A Saint John contractor who built a tiny home for the heck of it is now booked solid for a year with demand for his small-sized abodes.
“Anyone placing orders today won’t be able to get one until next summer,” said Leo Girouard, the co-founder of Wee Bitty Builders Inc.
Girouard and his staff of eight are currently working on three tiny homes and have at least a dozen more booked in the coming months.
Girouard launched Wee Bitty Builders in 2017 with his wife Karen. He says it all began in 2016 when he wanted to try building a tiny home of his own after seeing the growing craze on TV. He built one – a small structure around 20 feet long – to great local fanfare in his driveway.
“We are on a dead-end street and we had people coming almost daily; there was a parade of cars on our street with people asking to have a look,” he said.
“It kind of got us thinking that maybe there was a market for this. It took on a life of its own after that. It got to the point where people were so interested, it got me thinking I could start building these myself.”
Image: Wee Bitty Builders Inc.
Within a year, Girouard began building tiny homes professionally and We Bitty Builders was booking orders – and the phone calls and emails haven’t slowed down since.
Girouard gets between two and three calls, and four and five emails per day, requesting information and pricing.
“We had two sales this week and a third is going to sign in the next day or so,” he noted.
To keep up with this demand, Girouard, who has a background in building full-sized houses, transplanted his business to a 5,000-square-foot warehouse on Ashburn Lake Road about four months ago.
Girouard and his employees build houses that range from 12 to 56 feet long. Construction takes between six and eight weeks, depending on the size of the house, and the completed tiny homes range from $55,000 to $115,000.
Girouard said New Brunswick’s hot housing market definitely plays a role in the stream of calls and emails. Be he noted that three-quarters of the people showing interest and ordering tiny homes are looking to set them up as cottages and Airbnbs on their property.
“We’ve got homes in Cambridge Narrows, Mactaquac, Sussex, Petitcodiac, and Miramichi,” said Girouard. “As far as Moncton, Fredericton, and Saint John we haven’t had any in those cities yet.
Noting that most of his buyers are in rural New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Girouard pegged more complicated bylaws as a significant impediment to growth in urban areas.
“Size-wise, there are some issues, but we’ve been pretty busy without them anyway,” he said.
Girouard added there’s potential in Saint John, with the owner of the mini home park in Glen Falls expressing willingness to accommodate tiny homes.
While he hasn’t heard from any homeowners looking to move tiny homes to that park in the northeast part of Saint John, Girouard is optimistic about future prospects there.
Image: Wee Bitty Builders Inc.
“It’s a smaller version of a mini home. You put it where you need to, take the wheels off, block it up and skirt it in and look at it – and it looks like a small mini-home,” he said.
Girouard says he’d love to see his tiny homes in New Brunswick’s cities, noting that the idea has already caught on in Fredericton, with the ongoing construction of Marcel Lebrun’s 96 tiny home community at the Two Nations Crossing.
Girouard, who has spoken to members of the Saint John city council, noted the takeaway from that was “there’s no reason why Saint John can’t do what they’re doing in Fredericton if they can make it work.”
“It’s something that has to be taken to the planning department and if there’s an issue it has to be brought to council,” he said.
“We’re so busy building the houses, we have only spoken to a few local developers who have shown some interest but we haven’t had anyone who’s really pushed for anything yet.”
Sam Macdonald is a reporter with Huddle, an Acadia Broadcasting content partner.
