Cottage/ Microhomes/ Tiny homes - financing

[Dwayne Jones]

I'm a general contractor and real estate investor seeking to develop a new market for affordable homes and rentals. I have two drawbacks that have hindered the process. A little background, I built the first microhome village in Nashville on trailers at Green Street Church called the Sanctuary. These were 60 sq. ft. units for the homeless. I also built a 832 sq. ft. cottage with 2 bd/ 1 bath in Memphis. Ive built homes, renovated and rehabbed, lifht commercial, mission work in Ghana, Togo, India, and Haiti building clinics, schools, and churches. Looking at the large number of vacant lots in Memphis I've come up with a one bedroom 360 sq. ft (28k) and 648 (45k) two bedroom plans. There are individuals interested in purchasing but I'm having problems with comps. There aren't any new construction projects nearby and definitely not less than 1,000 sq. ft. Also, most lenders won't finance (end buyer mortgage) projects less than 50k. Any thoughts or suggestions? 

PS: I tried to build a tiny village in Memphis but zoning requirements prohibited building. So the 360 sq. ft. homes are on slab and conventional systems and code compliant unlike some tiny projects.

[Karen Margrave]

You definitely have to be into the land extremely cheap to get things to pencil out. But for those places where it will work, it sounds like a great option.