Where Can You Park Your Tiny House?

Thinking about where to park a tiny house can be very overwhelming to those new to the tiny house movement. The land needs to be both practical and, of course, in an area you’d actually like to live, but depending on your goals, it’s not as hard as it seems. So, where can you park your tiny house? We’ve collated all the ways you can look for land, and everything you need to consider before actually committing.

How to find land to park your tiny house

Family and friends

For many people, contacting family or friends who have some extra land is by far the easiest way to find a place to park their tiny house. You can share the council approved resources from the existing dwelling, and can even to be close to your loved ones. All you need to do is reach out to those around you, let them know what you can offer in return, whether that’s rent or skills, and you might be surprised how quickly someone will be willing to let you park on a corner of their block. This method is tried and true, and has worked for many tiny house owners, including our clients Amy and Greg. They hit up their friends and quickly came to an agreement that gave them a small plot of land where they could pa

Contact the locals

For those of you who don’t have family or friends living in the area you’d like to park, things might be a litter harder, but far from impossible. All you need to do is put yourself out there and you might just find your ideal plot of land. The best way to do this? As done by our clients Fatima and Croyden, it’s best to design flyers to get in touch with locals that might have a spare patch of land. They shared their story, how it would work and what they could offer their potential landlord and it wasn’t too long until their phone buzzed, they had a meeting and everything was set.This is a great way to have more choice about where you park and, again, you might be surprised at how many people will jump at the chance for some extra income or help around the property. To learn more this blog details everything Fatima and Croyden did to find the perfect spot for their tiny home in Gold Coast’s hinterland.

Online communities

Online communities are an easy, powerful way to learn about all your potential parking locations. You can post on online forums, where many people can give you a hand, or look at online marketplaces where you might even find someone who’s actively looking for a tiny house owner to rent some land to. Some great platforms to search include:

• Park My Tiny House
• Dedicated Facebook groups – Land and tiny houses to rent or buy in Australia
• Tiny Real Estate
•  Airbnb
• Gumtree
• HipCamp

On the platforms that aren’t dedicated to the tiny house movement, just remember to give plenty of detail about how it would work and what’s involved.

Things to consider when looking for land to park your tiny house

Rural or not?

Unsurprisingly, it’s much easier for find land to park on in rural areas. Here, people have larger properties and are more likely to have a corner of their land to spare. However, it’s still possible to find land close to built-up areas. Our clients Amy and Greg live on a friend’s farm on the outskirts of Brisbane while Amanda enjoys life in her two tinies on family land in the Sunshine Coast. Some tiny home owners have even found land in inner-city suburbs like St Kilda in Melbourne!

Sourcing utilities

The first thing to consider when choosing your land is how you’ll source your utilities. Just like a conventional caravan, our tiny houses come with a standard garden hose plug connection, so you can easily use an electrical power lead to plug into mains power. Most of our tiny houses also come with a flush toilet, but it’s worth considering that these require a qualified plumber and council permits to connect to sewage and septic tank wastewater removal.

Alternatively, off-grid options can reduce the stress of having to connect to utilities and offers more flexibility in where you can park. At Aussie Tiny Houses, we can set you up to be completely off-grid with rainwater storage tanks and pumps, composting toilets, solar panels, and a gas set-up.

The ground

A tiny house needs firm, level ground to park on that’s easily accessible for the delivery tow trucks. If you do want to park on a hill, you’ll need to prepare the land ahead of time to ensure it’s completely ready for your tiny home delivery. Listen to our clients Kirra and Anthony’s advice on preparing your land to park your tiny house here.

Regulations

When considering where to park your tiny home it’s important to consider your local regulations. Parking on land that’s not zoned for residential living can lead to issues with your council and might even become costly as you’ll need to change your tiny house on wheels into a fixed registered dwelling and get council approved resources brought onto the property or seek off-grid permits. For this reason, the most legal and convenient way to ensure you’re complying with local laws is to find land with an existing dwelling.

Tiny houses are classified as caravans so it’s important to also look into your council’s laws around living in caravans. In Australia, you can generally live in a tiny house on land with an existing dwelling for more than the 60 nights often allocated to caravans, but it’s in your best interest to speak directly with your local council.

How much to pay

How much you should pay for land to park on will vary depending on your location, the size of land and what’s included in the rent. If you’re close to a city and have connections to utilities, you can expect to pay as much as $100 per week. If you’re living further out and don’t need these connections you’ll likely be able to find somewhere much cheaper. And then, of course, there are the people who are just great negotiators and find somewhere to park for free. If you manage to be one of these lucky buggers, good for you! What it really comes down to, though, is that even on the upper end of costs, renting land for your tiny house will be much cheaper than renting an entire home.

Have a question about where you can park your tiny house? Comment below or get in touch with one of our friendly team members and they can give you some advice or point you in the right direction to get the answers you need.