ABOVE: Matt Bury describes the interior of one of two available tiny homes currently in his Sherburn tiny home project. Bury said he is currently looking at having the property available for incoming homesteaders in a month or so.

SHERBURN – While tiny homes aren’t a new concept, Matt Bury is looking to build a new model of housing to tackle the housing shortage.

Housing is not a new subject to Bury. He began his journey in high school managing long-term single-family rentals. It was here where he recognized a problem he often ran into.

“They like it and want to rent it,” he said. “I want to rent the house to them, but when you start talking through the numbers and income, they don’t qualify to rent a regular, single-family house.”

Finding a solution for this issue began to occupy his time. Bury said he figured a smaller structure is cheaper and therefore payments could be cheaper.

Before getting into tiny houses, Bury worked with a modular apartment company to see if an answer could be found there.

“That was interesting to see, but they’re still big, expensive, and hard to move around,” he said. “I could see the advantage of building it off-site in a controlled environment.”

It was during that time he found out about a tiny home company in Tennessee. Hoping to find employment and investigate a different way of housing, Bury took a leap of faith.

“I checked their website to see if they were hiring and I didn’t see anything,” he said. “I told my brother ‘We should drive down there and see if they’re hiring.’ We drove 1,000 miles down there to check the company out. I got a job there and worked for over a year.”

By this point, Bury had purchased three tiny homes, one of which he lives in. A piece of land in Sherburn at 301 South Prairie Street, opened up. He put $40,000 down and began pitching his idea.

“I talked to the city,” Bury said. “Everyone on City Council was very supportive of it and liked the idea after I explained it to them.”

Currently, he is showing two tiny homes for potential homeowners. Bury said they are looking to install sewer and water lines starting next week. If everything goes well, he said the land should be ready in a month or so.

Once everything is ready, people will be able to have their tiny homes all set up on the land. There are 17 spots available. Bury said they could purchase tiny homes from him or a different supplier. Once they’re on the land, they would pay land rent.

While he hasn’t worked out the full details yet, Bury said the plan all along has been to make this an affordable housing option. For those who feel they aren’t able to buy a whole tiny home, which is $50,000 for a standard setup, other opportunities will be available.

“It’d be a mix,” Bury said. “Whatever I need to do to make it work. If someone picks out a house, I could buy that for them and then sign a lease with the option to buy or rent to own type arrangement with them. They could pick out their house and I could get it set up on the lot for them, get all the utilities hooked up.”

Having started out to find more affordable options for housing, Bury said now he’s also looking to help combat the housing shortage in Minnesota.

“I’d like it to scale and be able to do more of it,” he said. “I’d like to be able to proof this concept out. If I can prove that it’s profitable and show other people, then other people could do it. Then it can make a meaningful impact.”

While anyone with the means can switch to a tiny home, Bury said there are certain characteristics that lend themselves to living in a smaller space.

“I think it’s primarily going to work well for individuals or couples,” he said. “Maybe someone who’s divorced. The utilities are going to be less on something like this. Property taxes are split 19 ways. It’s going to be cheaper per month for the structure itself and getting started with it.”

For more information or to inquire, call 763-370-7166. A website will soon be available at https://www.modernandneighborly.com/.