Home » Business» Real Estate
Loading…
LIVIN’ LITTLE
Jane Elekonich rents a 608-square-foot house in Holland and says smaller living offers advantages including ease of cleaning.
THE BLADE/JETTA FRASER
Enlarge
| Photo Reprints
OBJECT
The Toledo real estate market remains mostly dormant for spacious existing homes and large new ones, but one segment of the market is still generating buyers: tiny homes.
A 558-square-foot house on Corregidor Drive in Sylvania has been rented for 10 years by the current owner’s brother-in-law.
THE BLADE/JETTA FRASER
Enlarge
| Photo Reprints
Houses of 800 square feet or less continue to pull in buyers — mainly investors — who with the depressed real estate market can purchase such homes for a tenth of the cost of a 2,000-square-foot house. With a few thousand in investment, they can convert these structures into solid rental property.
“Investors are the ones who are buying them. They usually rent them out to a single person or a young family without children,” said John Zeisler, a real estate agent with Re/Max Preferred Associates’ Oregon office.
Some small houses are being bought by people who live in the houses, but those buyers are mainly looking for small houses that are in ready-to-move into condition, not fixer-uppers, Mr. Zeisler said.
But, he said, “it has become so difficult for those people to get financing.”
The Lucas County Auditor’s Office lists about 6,900 residential properties in the county that are 800 square feet or less.
The smallest free-standing house — excluding house trailers or attached buildings on larger properties — is a 336-square-foot, one-bedroom house on Garden Road in Maumee. It was built in 1952 and records show it has no bathroom.
Most small houses usually have one or two small bedrooms, a living area, a kitchen, and a bathroom.
Five years ago, Jane Elekonich began renting a 608-square-foot house in Holland that is owned by the family of her employer, Pawlaczyk Ever-Green Landscaping. The house on Bancroft Street is tiny, but Ms. Elekonich said smaller living offers a lot of advantages.
“It’s similar to being in an apartment. In 30 seconds I can show you from the front door to the back,” said Ms. Elekonich, who had lived 18 years in low-income housing.
A 624-square-foot house on Brussels Street in West Toledo was purchased last May by an investor who has rented it to a young couple.
THE BLADE/JETTA FRASER
Enlarge
| Photo Reprints
A small house is much easier to clean, and she doesn’t share walls with neighbors. “There’s no mad thumping music, no fights all the time that you hear. It’s just small enough for me,” she said.
Ms. Elekonich said her house could comfortably hold about 10 to 15 people — if she wanted to hold a party. Otherwise, it’s simple living, especially in rural Holland. “I like living in the country and I’m surrounded by parks,” she said.
John M. Pawlaczyk, who serves as the landlord for his father, John E., who owns the house, said the advantage of a small house for an owner is less upkeep. “Because everything is smaller, that makes it more affordable to remodel. It costs less to heat, but generally, many of these houses are very old, so they’re not very energy efficient.”
Gregory Paul Johnson, a founder of the Small House Society, of Iowa City, Iowa, a group that advocates small homesteading, said that besides living costs, small houses have “a lot of benefits that are not perceived.”
For example, if one is into fitness, there’s no room for home gym equipment, so a small house occupant joins a gym. “What ends up happening is you can kind of outsource your life and the stress that goes with that.”
That makes small houses perfect for those starting out in life, who often own very few possessions, or those who are late in life and have downsized possessions, Mr. Johnson said.
Technology, he explained, is making it easier for people to live in smaller houses. “What used to take many bookshelves to hold, all of that fits now on an iPod or a Kindle. People are just naturally living smaller lives, and that accommodates smaller houses,” he said.
Mary Ann Coleman, a real estate agent with Wells Bowen Realtors, said most of the small houses in Lucas County can be found in the older sections — East Toledo, central Toledo, West Toledo, the Old North End, and the Old South End – and are fairly old.
“In the early 1900’s we didn’t build such large homes unless we were very wealthy,” she said.
Currently the Toledo area’s multiple listing service has 142 active listings of houses under 800 square feet. In the last 12 months, 184 under 800 square feet were sold, Ms. Coleman said.
Many of those listed small homes are in foreclosure or are going through short sales, real estate agents said.
Jon Modene, of Re/Max Masters in Perrysburg, recently took over two small-house listings, both on Favony Avenue in Holland; the owners were foreclosed upon for not paying property taxes. One house is 648 square feet, the other 768 square feet, he said. One is listed at $26,900, and the price of the other has yet to be set.
The low price of such houses attracts investors such as Andrew Schober, a Toledo school teacher who lives in Riga, Mich.
Last May, he bought a home on Brussels Street in West Toledo for $11,000. In 2009, the 624-square-foot house sold for $28,000.
He recently rented the house to a young couple who had lived in an apartment building that he owns.
“My first starter home that I moved into was 850 square feet,” he said. “But we have three kids now and needed something a lot bigger. But a small house has advantages. There’s a lot less maintenance on a smaller home, you have a smaller yard to take care of, less taxes, and less of a place to clean.”
In 2001, George Cordray of Sylvania paid $70,000 for a 558-square-foot house on Corregidor Drive. He bought it both as an investment and to help protect property values in his neighborhood. “I wanted to make sure it was kept up. It was very small and the price was such it could have been purchased by someone who might not take care of it,” he said.
The house, which has two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom, abuts Mr. Cordray’s property. It has been rented by his brother-in-law, Joe Binkowski, for the last 10 years.
Mr. Binkowski said that although he has become accustomed to small-house living, it isn’t for everyone.
“A disadvantage is there’s no outlets for laundry, although that could be addressed, I think. And when I have relatives coming from out of town they pretty much sleep on a couch,” he said. “But I guess if I had more room, I’d just make more of a mess. And that’s an advantage — there’s not a lot to keep clean.”
It beats apartment living, he added. “I don’t like apartments. You can get a baby to sleep and then somebody pounds on the ceiling and you wake the baby up,” he said.
Mr. Cordray said the value of a small home appreciates far less than that for a larger home. But “everything is proportional,” he added.
Insurance costs are pretty much the same as for a car, and taxes are less.
Contact Jon Chavez at: jchavez@theblade.com or 419-724-6128.
Open all references in tabs: [1 – 5]