Sneak Peak into Tiny House Revival with Zack Giffin and John Weisbarth

In this episode of the Less House More Moola podcast, Laura Lynch hosts John Weisbarth and Zack Giffin. Together they discuss the re-energizing of the tiny house movement through their new show, Tiny House Revival. They explore the growing need for affordable housing, the misalignment of current housing stock with population needs, and the potential of tiny homes to provide solutions. The conversation delves into the importance of legalizing tiny homes, addressing the branding issues surrounding them, and envisioning a future where tiny homes are integrated into communities as viable living options. In this conversation, Zack and John discuss the evolving landscape of tiny homes, focusing on the regulatory challenges and the push for exemptions that would allow for more creative and flexible building options. They introduce the concept of Small Residential Units (SRUs) as a way to expand the definition of tiny homes and make them more applicable in society. The discussion also touches on the importance of media in promoting tiny homes and how their new show aims to inspire a broader audience by showcasing the potential of tiny living. They emphasize the need for legal recognition of movable dwelling units and the heart behind their mission to provide affordable housing solutions.

Subscribe and Support Tiny House Revival 
https://www.youtube.com/@TinyHouseRevival
https://www.patreon.com/tinyhouserevival

Follow and Connect with Laura Lynch
website: https://www.thetinyhouseadviser.com/
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tinyhouseadviser/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesshousemoremoolapod/

Go to thetinyhouseadviser.com

Transcript

Less House More Moola Podcast (00:41)

Well, welcome to Less House More Moola podcast, John Weisbarth and Zack Giffin super excited to have the Tiny House Nation stars with me today. Thank you so much for being here. As you know, I connected with Sam at Tiny Fest back in March and so that's how we put this all together. And I heard about your exciting YouTube launch that's coming. So I think the timing that we're all in this space right now has never been more apt. The world is changing, housing continually getting more expensive and more challenging for folks. So it's the right time to be talking about this topic.

John Weisbarth (01:20)

I mean, I couldn't agree more and thanks for having us on the podcast. That's one of the things that Zack and I really talked about. There was a couple of real sort of, things out in the zeitgeist that sort of said, yeah, now is the right time. And certainly one of them was that, you know, 10, 11 years ago when we first started Tiny House Nation, the idea of tiny houses. was kind of still a new, it was very nascent. People didn't quite know what it was. And we were talking about like, man, like the need is even more now, like in a lot of ways we were lamenting, shoot, too bad the show didn't start right now because this feels like the perfect time. And then Zack's like, well, why don't we just start it again? I was like, can we do that?

Less House More Moola Podcast (02:11)

That's awesome. So you're going to do that, right? You're going to bring the show back. Tell us a little bit more of the details of that.

Zack (02:19)

Well, we're going to bring the show back, but we're not just gonna bring the show back, we're gonna make it better because John and I are doing it on YouTube, which means that we have a lot more creative control over it. And so we get to kind of pick and choose the parts of the show that we really love that, you I think are kind of bedrocks of what kind of made it popular. And then maybe distance ourselves a little bit from some of the aspects of the show that weren't our favorite,

Hopefully the combination is even better than it was before.

John Weisbarth (02:48)

What's the show called, Zack?

Zack (02:50)

Well, it's not Tiny House Nation. That's what it's not. What it is is, is Tiny House Revival. And it took us a long time to kind of settle on the name. We went through a variety of different directions that we were kind of trying to go and we came full circle back to Tiny House Revival, kind of because of the things that you just mentioned, you know, the timing. You know, tiny homes are not new. They weren't new when Jay Shafer

built one in 1999. But the concept kind of has much more relevance now because the housing direction, I guess the direction that our housing space has gone, has just gone from bigger to bigger to bigger to bigger, right? And then tiny house is kind of this almost like a novelty at this point when it used to be just called a house. And so We're just trying to look at this as an opportunity to kind of get tiny homes back into the conversation, into the zeitgeist, ⁓ because like you said, the need for them is more extreme now than it's ever been.

Less House More Moola Podcast (04:00)

Yeah, I think it's so interesting statistics wise how families are shrinking and houses are still growing. And we know it has a lot to do with the fact that the builders want to get their margins on what they're building. And yet the demand what people are looking for is life experiences, not necessarily square footage. And so having a smaller home allows you to have more experiences and more travel or adventure and really focus on what's more important than having a huge home with a lot of empty rooms that you have to heat and cool. I love that we're still continuing to work in this space to create the solution for folks so that they can find something else out there other than what's being built for them on a regular basis.

John Weisbarth (04:45)

Yeah, I mean, not just something that fits their lifestyle or what the reality of their family is. And Zack has a lot of good stats on that. And they're out there. mean, just what the housing stock is compared to like how we're actually living is just totally mismatched and off to your point. ⁓ But you know, the biggest thing that I think about too, it's just like, it's not just, okay, matching it up. It's also about having something that is affordable, that is obtainable.

Right? The affordable housing crisis is a real, real thing. And we just, you know, we've, we've said when, when your starter house is 400, 500, $600,000, that's not really a starter house for most people cause you can't afford that. So one of the things that talks about a lot is that sort of missing rung on the housing ladder.

