Houses built without code

“This is one of those awesome products that really makes you think about what's possible without code.” - Ben

Today, Dwellito launched on Product Hunt with a marketplace of modular homes that ship straight to your house. The idea touches on similar themes to Y Combinator-backed Rent the Backyard, a startup we wrote about back in July that builds a studio apartment in your backyard and lets you rent it out. 🏠

What’s cool about Dwellito is that it was built from no code tools, including Webflow, Google Sheets, Zapier and Airtable. The marketplace includes 40 architect-grade prefab designs which you can buy pre-assembled or DIY. From there, you can use the modular home however you like, whether it be for a rental, a studio or a suite.

The idea of kit homes actually started in the early 1900s, when Sears offered homes for parts (10,000 parts, actually) in its catalog. Sort of like Ikea on steroids, the items shipped to the customer and were put together completely from scratch. From 1908 to the 1940s, Sears sold about 70,000 (!!) kit homes in about 270 different styles, from Colonial to Tudor to bungalows.

In recent years, tiny houses have taken off, marketed as housing solutions for overpopulated cities and the homelessness. They’re also good for the environment - a new study found that tiny home downsizers reduce their environmental footprint by an average of 45 percent. Notably, Amazon’s prefab tiny house went viral earlier this year for its low price of $7,000. Buying a backyard guest house from the internet seems like a savvy way to make some extra cash in the age of Airbnb, which is actually how Dwellito got its start.

“About 1.5 years ago, I wanted to build a guest house in my backyard to rent on airbnb. Side note: In Phoenix, a rental could pay the entire mortgage of the main house. I got frustrated with the number of online companies that were out of business, not servicing my state, or weren’t clear about pricing. I created a notion doc that compared all of the prefab models that I had found. My other homeowner friends said the list was incredibly helpful and they were considering to buy one themselves. I started to get the good vibes that it could be a business,” Dwellito Maker Caleb Barclay wrote in a blog post.

Would you buy a tiny house on the internet? Take our poll. 👈

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