Colorado Tiny House Festival + Understanding Insurance, Financing etc. for Tiny Homes

Laura Lynch attended the Colorado Tiny House Festival and shares her experience and key takeaways. She discusses topics such as financing options for tiny homes, finding parking for tiny homes, buying used tiny homes, insurance for tiny homes, and health insurance for those living in tiny homes. She also highlights the interest in tiny homes as investment properties, ADUs, and building communities. Laura emphasises the importance of research, asking the right questions, and building relationships to overcome the challenges of tiny living.

For full show notes and more information visit: https://bit.ly/4fh0VHl

Go to AltAmericanDream.com

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'm 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. Welcome everyone to Less House More Moolah, episode 61. I am Laura Lynch, your host recording from my tiny house here in Northern New Mexico. Super excited to share with you about the event that I attended last weekend. I went to the Colorado Tiny House Festival in Brighton, Colorado, which is outside of Denver. Me and my family, we took a couple of days and did some camping on each end of the festival. We hopped in our truck and loaded up our Lance truck camper and spent a couple of days in West Cliff, Colorado. We did some hiking in the mountains with the dogs and got to see the beautiful summer valley there full of so many wildflowers. And then we headed over to the Colorado Tiny House Festival. There was vendor camping, so we were able to camp there on site. There was also a lot of the folks bringing their tiny homes, their schoolies, and their vans to the festival who camped on the fairgrounds in their display vehicles. And then after we left, we were able to go up to Gunnison, Colorado and spend a couple of days there. It Crazy because we went from a 40s at night in the mountains to 105 on the fairgrounds on Sunday. So definitely a big range of temperature differences. And so that was quite fun. I am so glad that we had the AC working in our camper. If you spent any time in a camper and you park it for a while, you know, you're never quite sure. if all the things are gonna function when you try to start them up again. So I was really grateful when the AC was blasting that cold air when we were there because my gosh, it was pretty toasty on the fairgrounds that weekend. So I had some key takeaways from the event that I wanted to share. I also noticed so many tiny homes while we were on our way to and from the festival, lots of tiny homes in RV parks in Colorado, which of course is one of the parking options that people do have. So I love to see that seeing those tiny homes along the road and knowing that there are so many folks out there living tiny. And so they have been able to make it work and so can we. So super excited to see that. another thing that I thought was super interesting was all of the news was warning people to stay inside because it was super, super hot. And yet, gosh, did the people show up. I mean, I have been to some other tiny home festivals in the East and I have never seen a volume of people like this, as who showed up for the Colorado tiny house festival when it was triple digits. So, you know, people were there. The numbers that I heard were something over 6 ,000 people on the first day and probably getting close to similar numbers on Sunday. Lots and lots of people were there. I handed out a ton of podcast stickers. So if you are new to Less House, More Moolah podcast, because you saw me at the festival, my gosh, welcome. Super excited to have you here to hear all of the great stories. and tips that this podcast likes to share whenever we can get great guests to come on and tell their story or to give some good ideas. So welcome to all new listeners. Super excited to continue the conversation about Tiny Living with you after the festival. There were, course, the two heavy hitting topics that we heard a lot, me and the other vendors that were nearby me. One was about financing. Of course, everyone coming to a festival is generally checking out the lifestyle, checking out the homes, deciding whether it's going to be a good fit for them or not. And so when they start to do research, one of the first hurdles that they encounter is financing. How am I going to buy? a tiny house. And so I talked to a lot of different people about what options are out there. Certainly we have talked about this a good deal on this podcast. Abby Schenck's episode talked a good deal about financing and we'll continue to have this conversation because the landscape, you know, continues to shift in this regard. But just as basic sort of rules of thumb, if you are new to the idea, There are not conventional mortgages in the traditional sense for tiny homes. so figuring out financing takes a little bit more creativity. There are personal loan options if you have good credit and a lending history. These are unsecured loans. So they're not securing your loan with your tiny home or any other. possession that you have and so therefore they have a higher interest rate because it is a more risky loan. They typically have caps on them that sometimes do not match how much you have to spend in order to buy a tiny house. So finding lending can be quite challenging. There are some RV loans available for certain tiny home builders who have a dealer's license. So talking to your builder, if you're gonna get one built, can be a great place to start. There are other solutions like DIY build. The tiny home I'm recording from was a DIY build. So we built it with cash from our income over the course of a year. And so that means that we never had any debt associated with the home. DIY can be a great solution as long as you know that you're gonna be able to park it somewhere. So figuring out where to park is the second really big important point that most people have to figure out. So back to financing, there's also saving, know, just figuring out how to reduce your current costs of living. I talked to a lot of young folks about there being no shame and maybe, you know, leaning on family or friends in order to reduce housing costs for a while in order to save up for a purchase. Any kind of loan