Lindsay Wood [00:00:00]: What I'm seeing on trend is that more and more families are becoming aware that, you know, they wanna keep their their family connected. They want privacy, but they want proximity.

Ethan Waldman [00:00:17]: Welcome to the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast, the show where you learn how to plan, build, and live the tiny lifestyle. I'm your host, Ethan Waldman. And today, I am thrilled to welcome back a true advocate for the tiny house movement, Lindsay Wood. In this episode, we delve into the opportunities and challenges of living small in California compared to other states, exploring everything from zoning issues to the emerging interest in disaster relief applications for tiny homes. Lindsay shares her insights on finding and creating supportive communities, as well as the intrinsic flexibility and resale potential of tiny homes. We also discuss her project in Daly City aimed at providing urban experiences for potential tiny home enthusiasts. Join us as we uncover valuable tips, resources, and inspiration to help you navigate your own tiny living journey. I wanna tell you about something that I think will be super helpful as you plan, design, and build your tiny house.

Ethan Waldman [00:01:10]: Tiny House Decisions is the guide that I wish I had when I was building my tiny house. It comes in 3 different packages to help you on your unique tiny house journey. And if you're struggling to just figure out the systems for your tiny house, you know, like, how you're gonna heat it, how you're gonna plumb it, you know, what construction technique are you gonna use, like SIPs or stick framing or steel framing, Tiny House Decisions will take you through all these processes systematically and help you come up with a design that works for you. Right now, I'm offering 20% off any package of Tiny House Decisions. For listeners of the show, you can head over to thetinyhouse.net/THD to learn more and use the coupon code "tiny" at checkout for 20% off any package. Again, that's thetinyhouse.net/thd and use the coupon code "tiny" for 20% off. Alright. I am here with Lindsay Wood, the tiny home lady.

Ethan Waldman [00:02:09]: Lindsay is the founder of Build More Houses Now, which is on a mission to develop 100,000 attainable, sustainable tiny homes across California and beyond. As a real estate investor and Green MBA, Lindsay believes attainable, sustainable, tiny homes are a solution to the housing and climate crisis. Lindsay created Go Tiny Academy and offers Go Tiny VIP tours at tiny home events. Lindsay Wood, welcome back to the show for, I think, the 3rd time.

Lindsay Wood [00:02:37]: Woo hoo. Number 3. Thank you, Ethan. So great to be here with a whole new topic.

Ethan Waldman [00:02:42]: Yeah. Great great to have you back. I think the 3 club includes Macy Miller, Kristie Wolfe, maybe 1 or 2 others, but you're, you're in, you're in good company.

Lindsay Wood [00:02:53]: That means we're in it to win it. Right? We're in it to stay, not going anywhere.

Ethan Waldman [00:02:58]: That's right. So you've had quite a journey with tiny living. Can you walk us through your evolution from living in a tiny home to your current multigenerational on the move lifestyle?

Lindsay Wood [00:03:09]: Yes. I can. So in 2017, after living in Marin County for 7 years, we totaled a $100,000 in rent because about $1500 a month in rent was actually a deal in that area. But still, it nagged on me that we didn't own our own home. We were definitely the people that you know, we took care of any place that we lived like it was our own, but then it really wasn't. You know? At the end of the day, we were paying for someone else's American dream, which was nice that it was our actual our friend, but still, it's our desire to own our own home. You know? Whether you appreciate wealth. We don't have any kids, so we weren't gonna hand off any home to someone else, but there's still the whole retirement and our own life and and not it just, like you know, I am stewarding this land.

Lindsay Wood [00:03:59]: One thing I always say is if you own something, it owns you back. Right? So whether you take care of it or don't.

Ethan Waldman [00:04:06]: Yeah. Oh my god. It's so depressing to add up your rent payments. It's it's a sobering experience. No. I mean, $1500 a month for a tiny house parking spot is a lot, but, like

Lindsay Wood [00:04:18]: Yeah.

Ethan Waldman [00:04:18]: You know, $1500 isn't that much compared to what people pay for rent, you know, on average, I'm sure.

Lindsay Wood [00:04:25]: We were paying rent. Yeah. We were paying rent for a 1 bedroom apartment in San Rafael. This is, like, 20 minutes north of San Rafael. So that's, like, catapulted into, like, do we buy land? And that was the dream. In the moment, we were like, shipping container, land, all of excitement. Went on YouTube, but didn't know anything about zoning, building standards, development of property, all that kind of stuff. So that was a a beautiful dream, and I've I've talked to lots of people that still hold that dream just know it's development of land.

Lindsay Wood [00:04:58]: Like, I'm probably now, 6 or 7 years now into this process, more capable and ready to move into that. We'll talk about that as we unpack this. But so we went into a tiny home. Our builder went bust in the middle of the build. That's one of the episodes that we all focused on, a whole episode on that. We won't belabor there, but we learned a lot. You know, we changed axles and tires. We DIY ed our own home from, basically, a shell and designed our own kitchen, all that.

