Alternative Housing

Yesterday morning I read a Get Rich Slowly guest post about the lease-to-own option for owning your own home. I, myself, feel that this option is a bit risky, especially in today’s down turned housing market (update 2016: Many of the least to own options have disappeared). Too many home owners are underwater on their mortgages, and my guess is that there are just too many unknown variables that could jeopardize this type of agreement. However, this post got me thinking about people, like myself, who were working to improve their credit and save money for a down payment to own a home. It also made me ‘think outside of the box’ (to use an educational phrase I’ve come to like a lot) on other alternative’s to conventional home ownership.

[dropshadowbox align=”none” effect=”lifted-both” width=”auto” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]If you’re interested in building your own tiny home, check out the Tiny House Plans book. It has some great building plans.[/dropshadowbox]

I’ve gathered some great information on building small houses from reading TinyHouseBlog.com. This blog focuses on wonderful and refreshing little house plans that seem simple enough to build.  I am still researching the details of purchasing land suitable for building a residential structure and all that entails, but in the mean time, I’m exploring all of my options (this ‘my’ includes my husband too.) ThisTinyHouse.com showcases alternative living arrangements, and according to the ‘about’ page, Hillary (the blog author), has lived in some very unusual and non-conventional housing structures.

As I continue to research all of my options, the one thing that I keep turning to are small house plans. The kind of do-it-yourself, build-your-dream-house, mentality. Here is an example of what I’m thinking about; this adorable, quaint cottage house plan illustration makes me want to curl up near the fireplace with a good book. The cottage’s square footage, under 400 square feet, is a little small for my husband and me, but when I see such a house, I can’t help but melt.

The alternative living arrangements I read about on ThisTinyHouse.com are also inspiring. I often discuss some of them with my husband as ways we could save money quicker towards a down payment on land or a house. He is always open to this method; we recently scouted out some large shed’s at The Home Depot and bantered around the idea of living in one on land we purchase. (I think it could actually be done since it doesn’t snow where I live, we wouldn’t freeze to death!)

As our journey continues, and we reassess our time line for purchasing a house (or land to build a house), I’m keeping all of my options open and not settling for something that I will be unhappy with in a few years time. We also want to choose a financially intelligent option and not take on too much debt. The more I research, the more ideas I acquire that will lead us to our ultimate little house in the valley.

*Photo: StrawBale.com