- Tiny house startup Boxabl has racked up a waiting list of 160,000 people since Elon Musk was linked to a Casita.
- Many people made down payments months or years ago, but Boxabl only built 400 homes in one year.
- Max, who put down a $2,400 deposit for a Casita in 2021, told Insider he was fed up with the delay.
Customers of Boxabl — the North Las Vegas-based tiny home startup that its founders say is worth $3 billion — said they’ve been waiting for years to receive their orders.
They told Insider they received little communication from the company about when the homes, called Casitas, would be completed.
Insider’s Daniel Geiger and Alex Nicoll found this The Boxabl factory produced only 400 houses in its first year of operation. Some 8,000 customers have placed deposits on Casitas, a 375-square-foot model that folds like a suitcase and costs about $60,000 apiece.
Of the $5.4 million Boxabl pocketed from those payouts, more than $1 million was returned at the request of customers, said company co-founder Galiano Tiramani.
Arizona-based potential buyer Max told Insider he staked $2,400 for two Boxabl homes in 2021.
In addition to the long wait time, Max said poor communication from the prefab housing company made it impossible to prepare the site for the delivery of the homes. The company blamed the delay in part on lengthy government licensing and certification requirements in Arizona.
Max said he doesn’t plan to wait forever.
“It pisses me off, to be honest,” Max said. “I think this year is the maximum I will wait before asking for my money.”
The founders of Boxabl — the colorful father-and-son team of Paolo and Galiano Tiramani — told Insider the six-year-old startup is now worth $3 billion.
But there’s uncertainty when Boxabl will reach a sufficient level of production to keep up with its long backlog – a rumble that could tarnish the brand’s budding reputation with the public.
And until recently, the company’s three-member board included a man who a judge identified in federal civil lawsuit as a conspirator in a plot to hide Iranian government property in a New York office tower.
Did you order a Boxabl house? Do you have a story to share? Contact journalist Alex Nicoll via the Signal encrypted messaging app at +1 (646) 768-4772 using a non-work phone, email anicoll@insider.comor Twitter DM at @AlexONicoll.