to be able to answer that question for
people in in every state in every city is my goal and same thing with with
churches if they have a parking space they have space for another house
to go in California just passed laws making that a new thing that's
legal and I want everyone to know that [Music] and welcome everyone to the tiny home lady
show I am so excited to be joined here with my dear friend Ryan Rossy hello I'm Ryan Rossy with
Housing Solutions podcast welcome to Today's Show and
before we dive into that content let's hear a
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septic systems okay Ryan so we are so excited to be here with each other because I feel like you
and
I have found each other like and a magnets or you know two ships passing in the night that
have a lot of passion around connecting people to Housing Solutions it's true H it seems like it's
one of the biggest problems in the world right now finding housing afford housing and uh we I think
we met at the tiny Festival tiny house show and uh from there ER we we can't escape each other
really because it seems like we we both want to be mouthpieces for everyone and uh it's uh every
time I open
my phone I see Lindsay's going live and I'm like I want to be live with her I bet
there's an archetype of advocacy in you I'm sure of it just like it is in me and so what are the
things let's give me some of your history and I know some about it but other people don't know the
thing I love most about that I'd like you to share is your journey through the world of construction
and built environment and even disaster relief all that kind of stuff you know really will help
give us texture to u
m what we're talking about here sure and that that was a good summary I'm
I'm uh fourth generation California contractor and mainly did a uh site work underground work
and so uh I understand building a building from the ground up uh I've done residential as well
and that's kind of how I pivoted toward uh the modular house building and disaster responses
during covid when kind of the project went on pause we had we were in La doing projects and
we saw you know the number of homeless people u
h growing every time we would show up to our project
there would be uh someone sleeping there uh either on the project or inside the building and it was
just readily uh right in front of our face every single day and so I started thinking you know if
there was something that I could do with the skill set that I had and we and that and that's how we
first met at the tiny house show is I I purchased a uh an insulated um unit that looked similar to
a uh shipping container and we ended up putti
ng a shower toilet bathroom in it putting siding on
it making it looked like a house uh and yet it was still extremely affordable uh under $30,000
and we took it to that tiny house show in delmare and people really were interested in it and so uh
that that got me back in 2020 on that path of of of building the most rapidly Deployable civilized
cost-effective structure and that's kind of become my passion now uh that company is is still moving
forward uh fold them and it's one of the things
we'll talk about later about their booth at the uh
International Builder show but uh but there it's it's a solution for a lot of people but there's so
many other Solutions and that's the kind of thing that I'm going to be doing for the next uh year
or so of my life is working on on folding project which is going to be highlighting the solutions
that are working right now the Housing Solutions that are not traditional that are Cutting Edge
that are affordable and that you can actually go out
and purchase right now and talking with
people who are doing projects that are working um and and highlighting them because there's so many
things that are happening that it's even difficult for us to keep up on all the all the changing
laws all the laws for the different uh regions and different sections and if it's hard for us
to keep up with the average person is must be almost impossible and so providing that service
providing that information is something that I think that you and I a
re going to be talking about
endlessly over uh over the next year or so and I'm looking forward to it it's so true we came at it
you know a different I'm actually putting together a one woman show so I'm really going back into the
story time of my life you know from being an army brat I had to move around a lot so you know there
are some layers there of like childhood trauma of saying goodbye to friends but also a really good
aspect of knowing how to organize and keep less things in your li
fe right Simplicity uh and so
there's there's kind of a lot of different aspects of me and how people come to the need for housing
and that's really the the cross-section a lot of people have the Optics at least with foldom very
much focused on the UNH housee disaster relief event housing things like that but maybe not the
$200,000 tiny home or let's just say the home that needs to be airlifted craned into the backyard
and be you know considered as real estate which is modular so we get int
o these different
verbiage whether it's acronyms or the names and those of us in the industry can kind of add
blinders on and you end up like either building RVs or modular or manufactured but where you and
I I feel like blend is understanding all of them and helping guiding people on the direction
oftentimes I get into questions like do you want it to move why do you want it to move do you
want it to appreciate property value where do you live all of these basic questions really need
to b
e answered right up front so then it kind of guides them into a direction and of course
we know there's future things coming with the tiny home industry Association and standards that
they're working on but that's going to be a couple years out so right now today what's available so
let me know a little bit more something caught my eye you heard it a little bit more International
building show tell me more about that because that is something I'm joining you all at fold them at
time of reco
rding we're going to that and every year it happens in Las Vegas like we're talking
the big top for Builder show have you ever been there yes we like to go every year as contractors
it's been in Vegas it's been in in Florida and it's where the latest and greatest is happening
with construction and it's the the biggest light construction show in the world and people come
from over a 100 countries there's uh usually over 70,000 visitors it's there's it's at the Las Vegas
Convention Center thi
s year and they have multiple rooms and if you were to go to Every booth and
really look at what they have you could barely do it in three days just walking the whole thing
uh you know turn your pedometer on because you're going to be doing a full Marathon uh over the
three days if you go all three days uh but I I recommend making a I will yeah yeah there's it's a
sensory overload if you have any sort of interest in the construction industry Housing Industry or
or the latest in construction