And tiny houses can certainly fill that role. I mean, they can do a lot of things and they don't, you know, obviously the three of us and probably most of your audience are really pro tiny. And I think what happens sometimes in these conversations is that if you're not, if you don't want to live in a tiny house,

These conversations feel like someone's saying, we're gonna come to your house, we're gonna move you out of there, we're gonna force you to live in something you don't wanna live in. And that's not what we're about. We're about, hey, if you do wanna have that option, and there should be an affordable option, then at the very least, that should be allowed by law. And that is something that both of you are working on, and Zack is constantly working on much more so than I ever have.

Zack (06:28)

Yeah, I talk about it like just bringing our housing stock back into balance with the needs of the population. Right. It's that what I believe is that we've had these incentives that are found in the building codes, in our zoning codes, in the real estate market that have pushed people to kind of just make a decision to make their homes as big as possible. And most of those incentives are really kind of financial.

Right? We've been looking at housing as an investment for the last, you know, really four decades in a way that we never did before. And so through the lens of looking at housing as an investment, you start to recognize that there's all these kind of built-in incentives to basically take your home and maximize the footprint of it because you're trying to not only just create a home that's gonna suit for your needs, but you're also, have that incentive to maximize your investment. And so, you know, I think that that's a big piece of this and it's taken our housing stock and kind of brought it way out of alignment with what the functional needs of our population really is.

Less House More Moola Podcast (07:39)

Totally agree. And you know, I think about housing too when I talk about our home. Our home is one of those, when you think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? Shelter is just on that bottom level, right? With food and water. It is a basic thing that we need to have. And yet we have treated it like it's a luxury item or it's like our self-achievement, right? It is our status. It is our marker in the world. And I mean, that's great.

right for folks where that that's important to them. But for those folks who actually have other things that they want to achieve in life, some sort of impact that they want to make on the world or on their community, those are higher level needs that they need to be able to have resources for to be able to focus on. And when you're stuck in a system where you have to focus on that low level thing with all of your energy and all of your human capital, and all of your 40 hours a week, then you don't ever get to reach those higher levels of impact or self-actualization or impact in your community or what have you, because you're stuck focused on that bottom thing.

John Weisbarth (08:45)

I so I love what you just said. It's something I think about a lot. And I literally, I heard this quote this morning, for the life of me, I can't remember who it was attributed to. But essentially, the quote was, life is a series of daring explorations and then return to a safe home base. like, as you said, just like have the time or the, you know, the human capital to do anything. You know, you have to have that, that Maslow's hierarchy. You have to have that base, but also just like for your own, like mental wellbeing and any of that stuff. It's like, it is a basic need to have that base layer, that safe home base.

from there is where you can then venture out. But you have to have that safe place to come back. we don't, we have made that a luxury item. We've made that too hard to obtain. And that's just, that's not doing anyone any favors.

Zack (09:44)

Well, I see it as like being two dynamics to the imbalance, right? There's the one dynamic where it's like, we have made housing so expensive that it's out of reach. So that this kind of idea of how you're supposed to go through life and kind of, get up some capital and then invest it into a home and start taking these stepping stones towards prosperity, like that whole kind of system is a little bit broken, right? On one side of it.

And then on the flip side, housing has become so expensive and it's really tied into the cost of living that our homes have turned into this kind of ball and chain around the neck of so many people. And so there's two sides of this. There's the side where it's too hard to get into there, but then there's the other side where once you are in the housing market, that all of a sudden it's so outpaced kind of the fundamentals of what people can afford that it's left a large portion of our population kind of in this fight or flight sort of mentality because their expenses are really beyond what they can actually afford. And even though they have this great seeming life, they're stressed out by it because they know that they're just a couple of paychecks away from kind of defaulting on these loans. And then all of this wealth that they think that they have ownership over, they find out actually they're only just kind of owning the equity in a part of it. And there's, that's really a lot out of their control.

And I think part of the reason why, you know, tiny homes are so salient in this moment in the conversations that we're having is because the cost of living is just the ever-present crisis that our country is really facing right now. And such a large percentage of people's kind of monthly income is devoted towards paying for their housing, whether that's rent or the mortgage. And part of the reason that I believe is that has led us to this point is because We just don't have lower cost options. So it's not within people's kind of capabilities to make that choice to say, hey, I see where I'm at here and I've done the calculations and I think I'd be more appropriately housed in a smaller house. And I think that my life would actually work out better because I wouldn't be stressed out all the time. And I'm going to make that choice for myself to kind of have these kind of trade-offs.

I'm gonna trade off the size of my home for a more sustainable existence. And right now we're not allowing people to have that choice. And that's why I think the legalization is just paramount with our industry and with this.

Less House More Moola Podcast (12:23)

Yeah, we see this a lot with retirees, right? Retirees who have focused so much on paying off their home or building up a lot of home equity and they want to downsize. They want us move to a smaller space, but there aren't smaller spaces for them to move to and therefore they can't cash out their equity and move to a smaller space that's more appropriate for them because they just simply don't exist because we aren't building that type of housing stock.