Lindsay Wood [00:05:28]: We recently have sold that home after traveling with it. We rented it on Airbnb. We rented it, as like a three way partnership on someone else's land. We went to, oh gosh, dozens of shows and over 10,000 people touring our tiny home. So I feel like we did the gamut of everything you could possibly do with quickly and then sold it in the aftermarket, which was amazing. And big kudos to Tiny House Society for getting us on that path.

Ethan Waldman [00:05:55]: Yeah. And and for those, playing along, that would be episode 70. If you're curious to kind of dive into that part of Lindsay's journey, that's gonna be thetinyhouse.net/070. The title of the episode, if you're just scrolling in your podcast app, is What Happens When Your Builder Goes Bankrupt with Lindsay Wood from Experience Tiny Homes. So that is where you can find out about that kind of branch of the story.

Lindsay Wood [00:06:21]: And, boy, will we experience it. Now it's an evolution. I'm became the tiny home lady, and I'm still that as more of an influencer, but now it's kind of build more houses now. So it started become repetitive when I would be at these shows, show after show after show in the California market mostly. But I did California I'm sorry, Colorado, Texas shows as well. I didn't make it out to the East Coast where you're at. But again and again, so many people wanting to come up. I wanna get land and put a tiny home on it, but the area they were talking about didn't allow the wheels to live in full time.

Lindsay Wood [00:06:57]: You know, in California, we've got now, recent as of this, oh, gosh, a month ago, Mendocino County just approved moveable tiny homes as a primary and an ADU, which is super awesome for someone that wants to have a lower, amount invested into getting your whole homestead started. I think tiny houses are a way, but finding the jurisdiction that says, yes. You can have mom and dad or sister, brother in the front home and you be in the ADU. It's doable. We only have 3 jurisdictions in the state of California, Santa Cruz, Placer County, and Mendocino County, that are allowing more than one thing or primary home. So that left us with this interesting situation where after we had finished traveling, we're like, really? K. We're done. We've done the 6,000 miles.

Lindsay Wood [00:07:47]: We've pulled the tiny home all over the place. Now what? And we really wanted to come back home mostly because we are blessed and grateful that, both sides of our parents are alive. And my husband's parents are in Palo Alto where I'm sitting now, and my mom and dad are up in Ukiah, and my brother live on the same property. They leave every 6 months to go to Tucson. So then we go into the home every 6 months. So that's what we've kind of done for the last 6 years because in the summer, we've been out doing shows. But we ended up adding to our life was the world of selling modular homes that is built in a factory, like a movable home would be, built to a state code called the international residential code or California residential code, and then placed on foundation. Because so many people wanted something bigger than 400, they wanted to appreciate their property, and they wanted to not move it.

Lindsay Wood [00:08:44]: So when they got to those three things, and they were in an area where it's not allowed.

Ethan Waldman [00:08:49]: Right. Right. So yeah. I mean, that's the, like it's not like the dirty little secret of the tiny house industry, but it's like, there are other ways to live small in somebody else's backyard that aren't movable tiny houses. And and I know that you are passionate about movable tiny houses as am I, and they are still to me the the fastest you know, they can be deployed so quickly to to do infill and to create housing. But as you pointed out, they're not allowed in a lot of places.

Lindsay Wood [00:09:22]: Yeah. It's like sad sad face. You know? We're like, yay. It's so cool even then. And and that has been the work of the Tiny Home Industry Association to move things forward. I'm sure in the future, there'll be this amazing podcast that will focus on what's gonna happen when the international residential code actually embeds a whole new world and term called small residential unit. There's a task for working on that right now. We probably won't see that until 2027 code, but then that would be deployed all over the country wherever the IRC is adopted.

Lindsay Wood [00:09:57]: And guess what? That's every state except for Wisconsin. Even though it's in a national concern like HUD, it's still approved, and you're approved in in your state for IRC. Right?

Ethan Waldman [00:10:10]: Oh, yeah. I think so.

Lindsay Wood [00:10:12]: Yep. So, you know, I love my friend Alexis and Christian. They, you know, traveled so many miles, like, 50 plus 1,000 miles, and now they own a home in Bend, Oregon. And they're working on fixing up a a a what is it? A, like, a transit bus I recently saw. You know? So we're always in the flow. In fact, we're about to build another tiny home on a trailer that we got from, a company that actually went out of business, Wilderwise, and we just got the trailer part, not the whole home. When people say trailer, like, are you talking home or no. Just the actual flatbed part of it.

Lindsay Wood [00:10:48]: And we're gonna build a small home on it, 24 feet, and then place it in, in a stables in Daly City in the middle of, like, the hub of San Francisco area, and it'll be rented for nightly rentals. And what I love about that is people get a try before they buy, and we need way more of that option in, like, the urban area of the Bay Area for sure. Just to in you know, open people's mind. Then do they wanna go to Santa Cruz or somewhere where the jurisdiction's been approved, or do they wanna help the effort and become advocates and get another jurisdiction approved? Because right now, we are stacked. We got all the ordinances, all the language possible that someone could just scoop up and take to their elected official and go, let me put a tiny home in my backyard for gosh sake.