technology it is uh it's so exciting and uh I recommend making a plan
of like okay you have to see certain things go to that because if you think oh I'll I'll I'll see
it because it's there you might very well miss it it is there's so much going on and this actually
is the first year that um I'm I'm helping foldom be an exhibitor there and they have a booth and
we'll put in the description of of this show a link to where you can get a free Expo pass if
you want to go to the show might as w
ell click under under the pass and and and get a uh a free
one to go they give us unlimited so want to take just a note there that's $175 value everyone
there's a lot of information you're going to fill out for that like a full-on survey but it's
worth your time think a good five minutes to maybe 10 minutes of filling out information because
that's that's how they get their information that's how they can attract people from all over
the world from vendors to buyers to contractors to suppli
ers you name it I'm excited to go there
to really see where there 's an opportunity or an opening for the world of you know the offsite
building you know we talk a lot about tiny homes and modular and all that it's really offsite in a
factory elsewhere from you know if you're building onsite that's been done forever but this offsite
thing and it's not new but it's having a resurgent right we've had manufactured homes being built in
a factory literally from like the 50s and 40s but the quali
ty of them has not matched those that
are built on site so tell me a little bit more about what you see in terms of the trends for
like this year that you'd like to really focus on uh at least there at the booth with foldom
and the folding project and they on to me the thing that I like the best is the things that I'm
not looking forward to that I don't know exist and when someone comes up with a new product that's
made out of recycled material that's a structural insulated panel that I nev
er even knew existed and
I I get excited about seeing those types of things I know that uh every year in the outdoor area
they've got some sort of manufactured home that is uh on display and they have various different
ones um I I I know that it is a complicated thing and a lot of times there's a certain type of
pre-manufactured home that works really good there there's so many things that that go into it
but but really like the in California the cost of Labor and the cost of materials are
so high now
that you you almost have to do something that's new that's Innovative uh because if you just want
to build a little Adu in your backyard it could be a quarter million dollars and it's hard to justify
doing that for for adding one extra room to to a house for many people and so if it's possible to
get that down to under 100,000 under 50,000 that opens it up for literally hundreds of millions
of people to be able to have that as an option and so everything that can contribute ever
y little
piece of of new technology that is shown at this International Builder show is gives us ideas of
how we can put it into something that that could be available for the masses I love it and what
you're talking about is exactly why I've teamed up with prefab Innovations I spent about three
years you know seeing you and seeing a number of different Builders at the shows I was having
my own journey of just helping people one-on-one Consulting then I launched the go tiny Academy and
the
n I started realizing you know selling these homes designing these homes that's an area I want
to plan but I don't want to build them myself like I don't want somebody to come to me like will you
build for me like no not my jam right I'm not a contractor but there is a wonderful intersection
for Consultants like myself that can help guy connect the buyers to the builders well I got
so interested in helping the people building and as a real estate investor and developer I have
developed one
project from groundup in Florida so I am officially an a developer we made a 5%
return on on investment so I A in that regards a successful not super successful I know you're
kind of wanted to be more in the 20% R away but we were going into covid and we were just so excited
to sell the house just to you know we didn't know what was happening in the world so my focus with
prefab Innovations is to provide something for those people that want something bigger they want
something where a movab
le tiny home is not allowed and they want to appreciate the property value
so on and so forth right and so I teaming up with them $100,000 for a 288 square foot that includes
the home and the development just want to let that percolate for a moment because I'm with you too
I was like that's great $180,000 they're gorgeous don't get me wrong but a lot of families you know
there's there's different levels of budgets right there's premium driving the Bentley to you know
all the way down to may
be driving I don't know what would you say the Toyota the you know the
different levels of of cars different levels of houses materials all of those things come into buy
but people want something that's livable quality built maybe they can put some their own design
spins on it but not break the bank I totally agree I'm on the Quest for the to Toyota uh
level house that uh is perfectly livable and yet doesn't break the bank exactly so I do want
to take a moment and hear a word from our spons
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ransform
your dreams into reality and sign up the go tiny Academy so Ryan thank you so much for joining me
on this show it's been a absolute joy and pleasure and as we wrap up here what are some of the things
that you see as a trend for this year that you're really paying attention to interesting question uh
I think that what I am paying attention to is what is working and you see a lot of people advertising
for certain products uh but uh whether or not they actually can be put in someone i
n your backyard
is a a totally different thing and so what I'm trying to to focus on for this this next year is
what actually is working what projects are going in what permits are being handed out and and and
and amplifying that so that people can see okay this is something that I can actually put in my
backyard this is something that I could actually pull a permit on and have it raise the the value
of my house and and and then grow grow from there and see how many uh people are doing some
thing
similar in in all 50 states because we get that asked all the time that's the first question
usually is um how does it work with the city and the answer is always every City's different
but depends but but but to be able to answer that question for people in in every state in every
city is my goal and I'd love for people to be able to go to folding pro.com and click on their state
click on their City find out what the scenario is there and find out what their options are because
uh r
ight right now it's a Google search or it's a and and you have to do the research but it's
out there and so consolidating that getting it in front of people is uh what what I'm hoping
