As housing prices continue to surge across the United States, many Americans are finding themselves unable to afford traditional homes and are instead embracing alternative housing solutions. From living in tiny homes to converting barns into residences, and even forming shared living communities, these nontraditional methods are gaining traction among those looking for cost-effective and sustainable ways to live.
With conventional homeownership becoming increasingly inaccessible, some Americans are repurposing old commercial buildings or opting for prefabricated homes on purchased land. Others are choosing to share homes with strangers to minimize expenses. Here are three unconventional paths that are reshaping the American housing landscape.
Tiny Houses
When Elisa Boots and her husband Rick relocated from New York City to Seattle a decade ago, they arrived during a period of rapid population growth in the city. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows Seattle added about 60,000 new residents between 2010 and 2014, largely due to a surge in tech jobs and a flourishing economy. This influx of new residents drove up housing demand and home prices to levels the couple couldn’t afford, even in the surrounding suburbs.
Searching for affordable alternatives, they discovered the tiny house movement. These homes typically measure under 500 square feet and resemble miniature suburban homes, complete with bathrooms, kitchens, and bedrooms. Some tiny houses are built on permanent foundations, while others are mobile with wheels, allowing owners the flexibility to move as they please.
Interest in tiny homes spiked after the 2008 Great Recession, as Americans increasingly sought to downsize. By 2014, one small Texas town dubbed itself the first “tiny-house friendly town.” Since then, states like Kentucky, Missouri, Vermont, and Maine have become attractive destinations for tiny house living, either because of flexible zoning laws or the abundance of space to park the homes.
Tiny homes are praised for their mobility and energy efficiency, but their affordability is one of the most significant draws. According to Bankrate, a basic tiny home typically costs between $20,000 and $60,000, depending on size, building materials, and features.
Elisa Boots and her husband each own a tiny house, which they travel with by hitching them together. While Boots paid around $75,000 for hers, her husband’s custom-built unit exceeded $100,000. Still, the couple believes this approach is more cost-effective than purchasing a traditional home.
They pay approximately $650 each month for their space in an Oregon RV park near Mount Hood, plus another $100 each for utilities including electricity, water, and trash service. Combined, their monthly costs are well below Oregon’s average rent of $1,795 for a one-bedroom apartment, according to Zillow, and significantly less than the $2,000 they anticipated paying monthly on a standard mortgage outside Portland or Seattle.
“That has freed us up incredibly, to do a lot of the things that people dream about,” Boots said.
Barndominiums
Another growing trend is barndominiums, or “barndos,” which are structures resembling barns on the outside but offering the comforts of traditional homes on the inside, including kitchens, bedrooms, and living spaces. These homes have become especially popular in rural areas over the past decade. In fact, a national survey revealed that 7 percent of single-family home builders had completed a barndominium in the previous year.
Barndominiums typically come in two forms: repurposed barns converted into homes, or new metal post-framed structures designed to look like barns from the start. According to Paul Murphy, a home planning adviser with My Barndo Plans in Frisco, Texas, it is generally cheaper to build a new barndominium than to convert an existing barn, due to the high costs of retrofitting older structures for human habitation.
Murphy’s company constructs the barndominium frames and wall panels using red iron, which is a more affordable building material than wood. The firm also offers barndominium kits, which include precut frames that can significantly speed up the construction process.
“Having that time savings of getting the home up quicker is another benefit of a barndo,” Murphy said.
Barndominiums offer significant cost savings compared to traditional homes. Tony Golladay, owner of BuildMax — a company that sells barndo kits — told House Beautiful that the average cost for a barndominium ranges from $35 to $45 per square foot. In contrast, a conventional home typically costs between $100 and $155 per square foot, according to Bankrate.
Co-Housing
The third nontraditional housing option gaining momentum is co-housing, a community-focused living arrangement where individuals or families reside in private homes while sharing communal spaces. These communities typically consist of small private residences surrounding a larger common house that includes amenities like a communal kitchen, dining area, meeting rooms, and guest accommodations.
The concept isn’t new. Architect Katie McCamant introduced the co-housing idea to the U.S. in the early 1980s after studying the model in Denmark. Some also credit architect and author Charles Durrett for popularizing co-housing in America.
In recent years, co-housing has grown in popularity, driven by people seeking social connection, caregiving support, and environmentally conscious living. According to the Cohousing Association of the United States, the country currently has at least 165 co-housing communities, with another 140 in the planning stages.
Financially, co-housing can be beneficial, even if the upfront costs don’t always suggest so. Don Reinhardt, a member of Louisville Co-Housing, explained that many communities are formed by a group of interested individuals who collaborate to fund and construct their ideal living space.
“The cost of the common houses are usually offset adequately by the smaller footprint of the individual houses,” Reinhardt said.
With access to shared communal areas, residents don’t need large individual homes. Raines Cohen, a community organizer at the National Co-Housing Association and a resident of a co-housing community in Berkeley, California, noted, “You don’t need to have room for lots of people to come over or your own guest room.”
These smaller homes are more economical to build and also cheaper to maintain, heat, and cool. Additionally, co-housing promotes resource sharing and collaborative domestic responsibilities, which further reduces living costs. Residents may take turns mowing the lawn or jointly pay for landscaping services.
“Co-housing is very much about the long haul and what you can do together,” Reinhardt emphasized.
As housing prices remain a challenge for millions of Americans, nontraditional housing alternatives are becoming increasingly mainstream. Whether it’s living in a tiny mobile home, a customized barn-style residence, or a community that blends privacy with shared responsibility, these options are providing more flexible, affordable, and meaningful ways for people to create a home.