- Amazon has several tiny houses on sale that come in build-it-yourself kits, starting at just over $5,000.
- Tiny houses have cropped up in popularity as housing prices are rising and minimalistic downsizing is becoming trendy.
- One tiny house, a two-floor “getaway cabin” for $18,800, is advertised as taking only two to three days to build.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Amazon prides itself on being the go-to easy-to-use online marketplace for everything you need – and that apparently includes tiny houses.
Tiny homes have become increasingly popular in the past few years, whether that’s because of rising costs of living or because they encourage minimalist living. Tiny homes make it possible to own your own property, even if that house measures only between 100 and 400 square feet.
But while constructing a functional housing unit may seem like a daunting task, Amazon has stepped in to make a hot millennial trend available to the masses by making these tiny homes easy to buy and simple to build. There are more than two dozen options on Amazon for DIY tiny-home kits, including 113-foot cabins at $5,350 and loft-bedroom houses at $20,000.
Surprisingly, some of the Amazon listings say these tiny homes can be built in as little as two days with two people.
To get an idea of how buying a tiny house on Amazon works, take a look at this "getaway cabin" being sold on Amazon for nearly $19,000:
This is one of the tiny homes for sale on Amazon — a build-it-yourself kit for a "getaway cabin."
The company selling this tiny-house kit on Amazon is a United Kingdom-based company called Lillevilla, which manufactures log cabins. The tiny-home kits on Amazon are mainly sold by Lillevilla and the wood-production e-retailer Allwood Outlet.
The all-wood home is advertised as a cabin and not a full-fledged residence, likely because the tiny home comes with only bare materials and few features.
The tiny home is "large enough to function as a summer house, granny flat, home office or even a stand-alone retail building," the description says.
The floor map for the tiny home shows a little bit more about its specifications. The setup is simple: three rooms on the main floor spanning 292 square feet and an attic-level loft bedroom above.
The home also includes a partially covered deck out front, which is optional if you're not feeling the outdoor wooden floor.
To make best use of the small property, and to make the home easy to build, amenities are sparse. Without gas, it'd be hard to set up a kitchen. To make up for the lack of electricity, each room in the tiny home has at least one window for natural lighting.
To turn the cabin into a "primary residence," Allwood suggests adding utility hookups for electricity and internet, and insulation for colder temperatures.
Behind the tiny home's french doors, here's what the main 16-foot-wide area looks like.
The room is split up, however, by the ladder in the center that leads up to the small loft room above.
The loft area is where Allwood advertises that the bedroom would be. The slanted roof makes hitting your head a strong possibility — at its tallest height, the room measures less than 5 feet tall.
The Allwood listing for the tiny home shows that the building comes in three big parcels when it's shipped to you. All the materials needed for constructing the tiny home apparently come in the shipped package: roof shingles and gables, glass panes, nails and screws, and the lock for the door.
Allwood says only "minimal tools are needed." For the interested buyer who has minimal building experience, the package is accompanied with "easy to use" instructions that should be simple to follow.
However, it is possible you'll need outside expertise for building the tiny home. The tiny-home kit comes with floorboards but not with materials for building a foundation that ensures the home is secure and stable.
Adding a foundation made of gravel or concrete can help give a house a stable base, especially if you're trying to build a tiny house on grass (that can soften in the rain) or on ground that's not flat.
This particular tiny home kit goes for $18,800 on Amazon. The listing suggests that building the cabin can take as little as two days with two people working.
Fortunately, shipping on this home is free.
But Amazon also sells other tiny homes of varying sizes and designs, too. On the cheaper side, this one-room 113-square-foot cabin goes for $5,350.
Lillevilla also suggests not using this as a tiny home, but instead as a "home office, lake house, guest cottage, yoga studio, retail kiosk, or simply a retreat in your back yard."
On the pricier side, Amazon sells this Timberline cabin. For $34,900, this home is 354 square feet and more customizable, which makes changing the home's floor plan much easier
Amazon sells other build-it-yourself home kits for $46,900 and $64,650. However, these houses are much bigger than the 400-square-foot maximum under the definition of a "tiny house."