Ethan Waldman [00:11:38]: Well, let's talk about your current living arrangement because I I think it's fascinating. So can you tell us about it? And then, you know, how do you balance your personal needs with family support, work, and and just flexibility in your multi generational housing setup?

Lindsay Wood [00:11:53]: Yes. So we'll start with Ukiah House. So Ukiah has been the place where we've mostly been in and out. In fact, that's what was the inspiration. Parents were leaving. It was August 2017. I just finished a 3 day wedding wedding gig. I was hanging out in their house, kind of alone because they were off on a trip, and I looked around and thought, we could be here in the winter.

Lindsay Wood [00:12:16]: 6 months is a nice chunk of time to move out of our place, downsize, etcetera. Well, fast forward through 6 years, that's pretty much what we did every winter. Moved into their place. They had some storage for us to store things like kayaks and camping gear and things like that because I realized not everyone has that, and they may have to rent a storage unit, but we did not have to. So we moved in and out. That is wonderful. It takes a lot of energy to do that kind of moving all the time lifestyle. So, really, every 6 months, we were on a rotation, either living in our tiny home or living in our camper.

Lindsay Wood [00:12:52]: We did a whole summer in our just our camper on our truck when we were renting our tiny home out. So we've really been in this movable. And then, my in laws, really working on aging in place in their kind of mid eighties. Father-in-law needs more support, due to dementia and just the reality of of aging. And so they had this whole back apartment that I'm sitting in a quarter of right now. It's actually a 1 bedroom apartment that they had added on. It needed some clearing out of mom's quilting. You know, the the joke in the quilting world is the the the the person with the most fabric wins, and, boy, did she have fabric.

Lindsay Wood [00:13:36]: So we cleared out the closet. We cleared out other areas just so that Eric and I and my dog, our dog, could live here. And lo and behold, I didn't know this, but they had actually, when they bumped out this whole apartment, added in water for making a kitchenette. So we haven't done that yet, but now we this opportunity of Ukiah to Palo Alto, which is a 3 hour drive. My perspective, from Colorado, Texas, Arizona, and all the places we've lived, that 3 hours is super tiny.

Ethan Waldman [00:14:10]: Yeah. So and how often are you making the trip between them?

Lindsay Wood [00:14:16]: Well, you know, my parents are now leave we're getting into the cycle where they're about to leave to Tucson in mid October, and then we'll move back into there. But then we now have this place. And, actually, the way I've made my life within selling modular homes because I do site assessments. But not only just modular, removable as well. But one thing I'm gonna be, you know, really focused on is doing the permitting for tiny homes on wheels in Ukiah or Mendocino County. And then in the rest of the area, really focusing on the modular homes. But I'm happy to help people. We do have a number of counties and cities that have been approved for tiny homes on wheels, so I'm still, you know, both the movable and the modular.

Lindsay Wood [00:14:59]: The one thing I'm probably not selling is the manufactured home. So I like the triple alliteration there, the movable, the modular, and the manufactured. And then that gives us a chance to, like, help people at wherever level that they're looking at.

Ethan Waldman [00:15:14]: Can you talk about what the differences between modular and manufactured are?

Lindsay Wood [00:15:22]: Yes. Pretty much all 3 because it comes it breaks down into 3 building standards. And the first one is actually 2, which is the NFPA and ANSI. That's your RV. NFPA is probably your your 8 and a half wide, no more than 13x6. When you go wider, like 10 wide and taller than 13x6, which most people don't do, Good luck driving around on freeways. No. Don't do it.

Lindsay Wood [00:15:47]: But when you get into that, you're getting to more of a park model. But that's still all under the umbrella of RV, which is known for temporary living, which in many jurisdictions and cities think, you can park it there, but you can't live in it. And that's what drives people mostly crazy. Right? They're like, but why not? Like, they're everywhere, but you can't live in it, unless you're under the radar. And I am not the radar police here. I know you're not. You know, we lived under the radar for many years in that realm, but you just have to be aware that if you're gonna go through the process of buying land or putting something in the backyard and paying money for it, under the radar, you're under the, you know, the scrutiny of neighbors and people that could complain. So that's the RV side of things.

Lindsay Wood [00:16:30]: Then there's the international residential code built in a factory. Really, the long word is off-site modular construction, shrunk down to modular. And so that gives you a chance to build a regular home. Right? It just depends on the factory that you're working with. Then the manufactured is a HUD standard, which is national. Housing urban develop. We used to call them mobile homes. After 1970 they became manufactured homes.

Lindsay Wood [00:16:58]: Even though, funny enough, all the things we're talking about are manufactured in a factory.

