Tiny House Tips: Finding The Perfect Builder With Till Buch

Till from Tiny Easy shares the story of how they started their company to help people understand and build their own tiny houses. They offer DIY-friendly construction documents and software that helps people design their own tiny homes. Tiny houses provide an affordable solution to the housing crisis, allowing people to own a home without a high entry barrier. Tiny homes also offer the opportunity to disconnect from busy city life and live closer to nature. Till recommends finding a builder that is reasonably close, has a good track record, and offers customization options. He believes that tiny homes will continue to be relevant as an alternative housing option and for short-term holiday stays.

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Transcript

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It takes a brave and independent mindset to go tiny. If you are trying to figure out your tiny pivot, this podcast is here to inspire and connect you with the other unconventional, gritty, inspirational people within this community. I am Laura Lynch, your tiny house friend and host. On this show, we are always going to come back to money because as a financial planner, this is the question I hear the most. How do I make this work for me financially? Well, that's my jam, so jump in, let's go. New episodes drop every Thursday. So, Til from Tiny Easy, welcome to Less House, More Moolah podcast. So good to record this conversation with you. I'm super excited about the work you have done for the DIYer and certainly those out there carving their niche profession and designing tiny houses too. Thank you for being on the podcast today. Please introduce yourself and share with the audience where you are right now. Sure, yeah. First of all, thank you so much for having me, Laura. It's a pleasure to be on. I mean, we already had a conversation a week ago and it was really nice to talk. And yeah, I absolutely love what you're doing for the community also, of course. And I think there just needs to be a lot more information out there of what you're putting out there. So it's really nice to see that you're giving that resource out to the community, which is amazing. But yeah, I'm in New Zealand, which is on the other side of the world for probably most of you guys that are listening here. So yeah, it's probably a solid 20 hour flight or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, awesome. And so let's talk a little bit about the Tiny Easy story. I know you all have been at this crazy thing that you're doing for a few years now. Tell us about Tiny Easy and who you help. Absolutely. Yeah. So we're a small team here, Tiny Easy. We're from New Zealand, of course. And it all started out with my twin brother and his partner actually wanting to build a tiny house. And we were quite young, still in high school, I think, at that point. And there was just not that much information about going tiny here in New Zealand. And they knew that a tiny house would be the solution for them to own something that they could live in. And yeah, also not have to pay lots of rent or pay mortgage straight away, you know, which is really hard to do when you're just getting started. And what they've done, actually, they started out in the tiny house industry by working with a local tiny house builder here in New Zealand. And. They helped them build and then Lauren actually ended up drafting plans for them. And yeah, just really helping the build team put together a solid set of plans that they could build off doing custom plans and all that kind of stuff for the builder. And then later on, we actually all three of us came together, myself, Till and my two co -founders, Lauren and Eugene that I just talked about. And we thought, okay, we want to go in and... start tiny easy to help more people actually understand what it takes to go tiny and also help them provide a direction with design. What kind of tiny house you could build. And we just started out making tiny house plans. so just construction documents that would help you go through the building process. And we made them very DIY friendly. So we started just by very nice, nicely annotated floor plans. And then we added more and more stuff. with instructions of, let's say, how do you build a frame? How do you build cabinets, tools? What kind of tools do you need? So everything that you need around plans, basically to understand how to build it. And we saw that as a great solution, but a lot of people actually want to design their own tiny house. And we ended up doing a custom design service for some time, but then realized it's not necessarily a scalable solution. So we made a software that helps people design their own tiny homes. And we've been at that for... I mean, TinyEasy has been up and running for almost four years now. The software has been going for around two years. And yeah, so thousands of tiny houses have been designed with the 3D tiny house designer now. And businesses are also using it to design tiny homes for their clients. And so yeah, it's basically the go -to design software to easily design tiny homes and generate tiny house plans without actually having to know how to draft. So. software does all of that stuff for you. So we try to make it as easy as possible for anyone who wants to design a tiny house and then get into the construction process as easily as possible. That's so awesome and such an important need in the whole process of tiny homes and there was no one else necessarily coming to the table with a tech solution it