typically requires some sort of down payment. So certainly figuring out how much you can save either for the whole thing or for a portion of the thing. That can be a good strategy. There's downsizing, which is typical of generations where folks have owned a home before. So downsizing out of a larger home into a tiny home is a path for many folks. All of those women out there who do tiny living because they downsize out of their original larger home, that is a great option. There is a huge shift in wealth going on in the country. So if you think that you might be up for an inheritance at some point, it can be hurt to have a conversation about that a little bit earlier. So lots of different ways to think about how to get yourself. moving in the right direction of being able to afford to buy a tiny home, whether that's through some combination of lending or saving or downsizing or selling stuff, whatever it takes, you have to kind of take the bull by the horns and really figure this thing out. So I did hand out a lot of financial freedom calculator, QR codes to help people sort of get their money organized and understand what their income is versus their expenses and what their total combined net worth is in order to help people pick a couple of action items so that they can start to move forward with some financial decision making. A lot of us tend to avoid money, so getting organized in that regard can be a great first to moving towards a tiny If you haven't yet checked out the Financial Freedom Calculator, there will be a message about it in this podcast, but it's at allamericandream .com. So the other item of course is parking. Where can I put my tiny house, which is a equally complicated topic. Where to put it, where to park it, whether to rent land, whether to buy land, whether to move it around, whether to park it in someone's backyard. There are a lot of complexities on this point that we've talked about a lot on this podcast and continue to talk about. there are some great resources coming to the table next week. There will be, or, actually in two weeks, I believe there's an episode coming out on my podcast where we are going to be talking about the park, your tiny house summit. this is going to be one solution. I also was beside the tiny home match. a crew, Kevin and Erica, who help people find land that is allowing tiny homes finding place to match up with either people who have land or people are renting land, that sort of thing. So there are some resources out there. A lot of folks are kind of parking their tiny a little bit. I don't want to say under the radar exactly, but there are places where the rules that enforced. So there is that option. I'm sitting on land where the rules are not enforced. And so that has really allowed us to live our tiny life. So, you know, kind of figuring out where rules are a little bit looser. I volunteer with the Tiny Home Industry Association, tinyhomeindustryassociation.org. I mentioned this a good bit. We have a resource map on the Tiny Home Industry Association where there is a lot of detail about regulation by state. So you can check out what's going on in your jurisdiction, whether city, county, state, and learn a little bit. This is a learning project. It's a research project, but you can certainly get through it. Lots of people are getting through it. And so it's just a matter of getting started, leaving yourself some extra time. to figure out where you can park. There are great communities coming online. Next week there will be an episode or actually coming up soon there will be an episode with a community in Colorado that's under development. In earlier episodes I talked with Poplar Creek in North Carolina. Communities are coming and communities can be seen on thetinyhomeindustryassociation website, along with choose tiny .com, which is Jill Canto's website that she is working on. Jill was also with me at the, at the festival and she and I will be recording an episode soon as well. So lots of good coming up, from those different resources about where to find parking, where to place your tiny home. Of course, all of that is largely driven where you would like to be, what aligns with your values, where you can get work if you still need to work, where you can do the things that you, the activities that you want to do, how much travel you wanna do, all of those things. So really exploring what your ideal life looks like and what pieces are constraints and what pieces are question marks. Those are all great things to start to explore as you head down the wear question. also heard a couple of people talking about buying used tiny homes. So certainly buying a secondhand tiny home can be a great option in the sense that perhaps you're getting a little bit of reduced costs because it's not brand new. Alaska Waggoner, the tiny house concierge who recorded with me episode 20 of this podcast is a resource when it comes to buying a used tiny home. She has realtor background and understands the legalities of making sure that there's a good transition of ownership and that you are protected. Also, you know, checking out your potential tiny home purchase to make sure that it is good quality valuations of used tiny homes. Alaska is probably the only expert out there. So that would be a great episode to check out if you're curious about buying used. Two other topics that were mentioned at the show was insurance for your tiny home, meaning insurance for your possessions, insurance for the home while it permanently placed or traveling, as well as liability protection. So whenever we hit the roads with a vehicle, we have to be worried about an accident and potential lawsuit. Likewise, if your home is permanently placed, we have to think about accidents on property. So protecting yourself, your home, your possessions, all of those things were covered in episode 59, Tiny Home Insurance episode 59. I also talked with someone about health insurance a little bit because if you are going to hit the road part -time or full-time, understanding how health insurance works from state to state, If you're potentially thinking about leaving your corporate job and starting some sort of side gig or self -employment or other work where health insurance is not provided through an employer and