Yahoo Finance How struggling Aussie mum bought a home she'll pay off in a few short years
Amber was struggling "for years" when she realised she could buy a home for just $85,000.
A Queensland mum struggling to pay rent managed to buy a brand new home with just $55,000 in savings and will have her custom-made sanctuary paid off within a few years.
Sound too good to be true? There is a big - well, tiny - compromise she had to make.
Amber shared a three-bedroom unit with her son in Queensland’s Darling Downs and said she had been “struggling for years and years” when the rent went up again last year.
“Most of my money was going toward rent and all I could think was, ‘I am paying off someone else’s dream’,” the 47-year-old artist told Yahoo Finance.
The Army veteran desperately wanted to get into the property market but she wasn’t making enough money to be considered for a loan. As the years passed, prices continued to climb, her finances were drained by the rising cost of living, and her dream started feeling further out of reach.
“I knew my son would leave home and I would be alone trying to pay the bills. Sometimes there wasn’t enough money for food. It’s just crazy,” she said.
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Amber had never considered that she might be able to buy a new build with a clean, modern design, let alone with such a short turnaround. But that’s exactly what happened after she gave up on the suburban rental grind and plonked an $85,000 tiny home in the countryside.
“I ordered it in January and moved in in March,” Amber said.
‘Shipping container with windows’: Realities of living in a tiny home
For the six-foot-tall mum, home sweet home is inside an insulated metal shell measuring 7.5 metres long, 2.5 metres wide and 3.4 metres tall.
There’s a no-frills kitchen, bedroom, living room and bathroom, with enough windows to ensure she’s drenched in natural light and, at night, given a spectacular view of the stars.
She cooks using an air fryer and has a camping gas stove but is planning to set up a BBQ when she extends her deck and installs raised vegetable garden beds. These renovations are all possible given she’s not paying off a 30-year mortgage.
Another positive to growing is cutting grocery bill costs. This year, she will have a harvest of lettuce, lemons, limes, grapefruit, guava, strawberries and carrots.
Friends had imagined her toilet would be a hole in the ground but Amber said it was a “beautiful Swedish design with separate parts for liquids and solids”. She has native acacias that she’s "personally fertilized".
Her nearest neighbour is about a kilometre away and she’s just 45 minutes from where she used to live, so can pop in to see her friends when she likes.
The self-described “country girl” said she was loving her “simple, beautiful life”.
“At first I thought, ‘Gosh, how am I going to fit in this?’ But I haven't missed having more space.”
The cost of going tiny
The banks would not give Amber a loan. But, for argument's sake, if she was able to buy a property in the town she was renting in, the median price of a house is $631,753 and a unit $385,000. When you add in the interest she’d pay over the life of the loan, there’s a significant saving in opting for an $85,000 home on wheels.
From $310 a week in rent, plus energy bills, Amber now pays just $150 a week to rent a space on a 120-hectare plot of land - and that includes her power.
She had to pay to get connected to the grid but her electricity use is minimal. All she needs to run are the lights and appliances, along with her air conditioner and heater. Given the small space and insulation, she only has to run them for about 20 minutes.
She bought a water tank and pump, which a member of her “lovely little community” let her pay off in fortnightly installments. She needs to refill the 5,000L tank every few months, at a cost of $150. But she was paying more than $500 every six months for water in her rental.
Sustainability was another essential for Amber when choosing her new lifestyle, and she uses grey water collected from the shower and sink to keep her plants happy.
Financial snapshot: Monthly budget side by side
‘Financial freedom’: Housing crisis challenges
Because Amber is currently living on someone else’s land, there’s an element of uncertainty. But that paled when compared to the pitfalls of being a tenant, she said.
“I’ve got a two-year lease and, if anything changes, I can move if I need to. I might have to say goodbye to my little orchard but I can always start again.”
Amber is confident she will pay off her home within a few years and hopes to purchase a plot of land for herself, with aspirations of setting up a bigger tiny home model and using her current home as an investment for city-dwellers looking to have a short-term stay in the countryside.
“I’d never be able to save to buy land if I was living in suburbia. I would’ve been 70 and on my way into a home before I could afford it,” she said.
“I can’t get over the amount of rent, even for people on a low income, just to keep a shelter over your head. It’s not sustainable.”
Her situation is not unique.
Rents are high and the number of properties available are at an all-time low. Experts say that’s not going to change anytime soon. Buying a home presents its own challenges as values remain high, deposits are out of reach and the cost of a mortgage pushes people into debt for longer.
Five million, or 29 per cent of Aussie loan-holders were at risk of mortgage stress in July this year, according to Roy Morgan research.
Amber is part of a growing chorus who argue tiny homes are “an answer to the housing crisis”.
Tiny homes vs Councils: Regulation clash
Tackling the housing crisis will take far more than tiny houses to control.
But it does offer an interesting relief point for people with less money.
The transition does pose some wider challenges. Some owners have struggled with council regulations, which include requirements for things like the ceiling height of a permanent dwelling, down to how waste and water supply is managed.
The difficulty is that local laws can differ from council to council and advocates argue a lack of uniformity hampers the innovative practice, which has been used to help in disaster situations like bushfires or crisis accommodation.
Conventional strategies including subsidies for first home buyers or relaxed planning controls have not been effective in “solving the complex challenges of a seriously dysfunctional housing market”, according to Griffith University’s Cities Research Institute.
Researchers surveyed planners around Australia and found many were willing to join the process of developing and regulating the tiny home movement.
“We need to experiment with new approaches to housing, and learn as we go,” they said.
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