Micro-living: why occupants choose to live in very small dwellings?^*

* Details of survey questions and data can be obtained by contacting the corresponding author.

ABSTRACT

With persistent housing affordability issues in many parts of Australia, planners, designers and community members have begun to contemplate alternative housing options. One such option is micro-living, where occupants reside in dwellings that are significantly smaller than conventionally sized housing types. This paper explores the experience of occupants who have chosen to live in small, single-room and self-contained apartments sized between 24.5 and 28 m² in Sydney. Using the results of a questionnaire survey and a series of interviews, the research reveals why occupants chose this housing type. The article highlights the trade-offs occupants make in their housing decision process and that affordability benefits of choosing smaller dwellings are not always guaranteed. This research has implications for minimum size requirements for emerging types of micro-living options such as tiny houses and micro-apartments.

KEYWORDS:

• Micro-apartments
• housing choice
• housing affordability
• behavioural economics
• Sydney housing market
• tiny houses

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

* Details of survey questions and data can be obtained by contacting the corresponding author.

1 The prize was drawn on 7 March 2018.

2 To collate the data, each response was weighted based on the ranking given by respondents.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Federal Government under the Australian Postgraduate Scholarship and Landcom under the UrbanGrowth NSW Top-up Scholarship.