Seymour Alternative Farming Expo: Small is beautiful as mortgages hit home

BUSINESS partners Ferne King and Chris Wenban believe size doesn’t matter.

Size it up: Tiny Footprint will be at the Seymour Alternative Farming Expo.

BUSINESS partners Ferne King and Chris Wenban believe size doesn’t matter.

The women build comfortable houses that, while tiny, still have all the modern conveniences of a sprawling homestead for a fraction of the price.

They started the company to help people “have more money to spend on things outside of a mortgage”, Ferne said.

“So if you earn $400 a week, instead of spending $350 on a mortgage, you are spending $100 on a mortgage. And, for affordable living, particularly for people over the age of 50, who have split up and split their assets, they are finding they can’t afford to pay a mortgage or get into a mortgage.”

Ferne and Chris launched their Tiny Footprint building business in June last year. The Seymour Expo will be their first exhibition.

One of their tiny houses costs between $60,000 and $100,000. For that, customers receive a custom-built home.

“We purpose build to order, rather than prefabricating,” Ferne said. “What that means is we put insulation under the floor and in the walls and ceiling and use quality long-lasting materials.

“The one we’re building at the moment is for an 83-year-old woman, so it is disability and age-specific.”

The Tiny Footprint Mayfair house will be on display at Seymour.

It is a two-bed house with full kitchen, lounge and bathroom that is 7.1m long, 2.5m wide and 4.2m tall.

Ferne and Chris will share their site with Tiny Houses To Go, a company that builds portable tiny houses.