !

[cd]

Thanks for sharing such a candid and informative summary of the process and costs!

[val_nightlily]

Thanks for posting this. It was really good of D'Arcy to go through this and you to video it.

One thing he didn't address directly is how tiny home builders seem to aim at the high end of the market. I understand; it's just business. But it's getting old to see ever more luxury finishes, high-end appliances, huge showers, and square metres of counter space. We all have our HGTV fantasies, but more and more people are simply going to need a roof over their heads.

[magatism]

If you are aiming for tiny. Build it yourself. It's fun, it's satisfying and saves you ton of money.

[SCnative]

This was very informative and educational! Thank you for this.

[carolewarrenrealtor]

Though I too noticed "tiny" home prices drastically increased, I also feel that the perception of "tiny" homes being cheaper is a misconception (could be wrong🤔). In my opinion, tiny living is a great alternative to "own" a home out right or at least finance at a much more reasonable price point. The attraction for me is choosing to be purposeful for how I use my space, and to surround myself with the things that really matter. I love the idea and freedom you likely feel when not being bogged down by a 30-yr mortgage or huge monthly payment or too much stuff. I no longer try to focus on how to fit into a house ... but rather, how the house will fit me and my needs. Thanks for letting me share 🙂 #freedomislettinggo
#peacewillbringjoy

[EliBartEliBart]

Great video, love the transparency! Thank you D'Arcy!

[cathylynnpietranton]

This was very informative and interesting. I feel we really don't know how much work is involved behind the scenes of building tiny houses. Thank you Danielle and Matt❤

[kaleyeahitsaustin]

My wife and I looked at tiny houses, but once we saw how much they cost... You're better off buying an actual house lolol We eventually decided on Arched Cabins that are made out of Texas. After it's all done we're thinking around $60k for our finished house and that's 95% of the work we're doing ourselves.

[palebeachbum]

Excellent video. Very insightful. Even understanding the logistics behind why tiny houses are so expensive, it's still hard to wrap my head around paying $150k-$200k U.S. for a tiny house when the same money in my city buys a renovated 2-bedroom house with around 1, 000 sqft in a decent neighborhood. That also includes the land it sits on, of course. So unless you live somewhere where housing is insanely expensive, it's hard to justify spending that kind of money on a tiny house. It doesn't seem to make financial sense to spend that kind of money and still have to pay $500/mo for land rent to park a tiny house. It's cheaper to own the land and pay the property taxes on the 2-bedroom house in my example, which comes out to be about $130/mo, and that's for land you own and will reap the benefit of financial when you sell. Speaking of selling, tiny houses don't seem to accrue in value like a regular house from what I see. The values seem to stay stagnant or even decrease. Something to consider. I may sound like I'm anti-tiny house, but I'm really not. I would LOVE to live in a tiny house and wish more people would. I just can't make sense of it financially. The money saved on utilities isn't enough to offset the other costs to come out far ahead of the traditional 2-bedroom home.

[AphroditeLee]

I personally do not think having your house built FOR YOU costing 90K to 200K is expensive at all. I do not have the skill (nor the desire) to build my own so I am grateful you guys exist!

[mm]

Take a welding class at a community college, spend some extra hours practicing with their equipment, get a discount buying your own welder, and then build basically anything you want, made of metal, for the rest of your life, for only the cost of material. Those 10-20k trailers are not much more than 1000 in materials.

[mcdgoddess]

I really appreciate this video and the breakdown about costs. Something else not mentioned is how you are also paying for the knowledge and experience that comes with the labor of a professional building your home. I think a lot of people forget that you can still have a cheap tiny home, but you’ll be the one building it or you can find a simple non-custom Tiny.

I’ve watched so many videos of people who built their own and discuss the time and energy they put into it and it’s a LOT! I still think it’s an affordable option even with going with a builder depending on where you live. I can’t even find a small condo in my city under $280K, so an entire custom built Tiny of your dreams for $200K, is still a great deal.

[NicolasBeaufils]

Remember the mood at the beggining of the tiny house movement

[allegrosotto]

Fred’s tiny houses in Vic Australia makes a point also about what to look for in a trailer and why.