With housing inventory in Philadelphia’s suburbs low and prices continuing to climb, prospective buyers in Chester County will soon have more affordable housing options: tiny homes.
Microsoft alum and former tech executive Mario Mascioliis set to open a franchise of Anchored Tiny Homes to serve Chester County, as well as neighboring Lancaster County to the west. The Northern California-based homebuilder specializes in accessory dwelling units, building small homes on existing residential properties.
Anchored Tiny Homes’ units can be as small as 240-square-foot studios and as large as about 1,000 square feet with two bedrooms. Prices range from under $100,000 to more than $250,000. Mascioli, a Montgomery County resident, said he’s still finalizing exact rates for his local franchise but expects they will likely be at or under those estimates.
Affordable housing is lacking in Chester County, where the median sale price in May was nearly $550,000, the highest in Greater Philadelphia by a fairly wide margin. Throughout Greater Philadelphia, home prices continue to reach record highs amid a dearth of inventory. Mascioli sees tiny homes, traditionally defined as dwellings no greater than 400 or 500 square feet, as a way to bring a more attainable housing alternative to the region.
“I see a big opportunity in terms of really hitting this affordable housing crisis on the nose, so to speak, and obviously a great business opportunity to pursue this,” said Mascioli.
Founded in 2020, Anchored Tiny Homes has already built more than 1,000 units across the U.S., with close to 150 currently under construction. The most common use cases for these tiny homes are to provide a residence for elderly family members to live on the same property as their caretakers, for recent college graduates to provide a pathway to homeownership, and as rental income properties, Mascioli said. The structures can also serve as garages, pool houses or home offices.
Mario Mascioli is a former tech executive who is franchising Anchored Tiny Homes in Chester and Lancaster counties.
Anchored Tiny Homes works with homeowners, handling permitting and employing contractors to build each unit. On average, the tiny homes take six to 10 months to construct. The homes largely come as standard builds, but certain aspects can be customized like internal and external colors and finishes, as well as kitchen and shower features. Homes can also be built to be ADA-compliant.
Mascioli said the franchise will use local contractors for construction.
While the standard model is to build next to a homeowner’s existing residence, he also envisions buying tracts of land to build communities of tiny homes.
The new franchise, Anchored Tiny Homes’ first in Pennsylvania, covers 132 municipalities with some 300,000 residents across the entirety of Chester and Lancaster counties.Mascioli said he chose those territories specifically because the permitting process for accessory dwelling units is more favorable than in other parts of the region.
Pennsylvania does not have legislation mandating municipalities allow accessory dwelling units on existing residential properties. Instead, such codes are largely left up to municipalities. Mascioli said he is beginning to look into lobbying at the state level to allow for more lenient permitting for the micro homes.
So far, Mascioli has invested about $189,000 to secure the rights to operate his Anchored Tiny Homes franchise in the two counties, and another $100,000 in working capital for marketing, hiring and other expenses to get the business off the ground.
Already he is looking to expand into other parts of the region, something he said could come once the business is “launched and proven.” He declined to disclose specific territories he might target, noting he is undertaking extensive research on permitting and zoning regulations in nearby counties.
While the franchise won’t formally launch for a few more weeks, interested buyers can join a waiting list. In the meantime, Mascioli is hiring a pre-construction manager, a construction manager and two salespeople to finalize his staff, and preparing a marketing campaign.