to be able to accomplish and uh it's exciting because all the people that we're meeting along
the way that are actually doing something uh is is encouraging because the the cost of living is
just getting ridiculous the amount of homeless people is getting ridiculous and that Trend uh is
needs to change and I f
eel like this is a giant puzzle piece and actually we all hold when I say
we Builders suppliers financers you name it all hold a piece of the puzzle but what's interesting
is with a new Emerging Market we're all running around doing our own thing for to and to come
together and I love what the tiny home industry Association has done is really focus on legalizing
movable tiny hounds um and what the American tiny house Association started out in with but I think
you know it's tough when you d
on't have a lot of resources to run the nonprofit so how do you see
being funded right because you are focused you said the magic word nonprofit so how do you see
being funded how can people support you well uh we we as a nonprofit want to have a platform that
people can uh contribute to and uh it it it be we want to go to different charity events and let
people know what we're doing uh folding project right now is currently housing one family and and
two uh uh single individuals and we wan
t that to grow we we literally want to work with developers
and make it part of projects where we can provide either discounted or uh Free Housing uh working
with other nonprofits and we want to bring other nonprofits together and I'm trying to build a
board of directors right now and we want people that have experience in this in this realm to have
it grow it seems like the trend with a lot of the uh uh homeless housing nonprofits is that they're
they don't communicate with each other and
they have the what they're working on and and that's
it I'd love to pull resources pull people together let them know about the this rapidly Deployable
housing that's available so that it seems like every shelter is full and if they have the space
for a car then they have a space for a new house to go in and same thing with with churches if
they have a parking space they have space for another house to go in California just passed
laws making that a new thing that's legal and I want everyon
e to know that and so uh what did
you say if you put two tell me about the two to three homes we talked earlier so we want to make
sure I mean just clap right there and like tell that part of the story that every if we fit two to
three homes so there we go yeah so just with basic math the if you think about uh how many uh that
they count for homeless in the United States and then you think about the number of churches that
are in the United States which is about 300,000 if you put two or th
ree houses at every church
parking lot and have the church manage those two or three houses it can cover the number of people
that are counted that are sleeping on the streets and it seems like a a solution that would make
everyone happy because it's kind of got a built-in service provider and it's in a place that's
already established already an empty parking lot most of the time and it's something that you
know the the knot in my backyard people uh won't necessarily complain about as much
as having
like a big uh tented area or people sleeping on the the streets or on the sidewalk it's a
it's a much more civilized uh solution and a lot of people aren't even aware of it I literally
went to a church in Fullerton last week and they asked about what was possible and we talked about
the these new laws and getting the permits for it and so we're going to highlight that process of us
going it through with that church and hopefully it can be um redone in other places in every city
all across the United States and and change the uh the the the scenario that that's happening
uh on every street that that we drive through in every city I love it such amazing Focus so
really what's working now churches can put tiny homes on properties and really it's pulling the
pieces of the puzzle of all the people in our Industries together the ones that are really
dedicated and focused I feel like those are the three trends for now we could do a deeper
dive and and really tease that o
ut because I'd like to be on the board excellent I I love we're
talking about this live because that's what I was going to ask you next and actually I didn't fully
answer your question about uh monetizing we also want to get home builders that are participating
in in these kinds of affordable houses to uh we want to showcase them and we want to have them
help with with advertising because we're going to blast this out to the world and we want we
want everyone needs to be busy uh building ho
uses because there's not enough and there needs to
be newer solutions that are affordable it's true in California alone it just saw another report
2.5 million I'm like wow just to give everyone a little perspective most tiny home builders
are probably somewhere between really small like maybe three or four a year that's more your
boutique then you got those that are in the like 20 or something a year then you got some that are
in the hundred a year but we do not have anyone in the tiny home
home World building a thousand a
year that really kind of lends itself more to the manufactured home industry many of those tiny home
builders that at the 100 probably do want to get to the bigger but you know we just if you've done
the if you ever do the math 2.5 million divided by all the builders together we don't have enough
right then there's all the building materials so I'm with you on recyclability uh you know we're
going to be building something whether it's really big footprint t
he nice part about a small home
is it's less materials but even the materials that you do use you want to make sure they're you
know in accordance with environmental laws with uh house you know um what do you call that my gosh
house friendly no breathing uh environmentally friendly and environmentally friendly you're
healthy inside your home right there's a lot of people with mold sensitivities and health
problems and illnesses because we've just got a lot more people on the planet so all r
ight well
you've heard it here I'm so excited to have you join the tiny young lady show and be sure to go
to your social media and your website which is fing project will will'll get you there and I'm
sure uh in future shows we'll we'll have more to show uh with links and whatnot but I think right
now anyone that wants to come to International Builder show we'll put that link in to come
because that's uh that's what we're exciting for today's the 7th of February it's coming up the
27th 8th
9th so it's like 19 days away W let's go thank you so much for watching the tiny home lady
show now if you're looking for more support on your tiny home journey be sure to schedule your
15-minute tiny home Discovery call with me the tiny home lady I'm looking forward to hearing
more about your tiny home dreams let's talk tiny
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