sounds like. And so, You know, even though you wouldn't share with me before that there aren't, you know, that many tiny homes in New Zealand, just because of population, you all came up with a brilliant idea that's really served an important niche for people. Appreciate it. Yeah, it's very niche. There's not really anything like that out there. And I guess it's also, it's a small industry. So I guess a lot of big businesses didn't really go after this, but we love the tiny house industry. Lauren and Eugene, my two co -founders, they live in their own tiny house that they have built, actually DIY'd themselves. And yeah, the software helps more people to do that. And it's really started out as a passion project. And now it's really nice to see that people are using that resource. And yeah, it's growing day after day, year after year. So it's nice to see that it's doing the thing. Yeah. And so when we talk before, you kind of share with me where your clients are around the globe, because it's not just US. that has this tiny house phenomenon or a housing crisis for that matter. So what problems are people facing in places like Australia, New Zealand and the other countries where you all are seeing projects come up and running on Tidy EZ? Sure. I mean, over the years, we've worked with people everywhere around the world. There's not a lot of countries we haven't touched really. So of course the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, but also in Europe, Norway, Spain, Germany. The Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, all of those countries. We've worked with people and it just really gives us a good insight into the industry and the problems that people are facing. And one thing that we've seen is that a housing crisis is not just a thing over in the US. It happens everywhere, especially here in New Zealand. Also, I mean, we're from here, so we're very immersed into that. But the thing is people just can't afford a house when they get started. Just the entry barrier is so high that you need to put down a deposit. that you need to save up for years and then the mortgage repayments cost more than what you could afford on a regular salary. So you can maybe just make it work on two decent salaries of two people. Most of the time you probably have to split that and co -own with another party if you really want to make it work. But if you want to get in quickly, a tiny house is the way to go. Just simply because the entry barrier is so low in comparison to the regular real estate market. And that is unanimous around the world. And so of course, each country has their own different solution to tiny homes. It's always slightly different. But it always ends up working the same way. You build small, you try to minimize your spending on the materials by keeping it as small as possible, of course. And that allows you to build a tiny house for a very, very small price tag in comparison to buying a plot of land with a tiny, with an actual house on it. And. The good thing is it enables you to rent land, which is a little bit different to what you otherwise do. And so that means, okay, you provide the house that you put on the land, you pay for that upfront, but then that means you can rent a piece of land that probably costs a third, maybe half of the regular renting price. So it just simply reduces the expenses, meaning that you can work less if you want to do that, or you can simply save up and get ahead that way. And That seems to be a solution everywhere around the world. So the tiny house movement simply helps out that way. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think that that barrier to entry point is so universal and people are really facing this. And yet in the US, we don't have a good lending product. And certainly saving up is an option for folks. But it would be great to see some tiny house mortgages coming. Do you know if that exists in other places? So it, I mean, we start to see some products being developed over in the US and Canada, right? And of course, I'm not necessarily an expert on that field, but it does seem to be actually be more pronounced over there. We have the same issue here in Australia and New Zealand. There's not necessarily any lending products around it just simply because the tiny house as an asset isn't necessarily easy to get a mortgage on just, you know, it's hard. harder to resell and banks are not as used to it, I guess. So there still needs to be more work done. The main solution around here is to get a personal loan. But the best thing you can do is save up as much as you can yourself. So you don't actually have to go into that because the interest rates are so much higher than regular mortgages for tiny houses. So if you can really live minimalistically and think about, do I really need to have that 50 foot tiny house? Can it be a lot smaller? You know, can I cut down that way? It might. The best way I would say is still to save up for it, build it. If you can do some of the work yourself or get some friends and family to help, you can simply cut down on the labor, of course. And that's what Lauren and Eugene were able to do. And because of that, they could build it for a lot less. Of course, they had to spend their own time on it. That's the downside of that. But in the end, you can get into it a lot cheaper than if you would have to go out and take a loan out for it. Yeah. So. Aside from the affordability issue, what do you see as, especially for those who are trying to buy their first home, what do you see about this that's tied back to changing needs and the values