NBC 7’s Gene Cubbison speaks with housing developers about how tiny homes may be an affordable solution to San Diego’s housing crisis.
With California's housing in short supply and homes so unaffordable, architects and builders are scaling down home sizes for lower-income renters, buyers, and senior citizens.
The housing industry calls them ADUs: "accessory dwelling units"-- tiny homes and "modular" housing units that cover a very few hundred square feet.
People can move into them as primary residences or put them on their property to rent out, for extra income.
Some are being showcased at Market Creek Plaza in Encanto over the weekend.
"People are so averse to change that we haven't built anything to keep up with the demand here in San Diego, and that's just driven costs through the roof," said San Diego City Councilmember Scott Sherman. "Our kids and grandkids can't afford to live because that middle rung on the economic ladder is missing for them."
Prices for the tiny homes can range from as low as $15,000 to $60,000 -- well below San Diego County's most recent median sale price of $550,000.
For recent college graduates, senior citizens, and homeowners looking for rental income, the affordability factor would have the appeal that current market conditions don't.
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"The land is really the problem that we have," says Philip Bona, San Diego chapter president of the American Institute of Architects. "And we somehow need to stabilize the land cost so that they carry for about ten years at the $550,000, so that the jobs and the salary markets like that have a chance to come up and meet it, maybe in a decade or more."
Organizers of the event say this region will need 11,000 new housing units a year over the next three decades.
Tiny homes could meet a lot of demand.
