Tiny Homes Fill A Need For Many Californians Who Can't Buy Big Homes
ISLETON (KPIX) – Some people in the Bay Area are ditching sky-high living for just a few hundred feet.
After 25 years in a big house, an attorney traded it in for a tiny home.
For Corinne Corley, a Kansas City attorney who moved to California two months ago, her tiny home is a haven.
Corinne Corley is a tiny homeowner.
"I wanted to live in a house. And the only way to downsize and live in a house that I could come up with was to live in a tiny house," Corley said.
Corley's old home of 25 years had three bedrooms and two baths.
She has a rare medical condition and moved to be closer to Stanford Hospital, where she's being treated.
But buying a house near Palo Alto wasn't an option.
So she spent $38,000 to have a 200-square-foot home built and delivered to Park Delta Bay, a tiny house community 30 minutes east of Antioch.
The people who live there and run it say it's the first and only legal tiny home community in Northern California.
Corley said, "Tiny living is not for everybody. A lot of people, for example, wouldn't want their entire life exposed. You come into my house: this is where I sleep, this is where I work."
Corley believes less means more.
So does her neighbor, Lola.
"The real estate market is pretty crazy out here, so I figured the tiny house was a good solution for me," said Lola.
The 25-year-old also moved there two months ago.
Her's is slightly bigger at 26 feet long and 8.5 feet wide, a total of 221 square feet.
Lola has a queen size bed and room to store her ukulele.
At first she tried to park at RV camps down in Santa Cruz, but people wouldn't allow tiny homes.
One of the pioneers of the tiny home movement says real estate prices are forcing cities to consider tiny homes.
Jay Shafer built his first one in 1999 and even wrote a book about it.
Shafer said, "Right now, I'm building the most affordable tiniest, tiny house I've ever designed or built. It's only 7 feet by 8 feet."
As for Corley, she says once you go small, you can't go back.
"Getting used to living tiny was not that hard," Corley said.
There are other such communities in the Bay Area, but apparently, they aren't legal.