that people hold these days as opposed to maybe what was important to us in past decades? Yeah, I mean, I can give my side of the perspective because I'm on the younger side, so I haven't experienced all of that. But I would say there is a shift in what people want. And I would say there's different segments of people of, you know, what might be a good fit for them. For some people, it might be a great fit to live in town and live close to the Metro because that's where they work. And in those places, you have higher density, meaning you can live in an apartment or in a townhouse. And that works well for them. Most of the time you'll probably be renting because it's going to be expensive to do that. But I would say the tiny house movement is best for people that want to disconnect a little bit more and want to be away from a busy town. And that's it lines up because in the end, a tiny house requires some land to put on, right? It's not necessarily a very high density solution. If you think about it, right, it's going to be hard to put 50 tiny houses on a very small plot of land of what you could achieve with an apartment building instead. But if you go out into the countryside and you're happy to live out in that area, then the tiny house is a great solution. Land is cheaper that way as well. And then the building itself is a lot cheaper anyway, because it is a lot smaller and the materials are cheaper. So I would say for those that don't want to be in the town, you can work from home specifically, right? That movement helps to push more people outside of the city as well. I would say it is a great fit for them. And I guess the work from home movement, but also the... disconnecting from the regular lifestyle, working in town, commuting to town. That is how the tiny house movement really fits that specific segment of people. Yeah. And that's my tiny house story too, is the getting away from town and getting closer to the earth and being part of nature and working remotely and all of those things. I think that aligns with a, you know, sort of a focus around being a nature more. And so maybe, you know, that works well for folks that are inclined that way. And then folks that really want to be in the heart of things, that density has to go up, right? So they have to build up and not just a lot of tiny houses at a low, you know, single story level. So you really shared kind of the origin story of Tiny Easy from the standpoint of it, you know, coming out of a self -build. So it sounds like you all really have a lot of passion there for the DIY builder. What do you see as any other benefits of a DIY build beyond certainly the cost, right? And the, you know, kind of the quicker start without having to, you know, maybe get a loan if you can kind of pay as you build. Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, a DIY build is very different to going with a regular builder. So, if you DIY, you have access to your own time, first of all, right? So, you can really spread out the build project over weekends. That's really probably what you're going to have time for anyway, because you're going to be working. And that way you are able to save... just simply a lot of money, right? I mean, we've already talked about that by being able to put in your own time. You can build something for probably half of the cost, maybe sometimes even a third of the cost because labor is expensive and businesses need a profit margin on top of that as well. So you can cut that out fully. Then in the end, you can also use different materials that other builders don't necessarily build with. So you can go for secondhand materials, for example. Most builders would only build with new materials because of warranties, of course. So if you're comfortable and you find, let's say a house that was demolished and you have a set of windows that you use for your tiny house, great, use it. Of course, you need to make sure that they're still intact and they have good quality, but it's going to be a lot cheaper than buying a new one, which is also not bad for the environment. So I would say other materials as well, reclaimed materials outside of windows in general, you can use that of course as well. So for. siding or cladding, you can use those materials and just, you can really think about where can I save costs here, which is a lot easier to do when you're DIYing versus when you're getting it built by a builder because they usually don't have that kind of flexibility. But I would say the DIY approach, you need to be okay with spending quite a bit of time immersing yourself into the matter of understanding the basics of building, understanding how tools work. So once you are happy to do that, then it's going to be a great solution. If you really want a tiny house tomorrow, I would say get a builder to do it. It's already going to be a better solution. But yeah, so that's my recommendations when it comes to that. Yeah. So you mentioned that you need to kind of get comfortable with the idea that you're going to need to familiarize yourself and take some time with the build process. I'm sure that in your years in this space, you've probably heard of a common mistake or two. And so I'm wondering what are some things people need to watch out for when they're heading into their first DIY build? Sure. So the first thing is overcomplicating the design. It will make your build experience very difficult. So if you see tiny houses online, there's so many different design choices, right? And you want to pack everything into the design. If you... make everything move and swivel and fall, it's