you are pre -Medicare age, figuring out health insurance is one topic that a lot of people have to work on. I did talk about this in episode 47 with a guest. So if you are thinking about that lifestyle shift and health insurance is one of the hurdles that you have to overcome, check out episode 47. So everyone at the show definitely was, I would say, in the early stages of research. It sounds like that folks had seen about tiny homes on TV or maybe been curious about them or gotten super passionate about minimalism or the lifestyle. And they were really in the early stages of figuring out how that was gonna work for them. And so that's where some of these big questions around financing, parking, buying, whether new or used, also, you know, insurance, these are all important topics that were coming up. But I also heard from a lot of folks interested in tiny homes as investment properties, rental income, also ADU ideas, gathering family around in multiple units, and a lot around building community. People seemed really interested and bought into the idea of tiny life being about community. And people were very interested in creating parking for others too. So I loved that because I feel like that that so embodies everything that we've heard from guests on this show about all of us wanting to create a deeper sense of connection with others and doing it by getting outside of the typical single family home track and headed into some sort of alternative living. There were long, long lines to tour the tiny homes. I was in a vantage point where I was seeing primarily tiny homes on my row. There were vans that people, van build outs that people were touring as well as schoolies. We had DIY builders bring their rigs and professional builders bringing their rigs to the show. So there was both the DIY element as well as professional. I found it really interesting as I was sitting underneath a shade tent shelter that people were standing in the sun in triple digits outside of these tiny homes waiting to get their chance to walk through. This really to me was indicative of a strong, strong sense of where people would like to see themselves. If this had been a casual curious, I would think that they would have said, okay, let's split and go get ice cream. But instead people were sticking it out and waiting through those long lines in order to see these homes and what they were like and to try them out and see if that would feel good for them. So that really makes me think There's a lot of pressure, lots of people wanting to move in this direction. And so this need for housing, this need for affordable housing, this need for less stuff and more focus on values, this desire for folks to live in a smaller and more sustainable way, all of these things were really showing evidence by people's commitment to get to see these homes. So I am really excited about where things might move. The more folks get motivated in this direction, the more pressure there will be on rulemaking and also on building codes and standards and on allowing tiny homes in communities and that sort of thing. So hopefully all of those folks are gonna be willing to not take no for an answer. And in fact, build a coalition if needed, ask the right questions, build relationships with decision makers in order to get some sort of tiny living allowed in the areas in which they want to live. Because we know that it isn't a paved path, but it is a path that we can pave ourselves. What we just have to be willing go outside of our comfort zone to ask the right questions, to build the right relationships, maybe to gather together with others to ask for what we want and need. And so I'm super excited about the energy and the commitment of everybody that was at the So as I mentioned, I have some upcoming episodes that are spawned from the festival. That is one of the great benefits of going there is I get to connect with a lot of potential guests. So I've got that community that's in development that's going to be on an episode soon as well as choose tiny .com, Jill Canto, she's going to be joining me on the episode or on the podcast. So some good episodes coming up from the festival, a couple of the folks living in their rigs. I reached out to them as well. So looking forward to continuing to hear more from folks that were at the Colorado Tiny House Festival on Les House Morimula. As I said before, I want to make sure that there are resources that are top of mind for you if you are in those early stages of doing your research. All of the resources that I mentioned on this episode, we will make sure to link in the show notes. But keep doing what you're doing. Keep moving forward. Keep doing your research. Keep pushing through. Don't take no for an answer. We can do really complicated things if we just, you know, take them one bite at a time. So I want to encourage everybody who's listening to keep working on this project because as I said to many people at the show, it can be a little difficult, but it is so worth it to be in a place where you have less debt, where you have more choice, you have more autonomy, you have community around you. and you are building a life that isn't just about paying for your roof. So keep doing what you're doing and make sure you text me if you have any good guest ideas, if you were at the show and wanna say hi, super excited every time I get to hear from a listener. So thank you all so much for hearing my recap of what was a really fantastic festival. And I am hoping that we will continue to bring lots of good education and stories for you here so that we can keep your motivation and energy high as you are headed down this path. Hey, thank you for taking the time to listen to Less House More Moolah. I have another free resource on my website for you, the Unconventional Values Quiz. In just two minutes, you can pinpoint your style of freedom seeker, security guardian, adventure enthusiast, or community builder. Check it out at thetinyhouseadvisor .com. And one more thing, podcasts don't have algorithms like social media does. They only grow by word of mouth and reviews. If this podcast is helpful to you, would you please post a review on your podcast and tell a friend who is trying to live a values -based life. It would totally make my day.