Many communities with housing shortages are welcoming tiny houses. Some developers are adding them to their inventory to try to meet the growing demand for less expensive places to live. We recently talked with one Spokane tiny home developer who says business is booming.
Last year, Matt Goodwin switched careers. He phased out of the restaurant and hospitality business and bought the Spokane franchise for Anchored Tiny Homes of Spokane and North Idaho.
Matt Goodwin: "Being in the hospitality industry for so long, I've had a lot of people that I paid minimum wage to and they were packing four or five people into an apartment or couldn't afford a place to live. This seems like a good solution to a lot of people's housing issues. So I'm excited about helping people solve that problem."
Doug: "Do you work from kits?"
Matt Goodwin: "No, everything we build is slab on grade and stick built. We're building actual tiny houses. We're not mobile, we're not modular. Those are less expensive options for people, but our homes are, they're going to still be standing in 100 years. They're going to add value to your property. They'll appreciate in value as your property appreciates in value too at a lot higher rate than mobile or modular. So it's definitely a more permanent option than some of the less expensive options."
Doug: "If you watch HGTV and you watch somebody doing a tiny home show, we're talking often about 300, maybe 400 square feet. Is that kind of what you're talking about here?"
Matt Goodwin: "Our smallest one's a studio at about 284 square feet. Our largest standard plan is a two bed, two bath at 1,100 square feet. Then we have everything in the middle there too. And we can customize and modify, and we can add lofts and Murphy beds and all that kind of fun stuff too if people want that. But 300 to 1,100 square feet is our standard plans."
Doug: "Is there sort of a basic footprint then that you sort of work off of and kind of adjust as you go?"
Matt Goodwin: "Yeah, our standard plans are either a rectangle or an L, if that makes sense. And we have these standard plans so we can keep the cost down as much as possible. Now, of course, a lot of people do want to customize them and add rooms or add a loft and make them funky and weird. But our standard plans are basically boxes. Not trying to sound uncool, but it allows us to keep the price down, allows us to build them a lot faster and get the homes up quick."
Doug: "Thirty years ago, my wife and I moved into a 700-square foot house that was built in 1949 for the soldiers who had come home after the war. And that was a standard house back then. Maybe the terminology has changed, so it's now considered a tiny home because all the other homes that seem to be built are big."
Matt Goodwin: "Yeah, you're exactly right. Just drive through the Shadle neighborhood and you'll see all sorts of homes were built circa 1950, to your point, that are 600 to 1,100 square feet. That was pretty standard. And I think the world's going back to that and we're just kind of on the forefront of it."
Doug: "So what is the requirement for somebody who wants to build a tiny home? Do they need the land? Do you have the land? How does that work?"
Matt Goodwin: "Currently, we are building for individuals that have the land or we can help them find land that is suitable for a tiny home development. Probably 80% of our business, and that's on a national level, we don't have enough data yet for Spokane, but on a national level, about 80% of our business is what we call family helping family, which is primarily an accessory dwelling unit in the backyard of an existing home for an aging parent, for an adult special needs child, for an adult child that can't afford rent. And then the other 20% would be for the investor type person. And that could be an ADU, that could be a little tiny home development, that could be all sorts of options, lake property, whatever it might be."
Doug: "Is Spokane becoming a more attractive place to do that just in terms of the changing of zoning or the elimination of zoning laws in many cases here?"
Matt Goodwin: "The city of Spokane is arguably the most favorable place in the nation to build ADUs right now. One example is they'll allow you to put up to three ADUs on a single family residence currently. And that's unheard of across the country. And there's more and more laws that are coming that make it more progressive in order to accommodate for these affordable living units."
Doug: "So help me understand what makes it so attractive then."
Matt Goodwin: "Zoning and permitting, they're pushing those through. They've relaxed the restrictions on setbacks, what's required in order to get allowed to do it."
Doug: "And parking requirements are almost gone."
Matt Goodwin: "Yes, correct, less parking requirements. Now, if you go in the county, it's a little bit different. If you go to Liberty Lake, it's different. But the city of Spokane is very, very favorable right now."
Doug: "So do you see Spokane becoming more of a city of smaller homes then?"
Matt Goodwin: "I think so, I think so. I think you're seeing a lot of people move here who are selling their bigger homes to other places and downsizing. I think you're seeing a lot of people that are graduating college and staying here and they can't afford the new home prices. I think you're going to see more and more homes shrinking in footprint and in price."
Doug: "In terms of price, what is the price range people can think about?
Matt Goodwin: "Our studio with our standard finishes, which we call upper mid-grade, is gonna run about $75,000. We do have some more basic finishes and we can shave that number down a little bit. It's a much more affordable option and it's just a price per square foot game. If you're building a 3,000-square-foot house at X, it's gonna cost that much more than if you're building a 300-square-foot studio."
Doug: "Do you feel good about building small houses for people who traditionally could not afford to buy one of the market-rate houses these days?"
Matt Goodwin: "Yeah, I think that's what really turned me on to the business. I was looking at a bunch of different opportunities, but the fact that I get to help families and people solve problems, whether it's, again, like an aging parent with Alzheimer's that they want to have some autonomy in their own space and the family wants to take care of them, or someone that can't afford the unit, or whatever it might be, it's really fun to help people solve a housing problem, whatever that problem might be."
Doug: "You talked about maybe in the future building your own. What would that look like?"
Matt Goodwin: "In a perfect world, it would be eight, 10, 20 tiny homes on a lot. And since the homes are tiny, I think people want to be outside. So you do a community fire pit, you do a community cornhole or horseshoes, whatever it might be. Drape some Italian string lights over some picnic tables. Really try to make it a community feel so that people are outside, engaged with people, because 700 square feet is a little bit smaller and people are used to bigger homes. So if you can create a little community with some fun stuff incorporated in there, I think it could be a very enjoyable living experience for somebody."
Doug: "You talked about Spokane being pretty friendly to this. Do you anticipate the county, maybe some of the other cities in Spokane County, loosening up enough to be able to do more of this?"
Matt Goodwin: "I think so. One other thing I forgot to mention is that the city of Spokane is allowing you to take a standard lot and shrink it down quite a bit in actual lot size. We're working with one guy right now who bought a 10,000-square-foot lot and he's able to cut it down to 1,200-square-foot lots and then put a tiny home on each one of those units. Spokane Valley has shown openness to doing similar stuff. And the state of Washington has a whole lot of stuff on their agenda to make smaller tiny homes more accessible to everybody. So I think a lot of people are going to start following suit."
Doug: "So is this the wave of the future?"
Matt Goodwin: "I think so, I think so. I don't think we're gonna see 3% interest rates anytime soon. I don't think housing prices are going to come down anytime soon. So I don't know of any other alternatives than to shrink the size of the house."
Matt Goodwin owns the Spokane and North Idaho franchise for Anchored Tiny Homes.