Ethan Waldman [00:17:03]: Right.

Lindsay Wood [00:17:04]: It gets a little confusing.

Ethan Waldman [00:17:07]: So when you hear manufactured homes, you can I mean, I don't mean to to disparage them, but you can maybe think of a trailer park with double wides stationary Yep? Manufactured homes.

Lindsay Wood [00:17:20]: That's how it is originated, and I like to believe that the tiny home industry has really pushed the envelope of that industry, which has been known to we're gonna deliver substandard materials just because that's the notion of where that stigma and all that trailer park and things falling hard. But I've driven one recently. I'm like, that is definitely from 1976. And it looked decent, but you can sell the style. Now what you don't see is on a hot day in Palo Alto or wherever you're at, if the wall's thin Mhmm. And not well insulated, you're basically just heating and cooling your space, but, you know, you're trying to keep up. And that's what I love about and modular is that you can get a better quality of material, and you're usually gonna be held to a little bit more, a higher standard.

Ethan Waldman [00:18:05]: I'd like to tell you a little bit more about Tiny House Decisions, my signature guide, and the resource that I wish I had when I was building my tiny house. It starts with the big decisions, which is, you know, should you build a tiny house yourself or with help? Is a is a prebuilt shell a good idea? Is a house on wheels better than on the ground, and what works better for you? Deciding on the overall size, deciding on whether you should use custom plans or premade plans, different types of trailers, and more. Then in the in part 2, we get into the system, so heat, water, showers, hot water, toilets, electrical, refrigeration, ventilation. And we're only 2 thirds of the way through the book at this point. From systems, we go into construction decisions, talking about nails versus screws, SIPs versus stick frame versus advanced framing versus metal framing. We talk about how to construct a subfloor, sheathing, roofing materials, insulation, windows, flooring, kitchen. I know I'm just reading off the table of contents, but I just wanna give you a sense of how comprehensive Tiny House Decisions is. It's a total of a 170 pages.

Ethan Waldman [00:19:20]: It contains tons of full color drawings, diagrams, and resources, and it really is the guide that I wish I had when I was building my tiny house. Right now, I'm offering 20% off any package of Tiny House Decisions using the coupon code "tiny" when you head over to thetinyhouse.net/THD. That's THD for Tiny House Decisions. Again, that's coupon code "tiny" when you check out at thetinyhouse.net/THD. So the modular homes that you are selling, are they what what would you say they are size wise on the spectrum? You know, are they are they tiny or are they in that 400 to maybe a 1000 square feet range? And then my other my second question is, who you know, are people building them so that they can have a rental unit in their backyard, or are these becoming, like, Airbnbs? Or, like, what I mean, maybe you don't know what they're becoming, but I'm just curious what you're seeing.

Lindsay Wood [00:20:18]: Oh, I know. Okay. Oh, yeah. So we'll start with that one first, and then I'll track back to, like, the the sizes and all that. So hands down, you got pretty much two directions that someone's gonna go, but the third one is is really fun. Rental in the backyard. You're you know, you just bought a home or maybe you own a home and kids have left and you wanna bring in more income, definitely a rental with an free dwelling unit in the backyard. Because in California, we're approved statewide statewide for an ADU accessory dwelling unit in the backyard.

Lindsay Wood [00:20:50]: You have space. You can put 1 in. In some places, you can put more than 1 in. Then the other option, which is probably tracking to be the most, I should have started with that, Family living. My son lives in our main home. He's 30 years old. He wants his own place, but we're in San Jose, and everything's a million plus. It's just not affordable.

Lindsay Wood [00:21:11]: So the backyard has plenty of space. There's weeds growing. No one's caring about that landscaping over there because we were just in a drought for a number of years, and you never know with California if you're gonna be in another one. So the notion of, like, just, you know, watering the lawn with all this natural resource, not so much. So putting a home on there. Now many lots, you're gonna be restricted to a 5 foot setback and 10 foot from the house, so you only have that. We're seeing a lot of homes in the 288 square feet, very much under within the movable space. Most popular is probably the 420 square foot one if they can have space for it because it is a 1 bedroom.

Lindsay Wood [00:21:54]: So there's a, you know, a door to close. You've got 2 people in there. You do a podcast and someone walks in the room. Now there goes your quiet space. Right? So the 1 bedroom is key. I would say the other ones are going trending into more of, like, maybe a 2 bedroom, 500 and something square feet. So the company that I represent, Prefab Innovations, they have everything from 288 to about 1200 square feet and about 10 different models, all within that range. So great example with the recent fire that happened in Santa Cruz.

Lindsay Wood [00:22:29]: Property got burned out. This couple purchased it with the home gone already. They're a tiny home on the property at 828 square feet. Now in our world of the movable space, that doesn't compute. It's a big home. But in the world of 2 to 3000 square foot homes that could easily go back in that property. Their 828 square feet is tiny.