Zack (12:49)

And I'd like to add just one thing to what you said because I think the term the word desirable needs to be inserted into that right Because I also think that that's part of the equation When we go about as a society saying okay, you need a place to downsize well We'll give you this one option and that one option has so many elements that are just so far detached from what people kind of look as as What their existence wants to be?

that needs to be accounted for. And so I think that we really do have to say like, when we're smaller options, we have to make sure they're desirable. Otherwise, it's not gonna work for people.

Less House More Moola Podcast (13:28)

that's great. And I do agree. I think it has to be something that fits people's, interests, what they're used to, their, you comfort, the amenities, that sort of thing of.

John Weisbarth (13:37)

Well, and or location, right? And that's one of the things we talk about just so I can play the interruption game. Thanks. Um, it's like the idea of being able to age in place a little bit, right? And we have before and you know, how powerful is it if you do have your four or five bedroom house that you raised your, your, your kids in, they've grown up, they've moved out, but you love the neighborhood. You love where you are. You just don't need all that space. It's, it's taking up you know, a lot of resources, yada, yada, yada. And then you can live in a tiny house in the backyard, right? If you can do that and you can rent out the main house. And so now you're like, we get to stay in our neighborhood around our friends, around the coffee shop, we know all this kind of thing. And we have more income now coming in for this. that, what a cool option if we talk about wanting to be in desirable space.

Less House More Moola Podcast (14:31)

So let's cast a vision a little bit. Let's talk about where we would like to see ⁓ tiny homes in terms of legalization. And Zack, you've done such important work in this space. How do we get a tiny house in every backyard that every person I know?

John Weisbarth (14:51)

a chicken in every pot and a tiny house in every backyard. Zack,

Zack (14:53)

you

John Weisbarth (14:55)

are you announcing that you're running for president right here? Because I accept to be your vice president if that's what you're asking.

Zack (14:56)

⁓I don't know. President of the Glacier Ski Club, maybe. Yeah, you know, I love the way that you frame that question ⁓ because I do think that it almost requires when you're starting to talk about like, okay, where do we want to see this go or what do we want for tiny homes? I think it's a good place to start is kind of painting this dream vision of how tiny homes could actually

John Weisbarth (15:10)

Okay, okay, cool. I better not be the vice president there then.

Zack (15:32)

be implemented within our ⁓ neighborhoods and our cities and the different ways, right? Because when you say legalized tiny homes, you also have to talk about, all right, well, how are they going to be zoned? Like, how are we going to incorporate them? And so to me, ⁓ I think that villages of tiny homes for people that kind of want to live in a community and kind of leverage that sort of kind of belonging, ⁓ I think is a really fantastic way that we can kind of apply tiny homes in kind of pocket neighborhoods as well as small communities. However, I think as an advocate for it, I see the greatest potential for it to aid our society by basically utilizing tiny homes and especially, particularly tiny homes on wheels as accessory dwelling units and being allowed to place them in the backyard of ⁓ homes in single family neighborhoods.

⁓ And so just to talk specifically about that, and mean, part of the big reason is that because 75 % of the residential land in our cities in the United States of America has been designated specifically for single family homes, right? And so if you're not actually incorporating tiny homes into those places, then it means that you're kind of limiting the actual places that you're gonna be able to put tiny homes greatly.

right, because the vast majority is designated for that type. And so as accessory dwelling units, not only does Tiny Homes, you know, have more opportunities for placement, but it's also it's a way to implement a greater ⁓ variety of lower cost housing options into our housing stock in a way that kind of gets us away from what I think of the historic kind of method of producing affordable housings has been basically to cluster them in large buildings, in apartment buildings. ⁓ And it definitely makes sense from a builder standpoint of how are you going to make these units as low cost as possible, right? But from the standpoint of kind of saying, okay, well, at the same time as we kind of bring our housing stock back to balance,

We wanna do it in a way that doesn't actually curtail the vibrance of the American dream, right? Of upward mobility, of these other aspects. And to do that, we need to implement affordable housing in a way that kind of breaks down the, segmentation of our cities. And so by allowing tiny homes and backyards, you're not only kind of providing more options for housing units, but you're also doing it in a way that doesn't cluster affordable housing all into one place. And I believe that that is a very, very important aspect to pay attention to as we move forward, right? Because otherwise we're gonna be like tempted to kind of go down the same old pathway of producing housing in a way that basically just sequesters it all into one very specific part of town, which if...

There's a beautiful book called The Color of Law that really goes into kind of the negative effects of kind of residential segregation. There's also work by a man named Raj Chetty who basically kind of produced the Opportunity Atlas. And it's all pointing to kind of the damaging effects that happen to upward mobility and kind of positive outcomes for the children that grow up in environments where they're very sequestered away and basically put into environments where you have like concentrated poverty. And it's essentially no different than creating a slum, right? And it can happen in any country of the world. It can happen in any sort of ethnicity or religious makeup of the community. Whenever human beings put all of their least affluent people into one specific part of town, you're going to manifest problems. And so, you know, I think that tiny homes and this is long-winded explanation but I think it's a really important point.

