In fifth grade, McKean Mason recalls, she and a friend wanted to build a fort in the backyard of her parents’ house in College Station, Texas. They pushed her swing and slide together, but then her dad came up to them and said, “Why don’t we build a fort?” Little did she know that the 350-square-foot house would become her home for five years , thus delaying her journey into the real estate market.
After living in dorms her freshman year, Matteson’s parents gave her two options: She could rent a place for herself, or live in a “tiny house” in their backyard for free for as long as she wanted. “It’s kind of like, you can be alone, but when you’re ready, you can move,” Matteson told wealth. Looking back now, she says: “I wouldn’t have changed that either.”
Courtesy of McKean Mason
For the next five years, Mattson lived in the backyard fort and posted housing and “little life” content on TikTok, gaining nearly 100,000 followers. She said she has been flooded with messages seeking advice from followers, many of them young adults looking to save money in a historically unaffordable housing market. Some even asked for blueprints to replicate her house for themselves.
It’s hard to figure out how much Matson saved, but according to Zillow, the average rent for all bedrooms and property types in College Station is $1,800. Her friends typically pay about $800 a month for a bedroom in a shared apartment, she said, or $48,000 over five years. A studio comparable to Matson’s tiny home costs nearly $1,200, which means she could save as much as $72,000 over five years. Mattson said she also eats home-cooked meals made by her mother every day, so she also saves on food.
The savings don’t stop there.
She recalled that it took her and her father about eight months to turn the fort into her little home. They did everything themselves except the granite counter tops. Her parents paid for everything, from construction costs to furniture (she said there wasn’t much to offer because it was so small). Matteson said she thinks they cost less than $100,000.
Courtesy of McKean Mason
Now it’s helped her buy her own house.
Growing up, Matteson said, she always watched her father build everything by hand. He owns a hardwood flooring company, where she currently works, for about $60,000 a year. Just two months ago, she bought a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house just 10 minutes from her parents.
“It means a lot to one person,” she said, especially considering she used to live in a 350-square-foot house and now she lives in a 1,500-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bathroom in the house. Matteson said she put a 3 percent down payment, or about $7,500, on a new $250,000 home. With a 30-year fixed rate of 6.87%, her monthly mortgage payments are over $2,000, which she says is “crazy.” The average home price in College Station is just over $325,600, up 6.4 percent over the past year, according to Zillow.
Matteson’s experience isn’t out of the ordinary—more and more adults have moved in with their parents over the past 50 years, according to a 2022 Pew Research Center report. In the wake of the pandemic, 2020 is the first time since the Great Recession that more than half of Americans under the age of 29 live with their parents, with most saying they are motivated by saving money. During the housing boom during the epidemic, the national housing prices rose by more than 40%, and some markets are still rising, and many young people have no choice but to live with their families because of the high housing prices.
Young people who live with their parents usually live in their home, but arrangements like Matteson’s are becoming more common. Two University of Miami architecture professors advocate the Masson style of housing, also known as the Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU). Although the city of Huntington Beach had tried to ban ADUs, the ban was reversed after the state of California filed a lawsuit against the city.
“If I had to rent, there was no way I could buy,” Matteson said. “I don’t think I will [have been] Can be purchased for another five to seven years. ”
Mattson added that things might have been different if interest rates hadn’t surged along with home prices from the pandemic lows, because she doesn’t exactly like the home she just bought but thinks it’s a good investment. Regardless, she says she wouldn’t be where she is today without the help of her parents.
“My parents didn’t have a lot of money growing up, and they built entire houses out of nothing, out of cash,” Matteson said. “They didn’t want me to go through this, so they wanted to frame me.”
Matteson said she loved everything about building the tiny house with her dad, including choosing paint colors and browsing Pinterest for inspiration. Downstairs, Mattson says, there’s a loveseat, two bar stools facing each other at the counter, and a narrow refrigerator designed for tiny houses. Upstairs there is a full bed, a dresser, a hanger and almost no storage.
Of course, it’s called a tiny house for a reason—it’s tiny. In Matson’s TikTok video, you can see a large package taking over the living room and kitchen, and Matson says that a day without laundry away means not being able to walk anywhere or do anything. Overall, she says living in her parents’ backyard is “no big deal,” though she says hosting a girls’ night in such a small house can be quite challenging.
Courtesy of McKean Mason
Now that she’s moving, she’s cutting back on expenses while buying second-hand furniture to fill out her new home — and the small living hasn’t prepared her for expensive furniture, she says. Despite life getting more expensive, she said she’s glad she took the step.
“I feel like, I’m 24 years old, and at some point, I need to move out of my parents’ backyard,” Matteson said. However, she added that she has told her parents that one day she will return to live on the family compound, where she may not be as physically close to them as she used to be, but will at least be surrounded by family – this is Matt Mori really likes it.
As for her little house? It will soon welcome new tenants: her 22-year-old brother and his wife.