going to be very difficult to build. And the same thing goes with the exterior of the design. If you have a very complicated facade, you have lots of recesses, different angles. Again, it's going to be very difficult. The simpler you can keep your design, the easier it's going to be to build. So if you have one monoslope shape or a gable shape that doesn't have 300 skylights and different angles. It's going to be so much easier to build because you can build a repetitive frame. You don't have to think about custom engineered solutions, but you can go with the standard building principles. And people can simply help you with those a lot easier than if you come up with a very extravagant idea. So if I was to DIY something myself, I would design a very simple monoslope shell. or a simple gable shell, which is a lot easier to build. I would limit my windows. I would limit my doors as well. You don't actually need that many of them to create a nice interior if you put them into the right places. And that way you will have an easy experience. You can also think about getting a frame pre -built for you. So let's say some steel framing companies, if you send them your design, they can... build the frame and put it up on the trader for you, meaning you don't actually have to build a frame, which is a huge time saver. And that also makes sure that your tiny house is square. So when you're building in your interior lining, you don't have to cut things off everywhere just to make it work. So that's, that's one way to save some work there. Otherwise, shell builds, if you're not super comfortable with building the exterior and making sure everything is waterproof correctly, a lot of builders offer shell builds. You give them the design and the plans. They build it up until rough -in stage, so the siding is on, everything is waterproof, but then you can go and put in the insulation. You can hire your own electrician, your own plumber. You can put in the interior lining, build your cabinets. So everything that doesn't require for the tiny house to be waterproof, that will save you a lot of time and a lot of headache as well, because waterproofing can be difficult sometimes. So it will cost a little bit more, but in the end, you save yourself. probably the most difficult part of the DIY build. Hey there, Laura here. On Less Housemore Moolah podcast, we hear so many stories of people living unconventional lives. Each of them is literally building their alt -American dream. Are you tired of putting your dreams on hold because of money? Then let's fix it. If you'd love to buck the system, quit your nine to five job and park yourself outside while you work towards financial security, but you can't seem to get past step one money. If you have a vision of an all -American dream and are sick of making Pinterest boards, then let's make progress. I have a two -part offering that's gonna help you. First, I'm gonna give you access to my financial freedom calculator so that you'll understand your numbers and have a tangible starting point. This is free. Second, we're gonna book a session to figure out your finances so that you can live your all -American dream as soon as possible. This is paid. Why am I giving you something for free? Because I'm passionate about empowering people to choose an unconventional path. I walked away from a six figure corporate salary to live in a tiny home to start this podcast and launch my firm. I am here to help people plan a life based on their values. If that's not literally putting my money where my mouth is, I don't know what it's. Now I'm going to ask you to put your money where your mouth is. That is if you're actually ready to fix this. Let's work together to figure out money. so that next time you're scrolling, you will know that you've officially taken action on your plans. This offering is for you if you don't know your net worth or how to calculate it. You are unsure of your cost of living or how much savings you need to take action. You don't know what money move you need to make next. Your dream of an unconventional life is built on your terms. This offering is for you if you want to feel confident about your money overall. You are seeking a permanent solution and not just a one -time motivational boost. And you want to learn about money from someone who shares your interest in breaking away from the norm. So what do you think? Are you tired of starting sentences with, someday when I, then go ahead and go to altamericandream .com and sign up for the Financial Freedom Calculator. Yeah, that's so interesting. There's so many different sort of ways to tackle this and it's so great that there are different builders out there offering, you know, here we'll do your frame or here we'll do your shell. And that just gives people different starting points. I don't, you know, I know that, you know, square is, you know, obviously important. Waterproofing is certainly important to people. And. That's all things that everybody can figure out, but maybe it just takes more time and you know, you have to dive in a little bit deeper than what you want to. I think one of the most confusing parts right now is just the jurisdictional standards and understanding and navigating through building codes and what does my county require and what does my state require? So does your software help to navigate all of that? Or is that more like on the. on the DIYer to go and get that information. Yeah. So the software helps you to design your tiny house, right? To communicate what the shape of it is, where the windows go, where the doors go, how big is