John Weisbarth (19:53)

What? Oh, I

didn't seem long-winded at all.

Zack (19:58)

Is that the real opportunity about tiny homes? What I believe like is that aha thing for me is that it's this housing type that can be distributed kind of very naturally throughout our communities, throughout our neighborhoods and our cities in a way that does break down that tendency to concentrate lower cost housing into one specific place.

And that's why it's this huge aha moment, right? This is what like drives me to be so passionate about it is that I don't see it as just another form of affordable housing. I see it coming along with all of these other really important advantages that almost free us from this trap that we've been in where we kind of do this, we produce affordable housing in this method because we don't feel like there's another method. There's not another way. And tiny homes is this like, aha moment of like, yes, there is another way. We can do this in a better way that will have better long-term outcomes.

John Weisbarth (20:59)

So Zack, so all of that said, I would say when we started Tiny House Nation in 2014, the thing that I really appreciated about the show is that it was all about aspirational. We were building the coolest, fanciest houses we could, and we were only putting young people in them. That's the only people the network would cast. And I think that was actually smart.

Would you agree, I think now, 10, 11 years later, I do think that...

tiny houses have a little bit of a branding problem because so much of the conversation around homelessness, people being housed in tiny houses as a solution, I think what you're talking about, Zack, is 100 % right. By allowing teachers and firefighters and cops and service workers to live in the neighborhood that they serve, that's a win for everybody. But the NIMBYism is coming from this idea of ⁓ tiny houses, those are little slum things. Like, that's, there's gonna be a bunch of homeless people selling drugs out of them. I think there is a little bit of a branding problem now with the word tiny houses and not to go, I mean, and I do think partly that's one of the reasons I'm excited about our show coming back is to like, start showing again, hold on. People get so fixated on one idea of what a tiny house is. I like that we're really gonna try and continue to revitalize your expectations of what a tiny house can be and remind people that maybe it's not just that. But that's another point. What do you both, I'm curious, have to say about the idea of tiny houses maybe has a little bit of a branding problem right now?

Less House More Moola Podcast (22:52)

Well, I do wanna, I wanted to mention that I had a recent YouTube comment, right? The tiny houses are reminding this commenter of the promise of mobile homes. They were that of more affordable option. But to your point, Zack, mobile homes were all put in like one zoning category and they were all clustered together and they weren't, built in the way that tiny homes are built for sure. And they weren't maintained and they were in, you know, certain demographic clusters or certain wealth clusters. And so we saw that degradation over time of mobile home communities And so to your point, putting a tiny house in every backyard means that that wealth distribution flows through to those accessory dwelling units or tiny homes and backyards. And it does allow that overall lifting effect of everyone everywhere. So I wonder if you want to kind of take this into the SRU, Small Residential Unit proposal and talk about that branding piece and what you see happening as far as industry shift into, kind of look at what is the desirability elements for folks. What does a tiny home look like for folks? What do they really want? Probably they don't want the eight by 40 tiny house that I'm in because it might not be quite enough space. So what, what a tiny homes look like in the future from a desirability standpoint and getting away from that branding problem that it has.

Zack (24:30)

Well, yeah, so the branding problem I think John is alluding to in my mind it comes from a scenario where, you know, up to this point, tiny house, the word tiny house was kind of this umbrella term and underneath it you had everything from, you know, like really luxurious tiny homes on wheels that are kind of maxed out on the square footage the kind of thing that you would see on tiny house nation a lot. And then all the way down to kind of very, very basic shelters that are essentially, you know, standalone, but you know, for lack of a better description, kind of like a modified tough shed that's got, that's got insulation and electric in it, you know, but none of the utilities that you would expect out of a normal home, right? So we have everything in between all kind of kind of coming under the umbrella turn tiny house. And as an advocate for myself, one of the things that actually has happened over that didn't used to be there is that so much of I think the public perception of what a tiny home is has been tied into the awareness, the greater awareness of these tiny home villages that have been built to support homeless people that are essentially stand-ins for a traditional tiny or homeless shelter, right?

And from my standpoint, I think that they're incredibly important. I think that they do serve a function that is well beyond what is being offered in traditional ⁓ homeless shelters, where you actually do have some independence that is provided by having, you know, your own space, the locked door, there's security there. And it's this really, really powerful new take on doing a homeless shelter.

But the issue now is that when you use the term tiny house, especially on the West coast where we have a whole lot of this happening, you have to almost explain to people like, but when I say tiny house, I'm not talking about this type of tiny house. I'm talking about this other type of tiny home, right? And not only is it like, kind of makes the conversation take longer, but it's also, have to almost overcome a stigma that is present now.

because of the association with these tiny home villages for homeless people that didn't used to be there. I feel like when I first started into tiny houses, tiny homes was kind of a term that was very much more used to describe the type of home that was built by Jay Shafer and Dee Williams, which were these very just, you know, cute, aesthetically pleasing.

very custom looking cabins that typically were on wheels. And then, you know, there was this kind of like, in my mind, this crazy way that tiny homes were able to kind of sidestep the stigma that had been kind of projected towards especially mobile homes and RVs. And somehow because the aesthetics were, you know, it was so adorable that people kind of treated it as this different thing.

