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We Tested the Tiny-Home Trend
What it's like to spend the night in a 325-square-foot kasita
The first thing I think when I walk into the Kasita model on East Fourth Street is yes—I would definitely live here. It's 5 p.m. on a Tuesday, and floor-to-ceiling windows flood the space with golden light. The 352-square-foot high-tech tiny home is fashionably furnished in that eminently Pinterest-able sort of way, with succulents on raised stands, chic neutral-toned furniture, and bright white walls. Best of all, it's not cluttered with all the stuff that fills my own far-dimmer, much older apartment. But as my dog, Phoebe, sniffs out the space where we're going to spend the night—a brief experiment in tiny living—I wonder: Where would I put all my stuff?
There's a large closet near the bathroom, tucked to the right of the entry; the stairs between the kitchen and the living room roll out to reveal storage bins; a hatch hides cleverly beneath a floor runner, opening into a basement-like space. In newer units, there are built-in bookshelves. The storage is smart but not abundant. Which is precisely the point of tiny living—to pare down our lives to the essentials, following in the footsteps of Jeff Wilson, aka Professor Dumpster, who famously lived in a 33-square-foot dumpster for a year in Austin.
Wilson co-founded Kasita in 2015 with a vision to "transform urban living and to think about housing in our cities in a new way," he says. As of April, the Austin-based company, which has 32 employees, had made seven Kasita units, six of which are scattered around Austin. The seventh is embarking on a road trip across the United States to spread the gospel of the smart, modern micro home.
Kasita is available in two configurations—Independent and Community. The Independent unit is 374 square feet, about half the size of a large one-bedroom apartment (Community units are 408 square feet). I unpack my things—even for a night, a tiny home seems to require tidiness—and delight in the Sonos-powered surround sound as I cook dinner. The kitchen is easy to navigate, with plenty of counter space and a two-burner induction stove; the refrigerator and freezer are stacked drawers, roomy enough to fit a week's groceries.
The Kasita is divided into four areas: a full bathroom with shower, the kitchen, a living/sleeping area, and the glass-walled "cube," a sort of interior porch that hangs off the main unit. Because it's split into two levels—the kitchen and cube are several steps above the living/sleeping area—it feels more spacious, as if there are more spaces to occupy.
After I finish dinner, I play around with the iPad that controls the lighting, temperature, and TV, and Phoebe and I settle down to watch Netflix. The couch pulls out into a queen-size bed, transforming the living room into a bedroom. It's a smart design, informed in part by Wilson's year of dumpster living, when he realized how much space a bed occupies. In the Kasita, he says, "We thought about every cubic inch of experience within that small space, and we tried to make it as perfect as possible." And it's pretty perfect, from the built-in computer nook in the kitchen to the insulated walls and eco-friendly appliances. My only gripes were the bathroom appliances—the bathroom sink was too small to comfortably wash my face and hands—and the couch, which was far less comfortable than the Casper-mattress-equipped bed. Still, I'd happily trade my 1970s-era 680-square-foot apartment for the efficiency and design of a Kasita.
That's exactly what Wilson is hoping for—to attract people sick of living in apartments but who can't yet afford to buy traditional homes. "The way it's always been done is you put together some money, bought a starter home, if you can afford it in the city that you're in, and then tied yourself to it for 40 years," Wilson says. "Rising student debt, astronomical home prices in a place like Austin, with the lack of supply near the places that folks want to be, the lack of community that you find in the condo builds—we're looking for innovative solutions to solve all that."
A top-of-the-line Independent Kasita costs $129,000 and can be financed by a lender like any other real estate purchase. With a 30-year mortgage at 5 percent interest, your monthly payment would be $692—affordable, until you consider the cost of the land you might put it on.
One solution to the land question is to put your home in the backyard of an existing house—although some residential lots in Austin require prohibitively expensive permitting. Another option is to lease a parcel in a tiny home community like Constellation ATX, a 6.2-acre development just south of Austin city limits that offers long-term leases on parcels of land starting at $725 a month (that'd make you a homeowner—but not a landowner—for $1,417 a month). The Kasita Community units are the next frontier, built to be stacked for multifamily dwelling in low- to mid-rise developments on small plots of land, increasing both affordability and density.
"We're not going to solve the land issue," Wilson acknowledges. "We have to look for innovative ways to get to affordability. We need to think in new and innovative ways about the housing crisis." The obvious question is whether Kasita homes will retain value over time, given that the equity built through homeownership often has more to do with the appreciation of the land it sits on rather than the value of the building itself.
I turn the lights off via iPad, roll down the window shades, and sleep peacefully, enveloped in darkness and quiet. The next morning, Phoebe and I walk around East Austin, past small homes in disrepair adjacent to million-dollar rebuilds abutting empty lots selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. It seems fitting that the Kasita showroom is in East Austin, a neighborhood on the front lines of change, grappling with questions of affordability and density and who gets to live where. But if you can find a tiny plot of land in East Austin—or anywhere else—Kasita just might be the home for you.
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