Ethan Waldman [00:22:54]: Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsay Wood [00:22:56]: Yeah. So they wanted a little more space, but they didn't wanna go with the 2,000 square foot home.

Ethan Waldman [00:23:02]: Sure. Interesting.

Lindsay Wood [00:23:04]: I feel like the ADU range, you could buy the 1200 square foot that's typically designed for an ADU, but you've owned 50% of the home. So that you'd have to have a home that's a primary home that's 3,000 square feet, and then you do half of that. Okay. But our 12 square feet could be available for a primary home, and then you put an ADU in the backyard. But most people I'm talking to are wanting to put something in the backyard for family. Yeah. And that's where we get that multigenerational living, and I'm even seeing it now being the thing touted by real estate agents talking about, you know, primary homes that they're selling have enough space for multigenerational living free. It's big.

Lindsay Wood [00:23:46]: And here's the cool thing. If it's happening in California, it's gonna go across the country.

Ethan Waldman [00:23:51]: Yeah. You

Lindsay Wood [00:23:52]: know? We've just had the housing crisis for, like, way more decades than many other people.

Ethan Waldman [00:23:57]: Yeah.

Lindsay Wood [00:23:58]: But we had a drop in building of homes since 2008. It's gonna catch up all over the country.

Ethan Waldman [00:24:08]: Yeah. I think you're I think you're absolutely right. And it's all the tiny house advocacy that's happening, I think, is is happening alongside of ADU general ADU advocacy and just states seeing that, hey. We need we need more ADUs.

Lindsay Wood [00:24:25]: Yes. I think Texas had it on the ledge. You know, sometimes they'll come up. They'll get slammed down because so many people have I get it. Oh, that's gonna drop my property value. It's gonna add more traffic. It's gonna but the reality the other side of it is we're all you know, a lot of families spending way too much on their income on housing, not having enough for retirement, ending up, you know, having to go live on the streets. We've just seen record numbers of seniors never been un unhoused before in their life now facing homelessness.

Lindsay Wood [00:24:59]: That's just compute. That's all because of the the squeeze, the rising, cost of living, etcetera, etcetera, and the fact that we built enough homes.

Ethan Waldman [00:25:10]: So shifting gears a little bit. You you mentioned that you mentioned that your tiny home man mindset kind of transcends your physical structure. Can you elaborate on what this means to you and and how others might apply it to their lives?

Lindsay Wood [00:25:26]: I'm all about what is tiny for you. Right? Everyone has a different perspective. Like, the dear people in Santa Cruz that are really proud of themselves for going tiny in the realm of 828 square feet. Yeah. And then there's my buddy, Jay Schafer, that started everything with, you know, roughly the 200 square foot floor plan. Right? The gable roof and the loft and and a really small square footage that so it really is up to people. But what I'm seeing on trend is that more and more families are becoming aware that, you know, they wanna keep their their family connected. They want privacy, but they want proximity.

Lindsay Wood [00:26:08]: Right? So that's a a really important trend. Even with my most recent person that wants a movable tiny home in Mendocino County because now it's approved, It's that they want it on their on their family's property. And and my favorite thing is the land dictates the plan. Do you want to go and live in community? That's another really big trend. You know, they want people that are maybe single, and they haven't had kids or their kids are grown, and they're like, what do I do now? I don't want this big house. I'm gonna cash out of this. I'm gonna go live in a community. And there are so many amazing communities.

Lindsay Wood [00:26:44]: I wish we had more here in California. Actually, what's funny, we have so many places that are approved, but we don't have as many communities as, say, more like North Carolina and Texas and, you know, all over the country, even Oregon, with tiny tranquility. So I look to those models and go, okay. We need something here. It's just land's expensive no matter what you do with it. And then you gotta work on the zoning. It's always back to the darn zoning.

Ethan Waldman [00:27:13]: It is always down to the darn zoning.

Lindsay Wood [00:27:15]: So I come back to, you know, the Tiny Home lifestyle. You see it on TV. You see it on YouTube. You hear about it here on this wonderful podcast. Hope people are making that, you know, their go to, if you have one of those buttons where it gets reminded on when the next podcast is, I know I have it, is to understand what's important for you. And what's important for you now doesn't always mean that you have to have that same plan 20 years from now. I've heard a lot of people like, this is my forever home. Is it really? Maybe that's a lot of pressure on yourself for, like, making that your forever home when you're, like, 55 or 42 or 35.

Lindsay Wood [00:27:58]: Beautiful thing is tiny homes, if you if you get the right one built well, they hold their value, and they'll be resold. They're not gonna appreciate like real estate does, but they're gonna appreciate the fact that you lived in it. Maybe you rented it. Maybe it's flexible housing. That's another part. You know, right now, we just saw a massive storm just rip through so many parts of our south south, east that it's you know, I've got friends over there that lost everything, their fabric, educators, and and, unfortunately, they just lost everything. So I do I get I I commonly see this. Like, people go, oh my gosh.