John Weisbarth (27:43)

It looked good.

Zack (27:46)

And that was a really important aspect of what kind of created the popularity of the movement. And so here we are 10 years later and we're kind of fighting a new battle because now so much of the association is towards kind of these smaller tiny houses. And so you had asked about the new effort within the ICC to kind of come up with a new term called Small Residential Unit, right? And, you know, without getting too much into the weeds about what this is, you know, there's basically a committee and I'm a voting member on the committee and it's with the International Code Council who basically develop the guidelines that turn into the building codes. And the idea is we're going to try to create a building standard for tiny homes that allows you to build tiny homes and tiny homes on wheels and be in compliance with the building codes, which is something we've never had before. And it's kind of the big, you know, golden ticket for this tiny home movement is to be able to build these legally and live in them legally just the same way you could in any other home. you know, part of that effort is kind of looking at

John Weisbarth (29:06)

And Zack,

when you say legally, what you mean is permanently, right? Because a lot of the way that tiny houses, especially on wheels, they're treated as like RVs. So for a period of time, in some places up to six months, but you cannot permanently live in them. And that's what you're talking about,

Zack (29:12)

Yes, good point.

Yes, and there are places, especially like very rural counties that don't necessarily limit ⁓ people's ability to live in RVs, right? And so you do have to be careful about like, you know, making that distinction. But for the vast majority of our country, and especially the vast majority of our cities, and the vast majority of the places that people really want to live around because the jobs are available. you cannot live in an RV and you're basically limited to a certain amount of time. And it's called seasonal occupancy. And so the golden ticket is to try to get a way where these structures, tiny homes and tiny homes on wheels are not treated as RVs and are treated the same way that we treat other residential structures. And so the ICC creating this kind of effort is a huge step in that direction.

And so I'm very much for it. The question is, is can you pull that off without putting so many obstacles in the way of the builders that basically were forced to build structures in ways that we've never wanted to, that cost a lot more, create all this, like that curtail our creativity. And so...you know, basically it's a matter of asking for exemptions that are projected onto other structures for tiny homes. And the small residential unit idea was one that kind of came apart because we were looking at, well, can we extend some of these exemptions to structures larger than 400 square feet,

And the number 1200 square feet was kind of chosen because of two reasons, mostly that number one, a lot of ADU laws are limited to, they basically limit the structure to 1200 square feet, right? So throughout California, that's the number that you're allowed to build to as an ADU,

And then there's also other issues in terms of like minimum mandatory building requirements. A lot of cities basically won't allow any home that's under a thousand square feet to be built, right? So if you write a standard that is essentially for a structure that's under that minimum mandatory, there's the fear that people won't even consider it,

the effort has been put out there to basically quantify structures that are 1200 square feet down to 400 square feet as small residential units. And then when you get below 400 square feet, then you would basically be called a tiny house. But tiny homes would be existing in this standard that basically is an umbrella term of small residential unit. It's just by the time that you went down to 400 square feetyou would get additional exemptions that were applied only to really, really small homes. And that's when you would be using the term tiny house. so, know, yeah.

John Weisbarth (32:44)

Zack, can I ask a clarification question here? Because again, you are deep in the weeds and I'm making sure that I'm following this. And so what I'm hearing though, and you tell me if this is right, is that the issue is that when building a smaller space, there are currently building codes that are in place for bigger houses that make sense, but don't really make sense for a smaller space and become cost prohibitive, become, they limit your creativity, they're too bulky, like having like a staircase with a proper, you know, like headroom at the top, like things like that that just won't work. And what you're saying is you're trying to say, hey, look, let's use common sense here for spaces 1200 to 400 square feet. Let's exempt those things because we don't really need them and thus making them a pathway for real legalization. Is that what I'm hearing? More or less?

Zack (34:29)

Yeah, yeah, there was an effort in 2016 that basically was successful where we got something called appendix Q put into the IRC. And appendix Q was basically for any structure under 400 square feet, you were granted some exemptions from complying with the head height requirements so that you could allow for a sleeping loft. This was really like to make some certain elements of tiny home construction that are popular possible. And it also had reduced requirements on the staircase. You could have a steeper staircase. You could have a more narrow staircase. ⁓ You could have a sleeping loft that had lower head clearance than otherwise would be required. And so it really made it possible to build ⁓ what people would look at and say that's a tiny house and especially with the interior layout and design that are popular with tiny homes. However, it didn't well, yeah. So if appendix Q had been essentially, ⁓ if you would be able to build on a chassis with wheels, we probably wouldn't have an issue right now. And we would just basically be talking about minutia within appendix Q and trying to kind of perfect that.

John Weisbarth (35:30)

So what's the difference with what you're doing now? That's my question. What's the difference with this thing then?

Zack (35:54)

The issue is, is that they didn't want to consider homes on wheels in any way, right? And so that was what kind of turned into the main focus of people that were part of the industry and especially in the industry association, which is what I've been a part of for a long time now, in terms of we need to do something about tiny homes on wheels.

