The Tiny House Movement and Merits of Downsizing

People are talking about the tiny house movement. What is it? Is it small houses that are being moved down the street to tiny lots? Is it a political movement? This movement is all about a segment of society that states that people are downsizing the space or spaces that they live in.

If you haven't heard of it, the tiny house movement is a growing trend and not just a fad. It's been featured on network television all over the world. What makes the tiny movement so big, and what determines what a small home is? The average house in America is just less than 3,000 square feet in size. Tiny houses are built with the focus on smaller simplified living so they average around 400 to 500 square feet at the most. Some small houses are very tiny, at around 65 square feet.

But Why the Movement toward Downsizing Houses?

This movement is all about efficiency, saving natural resources, and saving the environment. People who have been concerned about these factors in society have been very concerned at the amount of natural resources (and accompanying waste) that's generated every time a standard size home is built.

And if you include all the resources that go into maintaining older standard size houses, a good argument can be made that the old adage of "Bigger is better" is not better anymore. For example: If a tiny home of about 200 square feet is built in remote areas away from sprawling cities, the house leaves virtually no impact or carbon footprint on the natural environment around it. And in many areas small houses are using solar panels for their energy source.

Smaller Homes Are Economically Friendly Too

When you consider many automobiles today cost over $50,000, it's easy to see the economic value in getting involved in the tiny house movement. Small homes or houses can cost as little as $37,000 if you buy a pre-fabricated or pre-built one. If you build it yourself you'll save a lot more.

A lot of people think that buying a tiny home means living in a cardboard box or something like that. Not so. Because the cost of a tiny house is so low, builders can focus on higher quality building materials that are more energy-efficient and last longer than materials used in traditional home building.

The small house movement is also providing an affordable means of home ownership to people whose homes were destroyed during hurricanes in the southeastern U.S. in the past ten years. Some people whose houses were completely demolished could not afford to rebuild, or they did not have sufficient insurance coverage to rebuild the home they had before. So tiny homes provide a comfortable and safe life for them.

Downsizing to Simple Housing Is the Answer for Some

There are some people who have not been affected by natural disasters or financial meltdowns. They simply want to join the movement because for a lot of people in today's hectic society, simplicity is king. Many people in society during the last few decades have found themselves working long work weeks and getting little time off, only to spend that time constantly maintaining a large house that they hardly ever spent any time in. Although small homes will always be just that, the tiny house movement is growing into something big.

Tom Howser writes about small houses as well as reducing one's carbon footprint and living a sustainable lifestyle.

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Shipping Container Homes and Why They Make Sense

It's amazing to think that the shipping container that brought your TV from overseas can now be the home that you live in.

In the early 1950's in America families could buy a modest new home for around $20,000 after you added in the property taxes, furniture, appliances and move-in costs. In today's real estate market in the United States, purchasing the same type of house in a typical middle class neighborhood might cost you around $200,000 depending on the location and other factors.

But now many people looking to buy a new home are buying them for the same price as their parents or grandparents did in the 1950's at around $20,000. The difference is they're buying homes not make of wood or traditional materials. They're buying shipping container homes. That's right-homes made from used steel containers that once carried merchandise on large ships. And they're not what you would first imagine. These are nice, desirable homes.

Shipping Container Homes Are Easy To Get and Easy To Get Into

A lot of people are looking into using recycled cargo containers as a material source for building homes. They certainly are a green alternative to other materials and using them does a lot of good for the recycling community. We don't notice it very much but there are quite a lot of unused, empty cargo containers sitting at ports all around the world doing nothing but taking up space. Or worse yet, being sent off to landfill.

Manufacturers of goods and the shipping companies that ship those goods see them as disposable items, throwaways just like the soda cans so many consumers still don't see value in. It's actually rather expensive for countries to ship unused and empty containers back to their country of origin and quite often it's cheaper to buy new containers when the need for them arise.

Costs for cargo containers vary but on average you can get a used one for about $1,500. The average container has about 350 square feet of space. Someone who wants a 3,000 square foot home would have to pay approximately $80 per square foot to have a home built using traditional methods. In some parts of the U.S. it costs well over $100 per square foot.

Container homes cost about four and a half dollars per square foot (the cost is just for the frame, not including the construction and finishing work). But do the calculations and you'll see the basic (frame only) cost for a 3,000 square foot home built from recycled containers is about $13,500. Even with the added cost of having to configure and finish the basic units to make them into a home it's still quite a savings over traditional home building methods.

