Would YOU build your own house with clay? Millennial couple reveal how they live debt-free in ‘cob home’ they made by HAND for just $20,000 – and they even claim to save on AC bills!

• Daniel and Katherine Ray built their own 700-square-feet property using cob
• The natural material is a combination of clay, sand and soil which is mixed together ‘like putty’
• READ MORE:  housing affordability now worse than it was in 2006 

As mortgage rates and house prices skyrocket, one couple has found a novel way to own a home debt-free. 

Daniel and Katherine Ray built their own 700-square-feet property using cob – a natural material made from clay, sand and straw which is mixed together using old-fashioned building techniques.

The couple, from the Bitterroot Valley in Victor, Montana, estimate the construction cost them just shy of $20,000. By comparison, homes in their area are being built for between $150,000 and $200,000. 

And properties closer to the town center or Victor are even more expensive: data from real estate platform Realtor.com shows the median house price listing is $999,000. 

Daniel, who works as a librarian, told Business Insider: ‘Especially in the area that we are right now, there’s an influx of people moving in – it’s kind of a housing crisis where we’re at with people losing their rentals and their homes.

Daniel and Katherine Ray are pioneers of building natural ‘cob homes’ made from a mixture of clay, sand and soil 

Temperatures in Montana can be as hot as 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer yet a cob home typically stays as cool as 70 degrees – even without air conditioning, according to Daniel

‘It’s really important that people know that they have other housing options.’

On top of that the Rays claim to save money on air conditioning as the structure runs colder than a typical home.

Temperatures in Montana can be as hot as 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer yet a cob home typically stays as cool as 70 degrees – even without air conditioning, according to Daniel.

Cob houses are famously cheap to build because they do not require costly timber.

They can also be easily self-built slashing down on labor costs. The structure is decked out with Rocket Mass Heaters – which are efficient stoves with low emission rates. 

The Rays were first inspired to build their own after stumbling upon a picture of a cob house nearly two decades ago.

They told the YouTube channel the Tiny House Giant Journey that they spent a decade dreaming, designing and drawing their future home.

They built their first home which they labelled a ‘practice’ before moving onto their current residence.

In a video, they explained, they mix together the soil, clay and sand ‘like putty’ and then start building with it. Typically the mixture is 20-30 percent clay and 70-80 percent soil and sand.

The Rays now teach workshops and building immersion camps on how to build cob houses – which cost up to $900. 

Cob houses are famously cheap to build because they do not require costly timber

The Rays were first inspired to build their own after stumbling upon a picture of a cob house nearly two decades ago

https://youtube.com/watch?v=OUGQNVleOEo%3Frel%3D0

Daniel told Insider: ‘We recently had someone from as far as Alaska come to our classes.

‘She wasn’t sure what to expect but after nine days and being able to build a small house, she was determined to go home and begin her own house.’

He added: ‘The main idea is that anybody could build a house – it’s not rocket science.

‘There are a lot of specialized construction industries that make people feel like they can’t when it’s actually something they can do.’

The Rays’ story comes as homebuyers in the US are facing the least affordable market in decades. 

Figures from the Atlanta Federal Reserve show that affordability has fallen below levels seen during the housing bubble peak in the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis. 

The Atlanta Fed uses house prices, mortgage rates and average incomes to calculate an ‘affordability’ score each month. The latest figures, from June 2023, show the score has plunged to 69.5 – nearly 40 points below where it was in June 2020. 

And the report doesn’t even take into account mortgage rates which have shot up again in August. It means this month is likely to become the worst month for housing affordability of the century, according to estimates by Fortune. 

Source: Read Full Article