it? What kind of dwelling is it? That's what the software helps you with. So it's the communication aspect of it. It's going to be a lot easier to approach anyone with your project and say, this is what I'm going to be building rather than here's my sketch. You know, so. that is going to be a much easier conversation that way. So that's how it helps in that way. When it comes to jurisdictions, of course, there's, we serve a lot of people everywhere around the world, like I said before. And my recommendation is to talk to people in your area that have gone tiny already. So everyone that has already finished the process, they will know a lot more about that topic already. So try to contact people. There's... usually tiny house groups of people that live in tiny houses, you can ask questions in there. You can also ask builders, even if you're not going to build with them in the end, you can ask them to point you in the right directions. And in the end, it's also going to be your choice of what you're comfortable with, right? So some people that live in a tiny house need to tick all the boxes, right? So everything is fully legal. Well, that's totally fine. I would, I would recommend it myself because in the end that you, you're going to be living more comfortably knowing that you can live in the spot for a long time. So I would say put in the work, talk to as many people as possible to understand the legalities of where you are living. Of course, some other people are also happy to not take all the boxes, right? And live in a little bit more of a gray area, you know, but it's in the end, totally your, your decision to make of what you're comfortable with. So yeah, from my perspective. Try to tick all the boxes if you can to make sure that, you know, don't go too big and oversized to the point where, you know, that's a house, not a tiny house, you know. That's going to be easier for you already. Just if you think about it from that perspective, if you stay tiny, you're going to be having an easier time. And if you connect to the right people, you're going to also just get a better understanding of what is possible or not. Yeah, that's good advice. My tiny house currently sort of, I guess, got grandfathered in to my county. My county taxes it as real estate, as a mobile home. Yes. Because at the time there wasn't any mechanism for checking the boxes. This was back before. Noah existed and the other standards and so I feel grateful for that. And at the same time, we all want to live in a place feeling comfortable and at peace that we're complying with the rules around us to the as much as possible. It just is one weight off the shoulders. But yeah, definitely there are people all over that can kind of point you in the right direction and people that have just built and gone through their county's permit process as an example, they will know. every little nuance and who to talk to. This is probably more important than anything. This person got me through the process. Exactly. Don't be afraid to reach out. People love helping and talking about tiny houses when they live in a tiny house. That's what I've seen at least. Yeah, for sure. You work with so many tiny house builders and so there are going to be people out there that do not want to build their own tiny house. Let's steer them in the right direction to what should buyers look for in a builder? Sure. So the first thing that I would recommend is look for a builder that's reasonably close to you. So it depends, of course, what country you live in. If you live in the US, there's very good infrastructure, so you can deliver nationwide reasonably easily. Of course, if you live in New Zealand, for example, I would say if you live on the North Island. Go with the build on the North Island. It's going to be easier than shipping it or going with a build in Australia, you know, shipping it overseas from another country is going to be harder, right? So if you can shop more locally, it's going to make your life easier. Another thing is look for their previous builds. If you see that they have a great history of building fantastic tiny homes, well, it's very likely that they're going to be building a great tiny home for you too. And talk to people that live in tiny homes that have been built by them, right? So just getting those references in. Of course, there's going to be tiny house businesses that are starting out and that's totally fine. They're probably also going to be providing a good product. But in the end, you just need to make sure that you vet them. You understand what their background is. And if they are, let's say certified by NOAA, for example, in your case, you know, that's already a good indicator that they want to do a good job for you. Right. So look, for certifications that might be available in your area as well. So the more certifications there are, they probably will be delivering a better product in the end as well. And don't be afraid to look at different builders. So rather than just saying, okay, I want to go with one tiny house builder only and they're going to build my tiny house. Look for five different builders, 10 different builders if you have the chance, because that way you can compare and you can get a feeling of maybe this builder that I saw at the start that I thought was great. it's not going to be as good anymore because I saw three other people that I think do a much better job than that first builder, you know, and just get different, I guess, reference points to see what is a good quality that you're happy with, right? And then in the end, you can also visit their workshop. A lot of good builders open up the workshop on specific days. So you can actually walk in and see what the process is like. If they have a clean workshop, they are well organized, they have a good process, it probably means you will have a good quality tiny house in the end as well. So all of those different indicators will help you pick the right builder. So there's probably a lot more things that I can talk about, but that's kind of the very quick run on of what I would look for. