Mary Lull, 22, is starting to look at buying her first house. But she says her and her fiancee’s budget limits them to older homes in need of a lot of work. “Anything that we could afford right now, we would have to fix up quite a bit, which would be a lot of extra costs,” she said. Lull is also the design coordinator for a company called microMansions, which sells ready-made tiny homes. The three-person business operates a warehouse in Columbus, a southeast Kansas town, that packages the homes into kits for individuals or developers to assemble. One of the homes was built in Wichita’s Delano neighborhood, where Lull operates it as an Airbnb. After spending so much time there, she’s considering buying one as a starter home. “My fiancee and I are actually … discussing after we get married, building one,” Lull said. “If we built one of these, it’s still cheaper than buying a house, renovating it.” Like much of the nation, Wichita and Kansas are struggling with a limited stock of affordable housing. On top of that, inflation and rising interest rates have pushed new home prices higher. Though microMansions is just getting started – only three of the homes have been built – founder Abby Nelson is hoping her tiny houses can fill a big affordability gap in the market. It’s a gap she says she experienced herself when she looked to buy a house in Wichita more than five years ago. It inspired her to start the business.
Source: KLC Journal