Lindsay Wood [00:28:37]: Send tiny homes. Like, right now, what everyone needs is, you know, immediate survival, water, and And then there's a cleanup phase that happens. And the reason why I know this is we instead of fricking, we had fires. Right? Once a fire we gotta clean it first. There's toxic sludge they gotta remediate and get out and then rebuild. And, of course, I don't know if North Carolina or Asheville having a movable tiny home allowance, but that would be an amazing thing to get placed once this immediate survival needs is over. We've got to attend to that first. .

Lindsay Wood [00:29:16]: We're the advocates that say, you know what? I didn't have flood insurance. I still wanna own my land. The home is pretty much either a teardown or now let's can we bring tiny homes? Because that's what happened all over Mendocino County when we had a where we were able to bring in RVs. But my view is if you're about to buy something, could you buy a tiny home that has that thicker wall, you know, the r value that you really need in those hot days of North Carolina?

Ethan Waldman [00:29:46]: Right. Why buy something that's just a temporary structure? Buy something that you could potentially either live in for a long time or could then be used as housing for someone else.

Lindsay Wood [00:29:56]: Yeah. That's a major thing. And I think, if anything, that's probably the biggest thing I could reach out and help and go, hi. City of North Carolina, when they're, like like, literally all hands on deck right now, but maybe 4 to 5 to 6 months where they're they're trying to figure this out or even connecting with someone like, you tell me when, and I'll connect with you and make sure you've embedded in your in your city ordinances to allow for movable tiny homes on land of people that are needing to rebuild or repopulate. But if they have land, and they can welcome some other people that lost their homes. That's the other thing. That neighborhood, that community is tight. So there's gonna be like, I've got a property.

Lindsay Wood [00:30:39]: Come. Let's bring a tiny home.

Ethan Waldman [00:30:41]: Yeah. Yep.

Lindsay Wood [00:30:42]: So We gotta pay to make sure that can happen.

Ethan Waldman [00:30:46]: I would say that the majority of my listeners who are interested in in tiny or small living are, you know, probably don't own land and probably don't have, you know, family where they can do a multigenerational kind of thing. They're probably looking for someone else who wants to do something like this. I'm curious what you know, because you've been around this industry and you've been around this population for so long. What what advice would you have for somebody who is like, yeah. I wanna live small. I wanna you know, I'd love to share space. I'd love to share land. How do they go about finding these kinds of arrangements?

Lindsay Wood [00:31:25]: Right now, I mean, there's literally the the Facebook tiny house hosting on Facebook is probably the one area. I know search tiny house villages just transformed into a new name, and I'm blanking on who this is. That's another resource. They're literally going in your local area because, you know, here's the thing. The land dictates the plan. If your plan is, I wanna live in the backyard of, let's just use a city, I don't know, somewhere, Austin, Texas. Right? Of course, my challenge right there is, oh, they haven't yet allowed the movable tiny home. Let's say Portland.

Lindsay Wood [00:32:04]: Let's choose one that's a little easier. They've allowed it in the backyard, and you don't know anybody. You're moving there. Right? You you want to move there. Put out postings. Go look for other Portland conscious community, housing groups, anything like that, and put together what your vision is of what you'd like to do. Because there will be some utility connections, water, sewer, electrical, making sure, you know, that wherever the home is sitting, that it's on the right kind of pad that whatever is required. We like to say an all weather pad and not have to require concrete.

Lindsay Wood [00:32:39]: And so find all the ways. If you've got someone that's a really good influencer that's well connected there, right, find them. So it really is tapping into your network, looking for existing tiny home communities or and I mean communities on social platforms. Facebook is definitely one that us older people use. No. I've now entered that realm of, like but I use Instagram too. I'm still young at heart. But really go and put your word out and say, this is what I wanna get.

Lindsay Wood [00:33:09]: Even if you don't have your tiny home yet, get a picture of the home you think you wanna get, something like it. Put it together, and I'm looking for this. Because if you don't see what you're looking for, how can universe, creator, and the neighbor, and the people, and the network even know to help you out? Because that's where we were able to find places all over the country if we just put it out. In fact, one person was sitting with our tiny home, and they knocked on our door and said, do you need a space? I'm like

Ethan Waldman [00:33:40]: Amazing.

Lindsay Wood [00:33:42]: Right?

Ethan Waldman [00:33:43]: Amazing. Yeah. I mean, that's that is a great piece of advice, and I think people are usually scared to just put it out there and just ask. But that is that is the way I would agree. And and also just tiny houses still have so much goodwill. Like, people still think they're cute. People are still like, that is really cool. Maybe I can't do that, but I would love to support somebody doing that.

Ethan Waldman [00:34:08]: So I, you know, I echo your advice to to put it out there.