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I did a tour of a tiny house builder in Florida back a few months ago and... You know, it's just great to see how neatly they had everything put together and some of their models out in the parking lot. And, you know, I thought that was a great experience. And you could also get a sense for their heart and kind of, you know, why they're doing this, because it's not easy to be a successful tiny house builder right now. And so it's great to hear their why behind what they're doing too. Exactly. If they have been going for a while and they are very passionate about the industry and they're not coming at it from just a purely financial background, it probably means they will care a lot more about the tiny house that they'll be building for you. So again, it's just another reference point really to see if there might be a good option. Yeah. So when we last talked, you pointed me in the direction of a few different builders and I started to realize that there's actually different specialties that come out of the tiny house world. So let's talk a little bit about the different categories. and specialties of builders. Sure. So yeah, there's a huge spectrum of tiny house builders out there. And I guess the first one that comes to mind is the custom tiny house builder. And usually these are smaller businesses that build a few tiny homes a year. And they will do a lot of work to make sure that the design is 100 % tailored to you, right? So they create a custom design for you. They have a design process in -house. They use a design software. Sometimes they use pen and paper. Sometimes they use our design software, right? So they have some kind of process set up to create a customized design for you. And they will go through a lot of different revisions to make sure it's fully made for you, right? So that's the custom tiniest builder. Usually that involves a longer process because it's some back and forth to get the design right. And then there's a quoting process, of course, as well, because if it's custom, you need to really account for every single material. to make sure that it's done right and the price makes sense in the end. And then there's the other side of the tiny house builder niche, I guess, which is the more spec builder, if that makes sense, right? So bigger businesses that have been in the industry for a while and they have nailed down the different models. So they might have three models. For example, I was talking to Nordic and Spruce before they have three different models that they build. with some modifications, right? But it's a starting point. And so then they make some modifications to tailor it to the customer. Or then there's even more spec tiny house builders that really have nailed down five, eight different models. And then they have one or two different layouts for that tiny house. They have set materials. So it's really almost like a car that you're buying and you're just really choosing your different materials and your different options. So you have a little bit of flexibility to personalize it for you. So there's a different spectrum of customization to, I guess, personalization. The customized builder will always or will most likely be a little bit more expensive because it takes more time for them. And it's just a longer process involved because the building process takes longer if you are doing everything custom from scratch, right? Because you need to figure out the framing. You need to figure out... the layout and your team isn't used to the layout. So there will be a lot of back and forth. The more spec tiny house builder with pre-designed options will usually be cheaper because they have standardized their systems and they are more efficient in the long run. But that also means you will not get a tiny house that is a hundred percent custom, right? So you just really need to pick the end of the spectrum of what you want for your project. But there's usually solutions for every part of what you could possibly want to make sense. Yeah. Well, it mirrors the regular house building industry, right? There are developers who buy up a track of land and they put up a bunch of cookie cutter houses that look very similar and they have their two by fours down to exact efficient amounts and they know exactly where to make their cuts so that they're not wasting any lumber. And so their product, you know, you get to pick. maybe your granite or your paint colors, right? But you don't get to move walls around. Whereas you could also buy a piece of land and then you could have a custom home builder come out and build you something totally unique. And obviously it's going to cost more. Exactly. Yeah. It's, it's basically the same, but tiny. So yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So, you know, the crazy thing is, is that you and I are doing this thing. We're talking on this podcast. We're building these businesses. We are doing it with the expectation that there is going to be a vibrant tiny home industry. And certainly there are listeners out there who are still not sure