Overall, she said it was “no big deal” to live in her parents’ backyard, although she said throwing girls’ nights was pretty challenging in such a small house. In one of Matson’s TikTok videos, you can see that one large package takes up the whole living room and kitchen, while Matson says that not putting away her laundry for one day means not being able to walk anywhere or do anything.
SMALL SLIDE AND SWING SET FULL
Upstairs, there’s a full bed, a dresser, a clothing rack, and pretty much no storage space.īut of course it’s called a tiny house for a reason-it’s small. Downstairs, Matson says, there’s a loveseat, two barstools across from her countertop, and a narrow fridge that’s made for tiny houses. Matson says she loved everything about the process of building the tiny house with her dad, including choosing the paint colors and scrolling through Pinterest for inspiration. “They didn’t want me to ever have to go through that, and so they wanted to set me up.” “My parents didn’t grow up with a whole lot of money, they started from nothing and paid cash for their whole entire house to be built,” Matson said. Either way, she says she wouldn’t be where she’s at today without her parents’ help. If interest rates hadn’t shot up from their pandemic lows along with home prices, it might’ve been a different story, Matson added, given she doesn’t absolutely love the home she just bought but figured it was a good investment. “I don’t think I would able to purchase for another five to seven years.” “If I had to rent, there’s no way I would have been able to purchase a home,” Matson said. Although, the City of Huntington Beach attempted to ban ADUs but rescinded that ban after the State of California filed a lawsuit against the city. Two professors of architecture at Miami University have advocated for Matson’s style of housing, also known as an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU. Those younger people who live with their parents typically live inside their parents’ home, but arrangements like Matson’s are becoming more common. With home prices rising more than 40% on a national level during the Pandemic Housing Boom, and still rising in some markets, many young adults are getting priced out and have no choice but to live with their family. Following the onset of the pandemic, 2020 was the first time since the Great Depression that over half of all Americans under 29 were living with their parents, and most said their motivation was to save money. Matson’s experience isn’t an anomaly-adults have been increasingly moving in with their parents for the past five decades, according to a 2022 report from Pew Research Center. With a 30-year fixed rate at 6.87%, her monthly mortgage payment is over $2,000, which she says is “insane.” The average home value in College Station is slightly above $325,600, an increase of 6.4% over the past year, per Zillow. Matson says she put down 3% (roughly $7,500) on her $250,000 new home. “It’s a lot for one person,” she says, especially given she was living in a 350 square-foot house, and now she’s living in a 1,500-square-foot, three bedroom, two bathroom house. Matson said she thinks it cost them less than $100,000. Her parents paid for everything, from the construction costs to furnishing (she says there wasn’t much to furnish because it’s so small). They did everything themselves, except for the granite countertops. She recalls that it took her and her dad around eight months to turn the fort into her tiny home. The savings go a bit further than that, too. She also eats her mom’s home-cooked meals every day, Matson says, so she’s saved on food, too. A studio comparable to Matson’s tiny house would be closer to $1,200, meaning she could have saved as much as $72,000 over those five years. She says her friends typically pay around $800 a month for a bedroom in a shared apartment-that equates to $48,000 over a five-year timespan.
It’s hard to put a number on how much Matson’s saved, but the average rent for all bedrooms and property types in College Station is $1,800, per Zillow.
Some even requested blueprints to replicate her house for themselves. She says she gets tons of messages from her followers asking for advice, and a lot of them are young adults looking to save money in a historically unaffordable housing market. The exterior view of Matson’s tiny home on her parents’ property.įor the next five years, Matson lived in the backyard fort and gained close to 100,000 followers on TikTok, where she posted housing and “tiny living” content.
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