Lindsay Wood [00:34:12]: Oh, another one. There is this really cool, the the postcard's, like, right on the bed. There's this great can I go get it? I have to get it. This is so cool. Okay. Here it is. Okay. I found this in my my friend's, mailbox, the way to stay.

Lindsay Wood [00:34:33]: This is a whole group home home match, that connects seniors with usually, seniors are in a situation where their kids have all grown. They're you know, maybe another one of their, their spouse passed away, and they're in this giant house that they don't wanna sell yet. Right? Because they're holding equity, and they're they're there. But they match people. And so I'm just looking at this thing going, oh, man. This is what our industry needs. So, I can't say anything yet. Cat cat can't get out of the bag yet, but I'm working on a platform.

Lindsay Wood [00:35:07]: Think when you go and rent Airbnb, you go to a platform. Like, there's lots going on in there. And I am not the tech person, but I know some people are dedicated to investing in this industry. And when I'm ready to, like, share more, I feel like I'm on to something because I am sorry, but I am not the person to do the tech stuff. Yeah. You won't find me going for that kind of job because it's just not my brain. But I love connecting people. I love sharing information and educating.

Lindsay Wood [00:35:38]: So, really, you know, the person that's on stage sharing the info, but the people behind the scenes that are putting all that platform together, we need it. We really need it. Because if someone was like, I'm interested. And then just like you'd see an app, right, on your phone, there's so many apps for that, making those connections. There's a number of people in our industry that have been talking about it for a long time, so we'll see if this is the next, you you know, this is the the thing, the solution, or a solution that would be open source and able for other people to tap into it.

Ethan Waldman [00:36:11]: Have you have you seen the the new the park your tiny folks?

Lindsay Wood [00:36:15]: I have seen that. Yeah. It's promising. I was part of, one of the, you know, speakers

Ethan Waldman [00:36:20]: that recorded. Yeah. I did I did their summit too. It it is promising. I think it's, you know, it it seems like it's focused more for people who are maybe already have a tiny home, but or people who are looking for for places to park. But I, you know, I think sites like that are great. I hope they achieve the the kind of critical mass that they're gonna need to make it into a platform that that is worthwhile. But I would echo again back to what you said, just local Facebook groups.

Ethan Waldman [00:36:53]: You know, up here in Vermont, we have this thing called front porch forum. Again, it's like, it's a local email listserv for just your town. And Yeah. It's you're gonna get so much more traction on a local site rather than something that is an entire the entire map of the United States, unless you're just looking to move somewhere.

Lindsay Wood [00:37:13]: My thing is a checklist. Like, okay. You're looking for something. Yeah. Put it on tiny house hosting. You know, check-in once a month, repost it, make yourself known, and then you can also use the search tool. There are people in there that do post that they're looking for someone to park on their land. So maybe, you you know, you hit the jackpot.

Lindsay Wood [00:37:32]: That's just one of the checklists. Right? Then you go to your local Craigslist, your, you know, your your local forums. All those things leave no stone unturned if you're dedicated to your dream. And I know a lot of dreamers out there, but if they wanna take their dream and make it a reality, it takes work. It just work is this is not something that's in the normal fray of our world. There's a lot of real estate agents out there that wanna sell you a home. Right? That is normal in our society. This thing that we're doing with tiny homes and movability and and all that, and you know why we need it the most, is that we have had record low numbers of building homes, and we're not gonna dig ourselves out of that go build it stick by stick on property.

Lindsay Wood [00:38:18]: If that was the solution, we would have been solved by now. It's not gonna be solved. So it takes everybody, the modulars, the movables, the manufacturer to make sure and really the ADU. I'm a big fan of infill. Because if we don't infill, we sprawl.

Ethan Waldman [00:38:33]: Do you listen to the The New York Times daily podcast? It's, like, kind of a big daily news explainer show. They did a great episode last week on just trying to explain the shortage of housing. And basically, their their theory was that the 2,008 crisis decimated the new home building industry. Like, so many builders went out of business. And then from that point forward, we basically came up short by, like, a 1000000 houses a year. And the only houses that are being built are for the high end because that's that's where the money is. So Exactly. You know, this isn't a political podcast, but let let's hope that, let's hope that vice president Harris gets elected so that we can, build some new homes.

Ethan Waldman [00:39:17]: Alright. Well, there we go. We became a political podcast.

Lindsay Wood [00:39:21]: A brief moment, very important, very needed.

Ethan Waldman [00:39:23]: Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsay Wood [00:39:24]: Yes. Very needed. I love the dedication that this whole industry, this tiny m industry has to housing people. Right? Creating more solutions. And the current day of housing of, like you know, I've gone into parts of around this country. I look at these homes and, like, no one's living in that. It's just vacant. It's the lower place, like, 4000 square feet.