And so the main effort, the main thrust of this effort is to basically rewrite some of the requirements and basically include language that allows you to build on a chassis, right? Because a chassis could be a, it's basically just a floor structure that is intended on being moved. And that could have wheels with axles. It could be the type of thing that you haul it and put it onto a flat bed.

But the idea is not forcing all of these tiny homes to be built onto permanent foundations. And so you get to leverage kind of the flexibility that comes with being able to transport your home from time to time, which I think in my belief in terms of why tiny homes can really impact society, that ability, that flexibility is paramount to how they can basically be implemented and who gets to basically benefit from this new kind of law that gets written or this new housing type. And if you take away the ability to move them, it really curtails not just how we can use them, but who gets to benefit from it.

Less House More Moola Podcast (37:34)

From my perspective, you know, just kind of sitting in as an interested party on these committee meetings with the ICC, I see the rebranding or the new term of SRU as being a little bit of a trick on society because everyone in the NIMBY world, right, everybody sees ADUs as a huge wealth building tool.

Zack (37:59)

Yeah,

Less House More Moola Podcast (38:00)

to call, you know, anything on the, you know, the smaller side, an SRU sounds like a nice little righteous trick to get everybody to accept them as a, as a possibility and kind of take them out of the world of desperate housing and put them more in the world of housing that everybody can use for a multi-generational, for family, for rentals, for all the things and kind of get it out of that that stigma world. So I love the term SRU just in terms of the way that it plays on society's acceptance of ADU that already exists and allows us to move forward.

Zack (38:40)

⁓It's a very generic and non-threatening term, I think, and that was purposeful, right? And that's part of, you know, why I'm kind of a fan also. You know, it basically does play on, you know, in Washington state right now, there's a law being proposed and I'm definitely an advocate for that is basically, you know, the whole goal is just to legalize living in an RV, any RV built to either version of the RV code, right? And that's something that I'm like, you know, I think it has much more positives than it would have negatives. And that's why I'm a proponent of it, you know, but the funny thing to your point is that we're calling them movable dwelling units, MDU, right? And the whole point is exactly to your, cause if you're saying, Hey, let's legalize RVs. There's a whole bunch of people that are like,

No way, not in my plate, you know, but if you call them movable dwelling units, it's a play, it's a tricky way to get people to consider the idea, you know, without having immediate blocks, like put up against it based upon prejudice, right? So yeah, no, I think that, you know, one of the things that I believe is that it would be really nice to not have to create a definition of what a tiny house is that excludes a large portion of people that basically believe what they're building is tiny homes, right? Because one of the problems is that there are a lot of really, really great people that are being, that are dedicating their lives and putting a huge amount of positivity out there in the world that are building these tiny home villages for homeless people.

And one of the reasons that they are, being successful is because they're calling them tiny homes, right? They're not calling them converted tough shed villages, right? They're calling them tiny homes. and, and so, you know, what I'm looking at is, is not just kind of like trying to create a definition that allows us to build, but like, I don't want to get in a big fight with these people that are building tiny home villages where we have to come and tell them,

Sorry, you gotta start telling, calling them something else. Cause we've just defined a tiny house and it's not that, right? So we don't care what you call your thing, but you can't call them tiny houses. Do see what I mean? So I, I'm like coming at it from two parts. Like number one, I think small residential unit is a non-threatening name that, you know, is...going to enable us to kind of expand a little bit of like the possibilities of tiny homes, of homes that are not on permanent foundations in terms of what they can be, which really changes who gets to benefit from it, right? And at the same time, I think that it also kind of puts us in this place where we don't necessarily have to get in this big fight with these nonprofits and people that have been really focused on building tiny home villages using structures that would not qualify. so, you know, to me, I really don't care what it's called. I just want you to be able to legally build it. Right. That's my point. I mean, I'm not, I'm not like one way or the other really passionate about SRU versus tiny home and the, and the terminology, like it's kind of take it or leave it to me. But, ⁓ I do want us to be able to build the structures that we want to build.

I don't want us to be forced into kind of complying with some unnecessary regulations that basically make it impossible for small-time builders like myself or DIY people to be able to comply with them. And so that's what it's really about to me. It's the details of what we're required to do as builders that I care about much more than like what we call it.

Less House More Moola Podcast (42:50)

I love that you both have really enunciated your heart around this because when it comes to putting a show on YouTube or the show that you had before, it's a lot about the visuals and maybe the popularity and the aesthetics, but it's great to hear the true mission and heart behind what you're doing and how you're so passionate about creating a housing both for affordability for starter homes and for people later in life, but also for people that desperately need a roof over their head. So John, let's take it back to the show a little bit and talk about how this show is gonna help move tiny homes back into the lexicon of folks and how it's gonna help promote these ideas in greater society and make it more you know, exciting for folks.

John Weisbarth (43:49)

Yeah, well, mean, one of the things we talked about a lot with Tiny House Nation and one of the things that I felt really good about because I was new to the tiny house movement. know, Zack had built his own tiny house. He lived in it. He was he was in that space and I was new to it in 2014 when we were starting the show. And in the years, the subsequent years.