Shipping Container Homes Are Being Accepted As Part of Society

So far the most popular places for building cargo container homes has been in parts of Asia and in the former Soviet Union. But recently shipping container houses have started showing up in the United States, specifically in southern California.

Of course it does take a bit of construction work to fix up these steel containers including installing insulation, plumbing, electrical, windows and doors. Yet, when all is said and done, the homes are made from recycled materials, cheap and unique. And this is just what many green home owners are looking for right now.

Derrick Taylor writes about container homes plus other unique green housing designs and architecture.

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Why Are Reallionaires Chasing Green Real Estate Assets?

Real estate investors who have been battered by the 2007 financial crisis and subsequent recession have become increasingly frustrated with buying traditional property assets. Yet they remain in no man's land when making attempts to revive their fortune. To the contrary, investors who have successfully survived the financial crisis, knows that in times of economic turmoil, they must jump ship to stay afloat. As traditional property assets lose their appeal, it is time to look elsewhere. Generally, the average investors typically tend to sit back and wait for the next big booming economic wave. Whereas, savvy property investors spend time creating that new wave in a safe boat.

During the rubble (or collapsed economic cycle 2007-2012), reallionaires have been switching to new property sectors, in particular, green real estate, whilst novices are still buying traditional assets. This newly emerging property sector, green real estate (GRE) may be defined as a convergence between green technology and the reinvention of ageing property assets, such as, car parks reinvented into solar car parks or EV recharging stations. The green property sector consists of property assets, such as, solar farms, agro-fuel estates, landfill gas sites, energy from waste facilities, solar car parks and bio-fuel plantations to name just a few. An astonishing US$211 billion was invested in this asset class in 2010, up by US$51b on its 2009 figures. As a result, green property is the most highly sort after property asset among reallionaires and there are some lucrative reasons why.

For starters, reallionaires are putting their money into the green real estate sector because it has pulling power when it comes to attracting capital. Not only are the World Bank and Sovereign wealth funds lending millions to developers and owners of green property projects, but many financial institutions and private equity firms are also throwing cash at developers of such property assets. As reported in various UK's Newspapers, property tycoon, Vincent Tchenquiz through his acquisition vehicle, Consensus Group, raised over £71 million from sovereign wealth funds and institutional investors to acquire and develop solar farms, wind farms and bio-fuel refineries in South Africa. Likewise, in 2010, Vattenfall secure £150m from the European Investment Bank to develop a wind farm in Thurness Point, Kent UK.

Another reason why reallionaires are adding GRE assets to their property portfolio is due to the knowledge that it attracts near zero taxes and other types of investment incentives. It is now common knowledge, that the acquisition of green real estate is largely a tax free investment. Under Governments' legislation in the UK and Europe, investors operating in the GRE sector pay less taxes, in comparison to their counterparts investing in mainstream commercial property. Additionally, capital gains tax is waived on most green property assets, such as, recycling centres. Further, other benefits reallionaires accrue from buying GRE, include, tax rebate, tax credit, carbon credit, Government loan guarantees, grants and feed-in-tariffs. Such incentives and promotional policies helped in making this sector recession proof over the last five years.

Third, but not last, reallionaies are in love with green property assets because, unlike other assets, it offers property investors three to four sources of income. Generally most property assets give investors a rental income (depending on the type of owner structure used). Nevertheless, in addition to rental income, GRE provides investors with carbon credit income and feed in tariff income. Reallionaires become mega rich by acquiring high performing assets that provide them with multiple streams of income. To this end, it is abundantly clear why reallionaires and other super rich investors are chasing green real estate assets.

To date, most of the world's richest property investors have bought into to the green real estate phenomenon. Reallionaires, such as, Samuel Zell, Vincent Tchenquiz, The Duke of Westmister and John Whittaker and more, have all invested millions in this fast growing lucrative sector. In addition to reallionaires, there are a number of super rich entrepreneurs who have also jump on the green property bandwagon, including, Michael Dell, Warren Buffet and the Google founders.

To find out how you can make millions by investing in the top 10 green real estate assets today, email the author: info@ktcunningham.org

Written by Mr. KT Cunningham, Author, Asset Manager, Investor, Entrepreneur & Philanthropist.

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