Tiny manufactureds in Boise: trailers or tiny homes?  Both?  Neither?

Just a little over a mile from downtown Boise and a whole lot less than a mile from the city’s flagship public university campus, a micro-subdivision sits wedged between two busy arterial roads.  It’s barely noticeable, and I would have driven right past it if it weren’t for the unusual aesthetic: something between tiny homes and mobile homes.  For lack of a better term, I’m going to call them tiny manufactureds, because that’s what they look like to me.  Even from West Boise Avenue, the arterial that accesses this little ring-road of a subdivision, it’s hard to spot.

But if a passer-by continues on the drive to the right of the three gray storage doors, the scale and aesthetic of this subdivision begins to emerge.

Having visited over one hundred homes with a realtor while in the market, I’m not too bad at calculating square footage with my eyes.  I’d wager that these homes near downtown Boise are no more than 550 square feet.  They are probably larger than the median tiny home, which at this point in the mid 2020s scales at around 400 square feet, but well within that range, since these are clearly smaller than the 950 square feet that formed the benchmark for the initial suburban tract homes of the three Levittowns (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York).  These would be small even for GI Bill soldiers returning home from World War II.

So what are they?  It is indeed a community of identically sized structures, each one differing only in the primary paint color.  Among the two looped streets that comprise the subdivision, I counted slightly under fifty units spread across probably less than ten acres, along with a few communal facilities: laundry, property management, the storage sheds at the entrance.  

The walls here do not look like the standard material for tiny manufactured homes: vinyl siding, VOG (vinyl over gypsum), or metal (aluminum or steel).  The windows in these units are larger and feature frames with a different painted trim.  If these homes have hitches that helped transport them to Boise from the factory that assembled them, it sure isn’t obvious.  Though it is possible that an owner could relocate one of these (certainly more easily than a home with a foundation built on-site), it doesn’t look that these have any intention of getting moved.  They’re here to stay.

On the other hand, they do rest a few feet off the ground, with a sheath covering the piers or whatever it might be that they rest upon, suggesting there are in fact pads underneath.

Perhaps they do benefit from a degree of mobility more typical of mobile homes.  And then, of course, there’s the name out front of the subdivision, over along West Boise Avenue:

The sign suggests these pads are capable of (and that the ownership overtly permits) hosting “Mobile Home / RV Park / Apartments”.  I saw none of the second item represented, suggesting these are more of a hybrid of the first and the third, which again prompts me to call these tiny manufactureds, for lack of a better term.

Are they mobile homes?  Functionally, they probably fall within that typology, but they seem far more deliberately aestheticized, helping to avoid the stigma that far too often (and often undeservedly) links mobile home with “trailer” and “low-income housing”.  If the delivery mechanism could haul them as a single unit, they are mobile homes in all but appearance.  If the delivery mechanism hauled them in a few units that could get completed on site, they probably more closely resemble modular housing.  But they are awfully small for the latter; manufactured homes can easily surpass 1,200 square feet in the right environment.  No doubt these tiny manufactureds are more affordable than the average single-family detached home that predominates in Boise, but the proximity to Boise State University suggests these might service as a mixed client base: moderate-income homeowners and student rentals.  Probably two bedrooms apiece.

These tiny manufactureds, in my opinion, look very attractive, but they raise important semantic considerations. Are the tiny homes of the “tiny home movement” (which really took off as a response to Hurricane Katrina recovery, as well as the late 2000s Great Recession and housing crisis) really just mobile homes for a fashion-conscious, eco-minded, urban demographic that doesn’t want to associate itself with mobile homes, which in turn carry an often undeserved stereotype of rural and downtrodden?  I’d assert that the difference between tiny homes and mobile homes is less rigid and more of a continuum: while many tiny homes are custom-built and assembled on-site, this represents the most affluent contingent and rarely helps to aid affordability, unless it offers relief to prohibitive housing costs on the West Coast (where the tiny house movement seems to have gained the most traction).  But these Portland and Seattle tiny homes often have inordinately high per-square-foot costs; in other words, they’re only remotely affordable because they are truly tiny (under 300 square feet), and that rarely meets the need of a nuclear family in ways that an 800 square foot mobile home can achieve.  The typical tiny home buyer is well-heeled and single.

Meanwhile, some modular and manufactured homes get “birthed” in an assembly-line style to achieve better economies of scale, allowing them to get shipped long distances in a relatively small number of component parts (usually no more than four) that then get assembled quickly, efficiently, and cheaply on site.  They often cater to families, or households of two to three unrelated people.  I suspect that is closer to the situation here with these tiny manufactureds.  I could be way off base, and perhaps someone with better knowledge of the modular building industry can offer an explanation from the visual cues I have provided, to help determine a better name for what we see here in Boise.

Regardless of the actual term, these structures seem to have endured for at least fifteen years; they predate the oldest Google Street View images, and the assessment office of Boise shows that they originate from 1992, while the most recent structures date from 2020.  And, given the current trends in Boise and Idaho as a whole, they provide a much-needed relief to new Idahoans (students or otherwise) in a region confronting a recent, sudden, not entirely expected crisis in affordability.  As the 2020 Census confirms, the Mountain West represents the region with the second highest percentage of its housing stock consisting of mobile or manufactured homes, behind only the South.  Idaho’s percentage isn’t particularly extreme (6.8% of all homes, ranked the 20th highest of the 50 states), but it’s higher than most states in the Midwest or Northeast, all of which are growing in population at a slower rate than Idaho.

One conclusion is clear: a formerly very affordable state like Idaho and city like Boise are struggling to retain this characteristic of affordability as the state and region’s population surges.  Many of Boise’s newcomers are former Californians, where incomes are high and home prices staggering.  Selling their California properties to move inland, they could afford just about anything in metro Boise, thereby driving up median home prices.  However, median incomes have not kept pace with the influx.  As a result, both students and newcomers to the workforce struggle to afford housing; a subdivision of tiny manufactureds like Boise Avenue Park offer some relief in a premier location within walking distance of both downtown and the university.  Furthermore, the comparative smallness of these tiny manufactureds grants an opportunity to reduce the carbon footprint, for those seeking smallness out of ecological interest.  While this alternative driver of demand is less likely than the goal of affordability, the 50-odd homes at Boise Avenue Park seem to offer the best of both worlds: the lower price point that one expects of mobile homes, as well as the ecological benefit that attracts affluent singles to tiny homes.

Call them whatever you want.  They’re cute.