Wednesday, October 7, 2009

[papercreters] How to Shrink Your Big House Dreams



 

 
 

 
 
eHow of the Day  

How to Shrink Your Big House Dreams by Dave Donovan

There's a new trend in the modern real estate market and it may just be the solution to turning our struggling economy around. Smart home buyers are checking their egos at the door and purchasing smaller homes better suited to their financial standing and choice of lifestyle, "Time Magazine" reports. As banks tighten up on loans and with unemployment lingering in the back of everyone's mind, home buyers are canceling dreams of owning huge castles - and it turns out smaller homes are all the rage. It's the one area of real estate that is gaining popularity across all age brackets as younger people are looking for more affordable starter homes and older couples are looking for a more sensible home in which to spend their golden years. For a growing number of people, smaller homes just make sense. They not only cost less to heat and cool, but in many cases, the owners can make better use of the land surrounding their homes by incorporating many self-supporting attributes such as vegetable gardens, fruit trees and eco-friendly energy support systems. But overwhelmingly, the greatest benefit from shrinking your home buying dreams is the actual cost of buying it in the first place. On average Americans are forking over more than 34 percent of their income simply to pay their mortgage, reports the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Professor Jay Shafer, founder of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company and author of "The Small House Book," said in a recent interview that he didn't understand why people would pay so much to live in a home when they could pay as little as 10 percent of their income if they just downsize their home dreams. These days, home buyers are looking for homes in which to live a more responsible life, similar to the way our grandparents and great-grandparents did prior to World War II. During that era, people only used what they needed, never took more than what was necessary, and built their homes to be lived in, not for appearance sake. As our country faces increased challenges on the environmental and financial fronts, the one solution that addresses both of these issues is the tiny house market. If you're considering on making a move to a tiny house here's how you can shrink your house dreams to turn them into a reality.

 
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