A lot of people have sort of mistakenly given Zack and I credit for like starting the tiny house movement, people who maybe don't know. And we certainly did not do that. And there's a long history is Zack already kind of touched on. But what I do give Zack and I and the producers of tiny house nation and any networks who put it on the air Netflix as well was helping to popularize the movement to make it something that was known. I mean, I say that I say this all the time. When I first started on the show, I said, I'm doing a show about tiny houses. And people were like, for like little people. I was like, No, normal sized people, just smaller houses, right? People didn't even know what that was. And then it became very popular. And you know, people said it's a fad, whatever. I don't care because it was in the lexicon.

And I think there's two ways to move, well, I think there's two important ways, don't even wanna say that. There's two major ways to move a movement forward. Part of it is to get down and dirty and to...make sure that you are crossing your t's and you're dotting your i's and you're getting the code right and you're lobbying and this takes a long long time but part and i think that's super important but these people that you're lobbying also have to be receptive to it which means there has to be a want for it and for there to be a want people have to even understand what it is. And so I do think there is the idea of being a thought leader on it and showing you, hey, tiny houses can be a lot of things and it can be exciting. It can be aspirational. This can be a real tool, not just a tool for one thing, but a tool for all these other things. So all of that is to say, I feel like, at least for my part in this movement, the most effective that I can be is to create entertainment around it, to tell some of these stories. And I have an incredible partner to do it with because, you know, my background was as a sportscaster and I used to sit next to the former baseball player who had been in the dugout, who had gone through spring training, who knew what it was like to bat with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. I don't have those experiences. I can talk about them.

I know the story of them, but it meant more to have that other part. And that is Zack in our equation. It always has been. I've come on to be a little bit of the every man and Zack really is a person who has lived it, is the expert, is doing the hard, hard work. And together, I think we get to tell a story that can inspire the movement forward that can help to, you know, revitalize it, if you will, with tiny house revival. that's a long way of saying I've been listening to Zack too much here. That's a long way of saying that our show is going to be a lot of different things. It's not just going to be the tiny house model where we're coming to someone that's transitioning from a big space to a little space. And we help them with that. We go to existing little spaces, all kinds of different existing you know, little spaces. We help revitalize those spaces. We are doing new builds. We're transitioning people from one tiny house to another. We'll be touring tiny houses, I think, eventually. There's a lot that we're gonna do, and there's a lot of freedom to do that. I mean, Zack, would you agree?

Zack (47:52)

Yeah, I love how you put that and I want to expand on it just a little bit because I think what you were getting at in terms of our show in the beginning, right? One of the beautiful things that we did was that we didn't deal with a lot of kind of the nuances of the zoning and the kind of the maybe harsh realities of how the world was treating these homes. What we did was we kind of like showcased the potential dream.

Right? We kind of ignored all that and showed, all right, so this is how it could be if it just was legal, right? And we just kind of dealt with people and how they're gonna fit their lives into the homes as if that was the big challenge. And these other issues about like, where are you gonna park it? We kind of left out of the show. You know, I think a lot of people kind of might've rightly criticized us for that, but I do think it was important, especially.

Because what you're trying to do is you're just trying to paint the picture of like, hey guys, like this is what it could look like if we just allowed ourselves to treat it this way, right? So we're kind of painting the possibilities and showcasing the opportunity. Now, what we didn't do was maybe explore all of the ways that these homes could be kind of implemented in a way that is positive for society. And I think that's one of the things that John and I are really

kind of really excited about with this new show, with our own creative control, is that we can expand even from where we were before, the notion of kind of like the beautiful dream aspect of what tiny homes can be. And what I wanna, you know, so definitely I really want to go and build some homes or do some work for people that are living in tiny home communities. So that our show can be a vehicle for kind of inspiring people that are viewers to like, this is a possible way that I could potentially rearrange my life and like, they can start making those mental calculations based on what they see. You know, I wanna show homes that are being used for caretakers in the backyard of an aging, you know, American who is kind of up against kind of the hard decisions that come along with retirement and kind of aging in place.

Right? So that our show can be a vehicle to explore these different kind of applications of tiny homes and can really kind of help to expand people's mindset about how tiny homes can be utilized by our society. And so, you know, that's what I think. Yes.

John Weisbarth (50:34)

Well, and I think it can be fun. That's the other thing. I mean, like I do think there's real value in that. I mean, I think that like what a tiny house looks like matters because of NIMBYism. Like it has to look nice. That's Zack's point earlier. Like when they were first coming out, they looked like these cute little cabins and that mattered. Well, I think our show, I mean, there's a lot of people talking about... ⁓these really deep, important issues and the struggle. And I think if you're someone that wants to move into a tiny house, I think that's really valuable information. What our show always did, I think, well, and will continue to do well, is that we can also appeal to a whole bunch of people that never ever want to live in a tiny house themselves.

but they go, that's cool. ⁓ I get it. that's not so bad. ⁓ I'm not gonna vote against that. Or I'm not upset about people doing that. I think there is real power in that. And I guess that's my part of it. You know, my part, I don't live in a tiny house. I've never lived in a tiny house. I'm not gonna live in a tiny house. But I think if you wanna live in a tiny house, you should legally be allowed to. I think it is a very powerful thing. And so for me, my audience is all the people that don't want to live in a tiny house, but like, let's make it fun and cool and exciting. And we do that as well. I just want to make sure everyone understands the show is still going to be fun, Zack.