whether, you know, tiny homes are going to, you know, be a fad or an ongoing thing. So what makes you think that tiny homes are going to continue to be relevant in our lifetimes? Sure. I mean, tiny homes have been going on since around 1999. I think that's the rough starting point. When it first popped up as a term, of course, and you know, that is almost 25 years now or it is 25 years now, you know, so it has actually been around for quite some time. Only that the industry has been maturing since then at the start it was a very small offering. Now there's lots of different builders, lots of DIYs that have done it, you know? So the thing is tiny homes are really just another option to housing. So if you think about what I was talking about before, there's high density, there's low density. In regular architecture, there's single family homes, there's duplexes, there's townhouses, and then there's apartment buildings and skyscrapers, right? So you can see there's a gradual increase in size and density. The tiny house is on the very other end of the spectrum, which is usually not high density, and it is very minimalist, and it is good for a specific use case. And what I was saying before, you will always have areas where there will be land and it is not as dense. So you're not trying to fit into a specific housing plan. And for tiny houses in that case will be fantastic because you can get out into the nature. You can build something that is more affordable and you can work from home. And I honestly don't really see that change over time. If at all, maybe there will be a bigger movement because people will realize. It is a really nice lifestyle to have, to not have a big expense every single month to repay your mortgage or your rent. But instead you can focus more on your life. You can focus on being outdoors more, going after your hobbies or like in our case, building our businesses, right? Because we don't have as high of an expense to just simply live, you know? And so for that part of the population, I think tiny houses will be a great use case. And apart from that, they're also great for short -term holiday stays. So for people that want to get away, I mean, if you think about it, if you're a couple, you don't need a lot more than a tiny house to have a good holiday. It's got a bed, it has a bathroom, it has a kitchen most of the time as well. And you're able to disconnect and you get out into the nature. And so I would say there's a huge movement at the moment that's going towards short-term holiday stays as tiny homes and... I also don't see that stuff because people want to disconnect and get away from the busy life. So if at all it's going to be getting bigger and bigger and we're seeing bigger companies building businesses around creating, I guess, Airbnb experiences around tiny homes as well to fully disconnect. Don't have Wi -Fi, have a fireplace, you know, that's getting a lot more popular now as well. Yeah, that's awesome. I'm definitely looking forward to having some disconnected. moments myself, I was so disconnected to my tiny house for so long. And then we got the starlink. Now I'm like, no, I've got to, how do I get further away? I'm going to go to the cave up on the, you know, up on the on the hill there. That's sometimes it's a good thing to not have internet. It is. It's a beautiful thing. Yeah, thanks for sharing all that. great information and your experience, you know, having been around in the industry for a while and having built a very important product for both the DIYer and the home builder. Please share with listeners who may not have encountered you before in Tiny EZ where they can find and connect with you. Sure. So, I mean, first of all, thank you again so much for having me on the podcast. It was a pleasure talking and I look forward to catching up again at some other point of course as well. And yeah, keeping in touch with how things are going on your end. And Yeah, so to catch up with tiny easy, you can visit us on tiny easy .com and it is tiny, the word tiny and then the word easy.com. So no abbreviations. so make sure to look for that. Otherwise Google tiny easy, you'll probably find it. And on Instagram, you can find us as well at tiny .easy. That's our handle over there. So that's the best places to connect. Otherwise we're also on Pinterest. You can probably find us there too. So that's a different places to connect and. If you're looking to go tiny and you have some questions, feel free to send us an email. We are a small team. It's probably going to be me responding anyway. I'm happy to point you in some right directions there, of course, as well. So yeah, I always try to help whenever possible in the community to help point people in the right direction. Well, Till, thank you so much for all of that. And again, thanks for being here. Yeah, thank you so much, Laurie. It was a pleasure. Hey, I'm honored that you listened to this episode of Less House, More Mola. I hope something in it will help you continue to move toward a life aligned with your values. Every algorithm out there is trying to tell us what to prioritize, but we get to choose. If you haven't ever identified your key values, I have a free resource on my website to help you. Just have to go to thetinyhouseadvisor.com. It's the tiny house. adviser .com. At the bottom of the page, you can grab the Tiny Life Values Worksheet. When we design a life around what is our core truth, we shortcut to deep fulfillment. See you next Thursday. Please see the show notes for important disclosure regarding the tiny house advisor LLC and this episode.