These shockingly small houses were built to match what a 25-year-old can actually afford

Three new houses have just been built in Sweden that aim to meet an underserved segment of the market. Geared toward young, first-time home buyers, the houses have been designed and built to match the average incomes and savings of 25-year-olds. In a housing-constrained place like Sweden, that seems like a good thing, but there’s a catch. Because the houses are built to match what young people can afford, they are incredibly, oppressively, unrealistically small. And that’s intentional. The three tiny houses range from about 20 square feet to 48 square feet (1.9 square meters to 4.5 square meters), offering little more than four walls, a roof, a toilet, and a place to sit. There’s not even enough room to lie flat on a bed. [Photo: Courtesy Riksbyggen] These houses are not actual products, but part of a housing reform campaign led by Riksbyggen, a Swedish housing developer, and the creative agency BBDO Nordics. Rather than explain the challenge of housing affordability with numbers alone, Riksbyggen opted to show, at full scale, what affordable housing would actually look like. The three homes will be taken on a tour throughout Sweden, offering people a chance to step inside the nat…