Zack (52:03)

Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, I think the entertainment is a big, is a really important aspect of it, right? That's what keeps people tuned in, is that it's entertaining. And that's what will enable us to take them on this journey of kind of becoming more aware of the different possibilities of how tiny homes can impact society. but if they're bored or if they don't like what they see or they don't, you know, they're not gonna last.

John Weisbarth (52:25)

100%.

Zack (52:29)

right, they're gonna go move on to something else. So the entertainment is absolutely paramount. And I think that this kind of brings me back a little bit to your question about the SRU is that, you know, what we're trying to do with our show is to kind of like expand people's minds about what tiny homes can be and how they can help society. And I think the SRU is kind of, for me, it's a little bit more along those same lines. It's like for people that have multiple children that look at tiny homes and they're like, that would be so great for so many different reasons. You don't know how many times people come to me and say, I would love a tiny home, but I can't do that. Right? And what they mean is that they would like a tiny home, but they need a little more space. And that's where I kind of think an SRU is really, you know, fits. Right? And that's why I think it's like, I'm just as passionate, I would say, for small housing as I am for tiny housing. And the reason being is because like I said in the beginning, I'm all about trying to bring our housing stock back into balance with the functional needs of our population, right? And tiny homes are fantastic tool for certain people that work great, but there are a large swath of our population where for whatever reason, that's not gonna necessarily work. So having kind of another option that still is small.

It still is going to give you advantages from terms of affordability and lower carbon footprint and more ways that it can be implemented if it's not tied to a permanent foundation. But it doesn't have to be so small. And I think that that's a good way to describe why I feel like I'm an advocate for the ideas, because I'm just trying to move the needle on people's housing and kind of bring some sanity back to this space.

Less House More Moola Podcast (54:27)

I think that is such an amazing way to wrap the whole conversation with a neat little bow. Thank you for bringing us back to that, Zack and John. Thank you for bringing the fun to it, right? Because if there isn't fun, if we're not, that's right.

John Weisbarth (54:43)

Listen, not all heroes wear capes. Some of us wear makeup. It's fine.

Zack (54:47)

It's so funny because I am not normally

John Weisbarth (54:47)

It's fine.

Zack (54:50)

accused of not being fun. I feel like people think I'm fun and then I start talking and they're like, ⁓ can we get the fun guy back?

Less House More Moola Podcast (54:52)

haha

John Weisbarth (54:52)

I know!

Less House More Moola Podcast (54:58)

Awesome. Well, John, as we wrap up, can you ⁓ let listeners know where they can track and support the launch of Tiny House Revival?

John Weisbarth (55:08)

Yeah, tiny house revival. I mean, there's a couple of things you can do. The easiest thing is to go to YouTube, ⁓ you know, https://www.youtube.com/@TinyHouseRevival and subscribe. That makes a huge difference for us. If you are, if you want to be like in the like inside community, we also have a Patreon. We offer special things there you know, Patreon, if you're not familiar with it, right, you can you can pledge a certain amount of money a month to support it is what we're doing right now. That's about the only place we're getting support. So that's super helpful. You also get a couple of perks from something like that. We have a monthly zoom call with Zack and I so you get to talk with us. You get early access to episodes, ⁓ behind the scenes footage and photos.

Zack (55:54)

behind the scenes.

John Weisbarth (55:57)

Yeah, so there's a lot of opportunity there if you feel so moved, but if not, just go into YouTube and subscribing would be huge. Again, it's tiny house revival https://www.youtube.com/@TinyHouseRevival or https://www.patreon.com/tinyhouserevival

Zack (56:14)

if you want the internal gratitude of both John and I, plus the perks that come with it, the Patreon is a great way to go and you can help support us and get the show back on the air.

John Weisbarth (56:25)

Woo!

Less House More Moola Podcast (56:27)

Great. So we'll have links in show notes. Zack and John, thank you both so much for talking in the weeds and about the fun and the show. I love the two parts, right? The brains and the entertainment and the... All coming together to support what is really a critical moment in our housing history and a desperate need for so many people and...

John Weisbarth (56:42)

I thought it was the good looks, damn it.

Less House More Moola Podcast (56:55)

What a great solution, right? As listeners know, I would not have launched this podcast. I wouldn't be doing my firm had I not cut myself out of the American dream house, the big one, and, you know, moved into my tiny house. It was a huge tool for my life. And so I really want people to have more options and more access to that tool. So thanks for the work that you're both doing and for getting this show up and running. And thanks for being here.

John Weisbarth (57:23)

Thanks so much for having us.

Zack (57:25)

It's been an honor. Thank you.