Lindsay Wood [00:39:48]: You know? There's also a lot what's going on because of COVID. A lot of people left the the commercial space. So now they're taking over old malls and old, like, these giant, you know, infrastructure and transforming them into housing. That, I love that. Right? That creates immediate community. So, again, we're either gonna sprawl or go up or go in, and I believe that more multigenerational housing we wouldn't even have to think about multigenerational housing if we're in a different culture. Like, historic culture, Asian culture, they're like, oh, yeah. You're at home with your parents.

Lindsay Wood [00:40:23]: Of course, you are. What? I don't understand. Our culture was kinda like, you you know, leave the nest at 18, which was wonderful when you had enough housing to go out and do that. But 2008, they went from 2,000,000 a year to 600,000 and did not back to those bigger numbers. And so you're gonna have a supply and demand. Right? If you have high demand, you have low supply, prices go up. Yeah. Law of economics.

Ethan Waldman [00:40:52]: Yeah. So, a last question I have for you is just for those who are interested in in tiny living but facing legal restrictions, You know, what insights can you share about off-site modular construction as an alternative? As a, like, tiny house on wheels won't work. What else should they explore?

Lindsay Wood [00:41:14]: It can still go small. We have a 288 square feet, a lot of builders out there. There's a company. So one of the different one of the biggest challenges in modular is access. Our original home were built with these 5 foot setbacks. So you can't, like, drive a 12 foot wide home there. You gotta crane it up and over. People hear crane like, oh my god.

Lindsay Wood [00:41:34]: Is that super expensive? Yeah. But when you get the home back there and now you're living there, you're also appreciating your property value, it might be worth the $10,000 crane fee. If you don't wanna do that on principle, then, you know, studio shed is a panelized system that your local contractor can buy from them these panelized systems, bring them down that 5 foot setback, and start building the home in the backyard. Just know that when you have more labor in on a property, it costs more because people have to drive to the property to do that. If something can come from a factory fully done, you know, and then there's different price points of that. You know, I've also got companies that we sell that 288 for 79,000 plus the development of property. So I recently did a quote for a 122,000 for something like that. It might be a little, you know, more than maybe but I see a lot of tiny homes in the 150 k range, and that's for a home that will go in the backyard and appreciate in property value.

Lindsay Wood [00:42:35]: And there's the other key part. Financing is readily available across all platforms, Fannie Mae, Fannie Mac, home equity lines of credit. One of the coolest things that I have to share about is this thing called equity share, where if you have a print primary home, you can pull out equity of a home as long as you have a first mortgage, and you don't have to pay on that monthly. You have a 10 year balloon payment. And guess what? It's only 4.4%. So in order to add up all the things, I get it. Financing in the tiny home space is not super easy. It's kinda like 21st mortgage is, like, the biggest option.

Lindsay Wood [00:43:12]: But financing is what moves the needle for most people, whether they get it from their family, whether they get it from their credit union, or they get it from 21st for a movable. A lot of people need it to make their dream happen. But if you go modular because it's not allowed to do movable or you wanna appreciate property value or you wanna go a little bit bigger than maybe 400 square feet, then there's a lot more financing options available.

Ethan Waldman [00:43:39]: Well, Lindsay, always as as always when talking to you, I've I've, like, opened so many tabs. I've got Equity Share. I've got Studio Shed. So so many things open, so many topics to explore. Where can people find you right now if they wanna kind of follow you and and see what you're doing?

Lindsay Wood [00:43:56]: Yes. So I am focusing on the nation with my Go tiny academy. I'm gonna be coming through I have relaunch right now. It's only $1 out there. Thetinyhomelady.com is where they can find out about that. For modular homes, I'm only focused in the state of California. Just helps to niche down. For anyone else that's like, where do I find it? Type in modular home and ask, you know, your your builders, your the local question.

Lindsay Wood [00:44:22]: Do you build to the state code, or do you build to the HUD code? Right? That's a super important question to ask. Or are you gateway mod movable? And I'm always a big fan of, like, advocates out there. If you wanna advocate and and get something to be approved, I'm available for consulting. You navigating through your city's process because I've already done it, like, successfully in Mendocino County. It was a 2 year journey, but we made it happen. And I'm so grateful to know that there's people's lives that are affected because of my efforts, and it wasn't like a full time job. I just kept touching in with my local official, and and we can make it happen if you're dedicated to do it.

Ethan Waldman [00:45:02]: Alright. Lindsay Wood, thank you so much for for being a guest on the show again. Looking forward to sharing this one.

Lindsay Wood [00:45:07]: Thank you for your platform, Ethan.

Ethan Waldman [00:45:11]: Thank you so much to Lindsay Wood for being a guest on the show today. You can find the show notes for this episode, including a complete transcript, links, and resources at thetinyhouse.net/308. Again, that's thetinyhouse.net/308. If you enjoyed this episode and found it valuable, please make sure to follow the podcast so you don't miss future episodes. And if this resonated with you or someone that you know, please feel free to share it and help spread the word about tiny living. Thanks for listening. I'm your host, Ethan Waldman, and I'll be back in 2 weeks with another episode of the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast.