North Texas builder turns to compact homes to ease affordability strain
By Nicole Nielsen
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AZLE, Texas (KTVT) — For more than 30 years, a North Texas homebuilder has constructed houses across the region, hundreds of them. Now, he’s trying something new.
“I’ve seen a lot of single mothers and widows that live in mobile homes, and they’re treated like second-class citizens. They should have the ability to have a nice place to live… and a nice community,” he said.
Building a different kind of community On six and a half acres in Azle, he is constructing 42 compact homes in a community called Bit O’Heaven, each designed to be low-maintenance but long-lasting.
“Money is kind of secondary in this situation. I’m not here for that. I’m here to create a place for people to live,” he said.
Each home will rent for a price intentionally set to be affordable, even if profit margins are slimmer.
A housing expert with the Texas A&M Real Estate Research Center says it makes sense that projects like this are emerging as home prices continue to outpace wages.
That gap has left many single-income households stuck renting, sometimes indefinitely. Supply is also an ongoing problem.
“We’ve not built housing at the rate that we should have for many, many years,” the expert said. “We need more diversity of housing.”
A small step toward a larger need The builder says he started the project after realizing little hope exists for the gap to close anytime soon.
Though tiny homes cannot solve the housing crisis alone, he believes they give more single-family households a chance.
“I can only do a small piece. But hopefully it’ll spur somebody on to maybe do the same thing,” he said.
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