➡ The American dream is shifting away from owning large homes, with many people now opting for downsizing to smaller living spaces like tiny homes and micro units. The trend, driven by rising house prices, increased interest rates, and higher costs of living, is becoming the new norm, even being recognized by the National Association of Home Builders.
➡ Armina Asif Severi, a 37-year-old woman who works three jobs, has moved into a newly built “micro unit” in Pasadena’s latest affordable housing option. Pasadena Studios allows a maximum occupancy of one person per 250 sqft unit. Due to high rental costs in Pasadena (average $2200 a month), these units are available only to residents who earn a maximum of $53,000 per year. Pasadena’s Housing Director Bill Wong reveals more such micro units are planned in the near future as part of their solution to the housing crisis.

It’s come to that point. We now got to start deep diving a little bit further into the money. Yep, we gotta deep dive a little further into the money. And what they telling me out here in these streets, man, what they telling me out here in these streets is this, said Anton, the American dream is no longer what you think it is. You will live in a box and you will learn to like it.

You will love it. You will learn to love it. The new game is tiny homes and micro units. I know you don’t want to hear it. I know you feeling some type of way about it. I know that everybody is feeling some type of way about it. But let me just tell you, I’m going to tell you the honest to God truth, the new wave and the new trend.

Remember when I was telling y’all about Van life and we was reviewing those videos and I was ah, I don’t want to take no shower inside of Walmart or I don’t want to have to go into Walmart in order to do use the bathroom and all of that stuff and then have to go to the gym every time you want to take a shower. This is the new wave.

Oh, you don’t believe me? You don’t believe that this is what’s being promoted in real estate. And now experts are noticing it right here in the Valley. Maybe you’ve noticed it or you are partaking in it. And that trend is downsizing. So the National association of Home Builders is even noticing the size of single family homes is actually shrinking. It’s getting smaller. So we want to bring in twelve news journalist Jen Wall.

She’s joining us live this morning with more on this one. Digging into it, Jen, what does this lifestyle change really look like for us here then in Arizona? Yeah. Good morning to, you know, it’s a juggle. No matter how you look at this, you’re thinking about downsizing. Then you have all of your stuff. You have to figure out how you’re going to get rid of, donate, what you’re going to keep.

So definitely a lot of decisions here. And even a Texas utility company, they did a recent survey and found that one in five Americans are actually downsizing right now. Not surprised. Now let’s deep dive into this. One in five Americans are actually downsizing. Now, usually we only hear downsizing or the word downsizing either in a movie. So I just watched that movie called Downsizing, which is crazy because I watched the movie downsizing and now I’m starting to see downsizing in my algorithm that just tell me that they listening out here in these streets.

Right. But downsizing usually is applied to only one of two main scenarios. The first scenario is if you live in a house. Well, actually I’m going to do three. Let’s do three scenarios. You live in a big old house or whatever, you raise your kids, your kids leave the house. And so you got all of this room, but you’re not actually utilizing it and you don’t want to continue to pay the utility bills.

And you got so much equity in a property. So why not take that, sell it and then get a smaller place? Because your lifestyle is different. You don’t need to live in the suburbs and it’s 5000 square foot house because it’s only you, all two. And your needs don’t work the same way that it used to. And so you want to do a lifestyle change. That’s the first thing.

The second thing is downsizing because you’re getting older and you want to retire. And so you might want to take the equity out of your home or you might not want to move around a home the same way that you used to. And so we usually give a better lifestyle to our parents or our parents or boomers or generation xers or whatever it is that you want to call it.

They start to move and so they decide that they want to downsize. Maybe they live in a city that’s a lot more expensive and so they want to downsize in that situation. And then the third situation is that’s the situation that you really don’t want to be in. Right. And that’s because you downsizing because you have to, not because you want to. And you can’t afford to continue to live the lifestyle that you’re doing.

And so we want to do it based off of our own voluntary decisions, and we don’t want to do it because we forced into it. But it’s nothing wrong with downsizing, though, the way the economy’s been. So here in the valley, we talked with both a local moving company who says they see Arizonans downsize daily, and a woman who moved to the valley less than a year ago because she was afraid her next step would be homelessness.

I caught up with this valley moving crew the day they were helping a local family move after selling their home for something smaller, too. So rising home prices, increased interest rates, retirement, higher cost of living. These are a lot of the reasons moving experts say more homeowners are choosing to downsize. I got some fear of gods that look similar to that. Them ain’t fear gods, though. That’s just fear.

