Pleasant Grove man making it big in tiny home business
Crew members work to complete tiny houses on Tuesday, March 29, 2016 at Upper Valley Tiny Homes in Pleasant Grove. SPENSER HEAPS, Daily Herald
Michael Tveter works on building a set of stairs on Monday, March 28, 2016 at Upper Valley Tiny Homes in Pleasant Grove. SPENSER HEAPS, Daily Herald
Michael Tveter, left, talks on the phone with a contractor while he and Shop Foreman Will Strickland do final inspections on a complete tiny house on Thursday, March 31, 2016 at Upper Valley Tiny Homes in Pleasant Grove. SPENSER HEAPS, Daily Herald
Jay Sotelo works on the flooring for a tiny house on Thursday, March 31, 2016 at Upper Valley Tiny Homes in Pleasant Grove. SPENSER HEAPS, Daily Herald
Michael Tveter, left, and Jay Sotelo, right, work on tiny houses on Tuesday, March 29, 2016 at Upper Valley Tiny Homes in Pleasant Grove. SPENSER HEAPS, Daily Herald
The interior of a complete tiny house on Thursday, March 31, 2016 at Upper Valley Tiny Homes in Pleasant Grove. SPENSER HEAPS, Daily Herald
Tucked inside a nondescript blue warehouse in Pleasant Grove, Michael Tveter and his crew keep busy churning out custom homes. Building houses indoors may seem strange, but when the houses are barely 200 square feet and are fitted with wheels, it’s no problem.
Tveter is the owner of Upper Valley Tiny Homes, one of a number of builders specializing in the growing market for small, portable living structures. While the downsizing and simplifying one’s life to fit in a diminutive dwelling has attracted plenty of Instragram trendiness, Tveter found his way to the tiny home movement from the business side of things.
Tveter started a shed building business to put himself through the construction management program at Brigham Young University-Idaho. He pre-fabricated all of the pieces, shipped them to the site and then showed up to raise the shed on his own. After graduating he realized he could make more money working that business full-time and relocated to Cedar City, where he could service Salt Lake City, Las Vegas and Southern California.
Realizing the profit margin on sheds wasn’t great, Tveter moved into building cabins and did a lot of work in the Duck Creek area, in the mountains east of Cedar City. After dealing with building restrictions from cities and homeowners associations, Tveter started looking into building a cabin on wheels to get around the restrictions and that’s when he found the tiny home movement.
Tveter was shocked to see established tiny home companies charging up to $70,000 for the small structures.
”If I was building a cabin that size on a foundation, probably it’s only going to be costing me $15,000 to build it, maximum, with all of the finish work,” Tveter said. Even if he charged half as much as the other companies, he’d still be making a nice profit.
”We should jump on this,” he told his wife.
After finding investors to fund three model homes and building a website with good search engine optimization, Tveter said the orders just started coming in. He moved the business to Pleasant Grove where he had secured a 4,000-square-foot workshop that can fit four of the homes inside at a time. Then, he got back to work.
Upper Valley Tiny Homes is now building four to six homes per month, and Tveter has plans to double that.
”We’re still the most affordable builder in the nation, we’re probably the fastest to build as well,” Tveter said. Though they have a three-to-four month waiting list, once they roll the trailer into the shop it only takes the crew two to three weeks to build the finished home.
The small houses are decked out with many of the same amenities one would see in a normal-sized house, such as a full kitchen, full bath, living area and bedroom. Space is at a premium of course, so there’s built-in storage throughout, including beneath the floor.
Tveter said the construction is very much the same as a normal house, and all of them are built to Utah building codes. The only big difference is that the houses have a hose inlet and electrical inlet like one would see on an RV, along with an exit valve for sewage.
”Everything else in the entire house is just like a normal home,” Tveter said.
Coming into this business from a background in building cabins, Tveter said he expected most of his customers would use the houses on a recreational property, perhaps as a second home. He was surprised to find that almost all of his customers wanted the tiny house to be their primary residence, and he said most of them will probably never be moved again, despite the fact that they can be easily towed behind a pickup truck.
For all of the quaint idealism of simplifying one’s life to fit inside these cute abodes, Tveter sees the biggest attractions for his customers being practical and financial. He said a lot of people these days are trying everything they can to stay out of debt and not be at the mercy of the banks.
”They want to have their own custom home, but within their means,” Tveter said.
For Tveter’s take on the tiny home movement, he sees it as a great business. Whether the economy is facing tough times and people are looking for more economical living situations, or times are good and people like the flexibility of having a house that can move, tiny houses are a good answer.
”I believe this is going to be around forever,” Tveter said.
