Blogs

09 June

Determining what your new tiny home is going to cost is a major part of the planning process of any tiny house build. As with more traditional homes around Australia, the cost to build a new home can vary significantly depending on a range of factors. In this article I want to cover these factors and help you to calculate what a tiny house of your own may cost you. 

What effects the cost of a tiny home?

• Will you do all of the work yourself or do you intend on using a builder to build it for you?
• Will you use new or second hand materials?
• What size tiny home will you build?
• What level of finish do you want? Budget, mid spec or luxury (Ie. like a display home) 
• Will your tiny home be on wheels or do you intend on placing it on stumps or a foundation?
• Will you buy pre-designed tiny house plans or are you looking to create something special from scratch? (If you want something special from scratch then our tiny house design team would love to help. Get in touch here for a free quote!)

Example Costing 1 – Using A Professional Builder

As you can see there a lot of variables that can affect the overall cost of your tiny house. For the purpose of coming up with some averages though lets make some assumptions to come up with a likely cost. Lets assume your tiny house will be:

1. 7.2 metre long x 2.4 metres wide (Ie. one of the most popular sizes in Australia)
2. It will be built by a professional builder
3. You are buying it completely finished and ready to move in, with appliances, off grid power and all utilities in place and ready to go.

For a tiny house of this size and specifications you could expect to pay somewhere in the vicinity of $80,000 – $100,000 or more, depending on the inclusions and upgrades you go for.

Example Costing 2 – Building Your Tiny House Yourself

If you decided instead that you are feeling a little adventurous and want to build your tiny house with your own hands then let’s take a look at how this would vary the cost. In our experience from dealing with thousands of people over the years we have seen that the majority of people who decide to go it alone spend somewhere in the range of $40,000 to $60,000 building their own tiny house (as of the time of writing this in June 2018).

Yes I know some of you are thinking that you heard of someone building a tiny house for $10,000 but this is not common. This may be possible if using all recycled materials but it is definitely not common, nor will the end product be very modern or comfortable to live in as a full time dwelling. When you consider that the average tiny house trailer alone is about $10,000 new, it makes it almost impossible to build a tiny home for any less than about $30,000 if you are using new materials. Especially if you would like features such as built in cupboards, an oven, cook-top, washing machine, a bath and/or shower and a space for at least one queen size bed.

As you can see from the examples above, prices vary massively from tiny house to tiny house. Prices can start from as little as $20,000 for a small and very basic tiny and go all the way up to $120,000 and beyond for a large, very luxurious tiny house on wheels that is built by a professional. 

If you need help in calculating your costs and working on a design for your tiny house project, regardless of whether you are using a builder or building yourself, please get in touch with our professional tiny house design team. They would love to help bring your dream to life! We can help with basic questions and calculations right through to a custom design service, where we work with you one on one to design the tiny house of your dreams.

If you want to learn more about tiny house costs and the other ‘need to know’ essentials before begining your tiny house build make sure you download our free e-book – ‘Tiny Houses – Getting Started Guide’ which covers the 6 key steps you need to know before buying or building a tiny house. You can download it for FREE here!

Please leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts about the cost of a tiny house. If you enjoyed this article please click the share button below and help us spread the tiny house movement! 🙂