I don’t know what. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. I know I’ve never wore these before. Let me see. Turn it that way. Yeah. That’s just fear. That’s just fear. Those are not fear, guys. That’s just plenty. Okay. Why did the cameraman pan to his shoes like that? That was a fear of the devil. Our street said, that’s fear of the devil. That ain’t fear. The God ain’t in it.

God ain’t in it. My name Bennett, and I’m not. Shout out to the movers and the shakers. All right, let’s continue. Are choosing to downsize. The national average home price in the US has gone up nearly 30% since 2020. Staggering. That’s according to the Zebra, an insurance shopping company that used Zillow data. Now two men in a truck’s Robert Pinell, one of the company’s general managers. He tells me his movers see the trend ramping up out of their Mesa office happening about a year and a half ago through now.

And Courtney Flores even left her life in San Jose to downsize. Here in the Valley, she offers encouragement to anyone looking to do the same. You kind of have to get out your comfort zone if you want to get ahead. I think it’s scary, especially if you’re not familiar with where you’re going. But you have to be brave. And honestly, I think it’s quite rewarding to actually see a bunch of doors opening up now that maybe before I didn’t have any door.

No, ma’am, I’m going to be real with you. That’s not bravery. That’s something else. I don’t even know what kind of adjective that you can put on it. I don’t know how you describe it. That’s not bravery, ma’am. That’s just making the best of what you have and rolling with it. That’s what that is. It ain’t bravery is embracing your circumstance and just coming to terms with what you got to do.

And it ain’t nothing wrong with that, because sometimes you got to go down in order to go up, but it’s not fun. It’s not fun when you got to downsize. I’m just going to be real with you because I’ve done it. I’ve done it before. It’s open at all. As the economy goes up and down, people getting into smaller homes or downsizing definitely goes up when the economy isn’t as good, especially the housing market, obviously.

Yeah. And moving it’s always stressful. Downsizing can even be a little worse. So two men in a truck, they say what they recommend people do is separate all of their items into three different piles. What you’re going to take, what you’re going to sell or donate, and what you are going to get rid of in the trash. And make sure you start decluttering right away. Basically, you becoming a minimalist.

You an involuntary minimalist. Shout out to spaces. You becoming an involuntary minimalist. So let’s break it down because Pasadena is saying that this is the new wave and Pasadena is actually embracing this whole micro unit movement. So let’s see exactly what this entails. It’s taking downsizing. Now, I have not watched this video. I just wanted to make sure that it played because I want to react to it in reality.

So this is the solution over in Pasadena. To the extreme, Pasadena’s newest affordable housing option is offering micro unit apartments less than 300 sqft. In fact, K Cal’s Amanda Starntina, I thought that was only like a New York thing. Takes us inside one of the apartments in Pasadena’s efforts to make housing affordable for everyone. This is Armina Asif Severi’s new hOme. Here is my bathroom. The 37 year old still settling into her new small space.

And right here is my closet. The Pasadena Studios Pasadena’s newest affordable housing option is only one person max occupancy with about 250 living space per unit. So wait a minute, wait a minute. So you can’t have no company. One person maximum can only stay in the space. Hold on, let me see something real quick. Let me back up for a minute. Armina Asif Severi’s new home. Here is my bathroom.

The 37 year old still settling into her new small space. And right here is my closet bathroom. Look cool. Pasadena Studios Pasadena’s newest affordable housing option is only one person Max occupancy with about 250 living space per unit. I have my kitchen. Between rent paying bills and helping support her family financially, Asafazari works three jobs. It’s just crazy. You got to have several jobs to live in a one bedroom place.

According to Apartments. com, in November, the average rent in Pasadena is 2200 a month. Tenants. How big is 250 sqft accepted to live here earn max 53,000 a year. Christian Hart is a managing member of community. Oh, and let me back that up for a minute. Give me a second. Dina. Is 2200 a month tenants accepted to live here earn Max I have my kitchen. Between rent paying bills and helping support her family, financially, Asafazari works three jobs.

It’s just crazy. You got to have several jobs to. Yeah, but a lot of, see, let’s be clear, though, working three jobs, the context matters. So a lot of times people that say that they work three jobs, they’re not working like three full time jobs or two full time jobs and then one part time job. A lot of times they’ll be underemployed on most of the jobs. So they’ll be working at 711 one time and then they’ll be doing gig work on the side when it’s convenient.

You know what I’m saying? So they’ll be working 20 hours here and then 30 hours there or 20 hours and 15 hours there. And then they’ll pick up some gig work, which work is work, right? So I’m not diminishing the idea of work, but what I am saying is that we need additional context because it sounds good, but we don’t actually know what that means. So I’m not just going to take them at their word, I’m just going to go based off of what’s being communicated.

