‘It sounds dystopian’: Jake, Spike debate whether companies should offer tiny homes to employees

As median housing prices in Washington remain high, keeping the younger generation from owning their first home, a home builder has begun manufacturing affordable tiny homes to be built into a community near Huntsville.

Jake Skorheim and Spike O’Neill, co-hosts of “The Jake and Spike Show” on KIRO Newsradio, jumped at the idea of inexpensive places for the younger generation to purchase a tiny home and build equity before moving on to buying a full-fledged home.

“Seattle is expensive, but it’s expensive everywhere. If you want to buy a house, the median home price in the state of Washington is almost 600k,” Jake said. “When you factor in all the regulation costs that go into a home price, the regulation cost inside that 600 grand is $127,968; that’s over 20% of the cost of your house is going to government stuff. That does seem like a lot.”

In light of the high home prices, Jake mentioned a home builder on HGTV who builds a tiny house every eight days and turns it around so someone can live in it.

“Would you live in one of these tiny house neighborhoods this guy’s trying to build?” Jake asked. “He bought an old RV park and cleared out all the old RVs. This is near Huntsville. Now, he’s putting in all of these very nice tiny homes. It’s like a planned community. These houses sell for between about $100,000 and $200,000. Or if you’re renting them, they’re about $800 a month.”

KIRO hosts say affordable communities could help younger generation enter housing market

Jake noted there has been strong interest in purchasing the tiny homes the man is building, and he said many people are considering downsizing because the cost of rent is so favorable.

“It’s an entry-level kind of home,” Spike said. “For somebody starting out, a single person starting out. Instead of renting, you want to own something. Build up a little equity.”

Spike opened the conversation to large employers in Washington who are taking this same approach for employees in the area, offering low-cost housing in a tiny-house community as a benefit of working with the company.

“I’m always harping on the corporations that come to Seattle, like Amazon, and they bring all these, all these employees, or high-paid employees, and they suck up the rental markets, and they drive up rent costs in this town. What if you built the town micro village? Amazon’s got all that space, right? Take the orbs down your or, better yet, you’re moving some of these people out of town to Bellevue. What if you just had a dedicated tiny house community as a benefit for your employees? That’d be a cool concept to have.”

“You’re totally right for Amazon to buy up a nice apartment building, and it encourages, you know, secretly, Amazon just wants you to be working more,” Jake responded. “They actually could do something like that. It sounds a bit dystopian and horrible. It sounds awful, but when you’re young, like when you got your first job, if your boss said, ‘Hey, we own a cool apartment building where we have reduced rent prices,’ that’s an interesting idea.”

Spike found that a company-owned housing unit could be used as a strong lure, or to edge out other companies when an employee is deciding where to work.

“The salaries are competitive; they can’t beat the other guy, but can offer these other life amenities that help create value to your position here and quality to your life,” Spike said. “It’s a great idea. I hope this works for people. First off, we’ve got way too much stuff. You asked me if I could live in a tiny home. I wish I could. I can’t, because I’m just a hoarder.”

Listen to “The Jake and Spike Show” weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.