All right, let’s continue. Live in a one bedroom place. According to Apartments. com, in November, the average rent in Pasadena is 2200 a month. Tenants accepted to live here earn Max, 53,000 a year. So in order to get approved, you can’t even move into a micro unit. That’s what they’re calling these things, micro units. And they spice it up by putting a green door on it. You can’t even live in these micro units unless you basically make less than $53,000 a year.

So that means I’m going to keep throwing this in your face. I’m going to keep throwing this in your face. That basically means that I was right when I said that $40,000 a year was not enough to be able to raise a family of four. And I said this, I believe it was last year or it might have been the year before. Everybody felt a certain way and they was coming after me as a result of it.

I said $40,000 a year. You should not be expecting anything from anybody off of $40,000 a year. And people was pissed. People were pissed. I did another video. I said, $50,000 is broken, Atlanta, all of this stuff. And people felt like I was coming from him. People felt like I was coming for him. Because I said that you would not be able to survive with a family of four on 50 or $40,000 a year.

And they said that Anton, you elitist and all of this stuff. But now when the news want to record on it and they want to report on it, now for some reason, it’s starting to mean that Anton. Yes, I’m about to read the comments. I’m about to read the comments. Yep. Yeah, yeah, hold on. Let me, let me, let me share this because y’all think that I’m capping, and I’m not capping.

You all think that I’m capping. It was 152 comments on this particular video, and I’m about to share it. See, I got the receipts. I have the receipts. Let me go ahead and remove this. Let me go ahead and remove this. I will tell you. Well, no, we’re not going to go to that one. Much respect, Anton. You continue to talk about controversial subjects. Okay, cool. This guy right here says, this is absolutely absurd.

I have dated beautiful women and had long term relationships with women who were submissive because they believed in me. I have made 27,000 to 110 in his account. They only believed in his income. The best and longest relationships lasted for years and I made under 40,000. It’s the man, not the wealth. Unless the woman is looking for a healthy man, a wealthy man. No, women submit to men that they respect.

If a woman won’t submit to a man, that makes 50K, that means she won’t submit to a man. Making 50,050,000 isn’t enough. It’s only about your mindset. I find this argument a bit weak, as Anton here will refer to himself and a lot of their grandparents didn’t even pull that together on less than 50,000. Well, guess what? You ain’t your grandparents and you don’t live in a time where 50,000 was really a lot more money than that.

I don’t understand how a man feels like 50,000 is enough money. Okay, I rock with that one. It’s not about the money. It’s not about the money. By this logic, a man. Man, this is crazy, bro. First world problems. This is what people were saying. They said that I was wrong. They said that I was off. See, I keep receipts. I pay attention so that I could throw it back in your face.

When we come back to the front of the congregation. Let me watch the rest of this video. Let me get there a month. Tenants accepted to live here earn Max 53,000 a year. Christian Hart is a managing member of Community Builders group that built this project. Income level will determine your rent. So at 30% of area median income, you’re basically paying $700 in rent. There are 180 units in this apartment complex, and along with the unit that you’re leasing, you’re also getting a ton of facilities here as well.

It is unheard of in Pasadena, where rents are extremely high. SO the city of Pasadena helped to create an entitlement pathway so that we could create a higher density product. And this is just one project of many in the city of Pasadena working to help solve the housing crisis. The housing crisis affects a large segment of our population and different subgroups in there, and so we are trying to provide housing that addresses many, many of these areas.

Bill Wong, Pasadena’s housing director, showing us another affordable housing option in the works in Pasadena, this one for seniors on fixed incomes and the other for the homeless. Housing costs in the marketplace go up 510 15% a year, and there’s no way that somebody on a fixed income can keep up with that. Wong says more micro unit options are in the planning phases for the coming years as they keep an eye on how their first complex benefits the community.

So you basically got a bunk bed, baby, right now. The change and get me on. Oh, that’s messed up. Oh, you got to get a bunk bed. So you got to put your bed up. You got to make your bed and then put your bed up. And then when you want to go to sleep, you got to pull your bed out. I was wondering where the bed was because I didn’t see the bed on my feet and get me going into whatever my next chapter will be.

Reporting in. Pastor Tina. Amanda Starlink, takeout News. You got to do what you got to do, I guess. You got to do what you got to do. I mean, it is what it is. I’m never going to house shame nobody because I understand, and I get it, but damn, is that the American dream now?.