Green Investment is Driving Modular Housing

Australia is suddenly talking about modular or pre-built housing. It’s taken a while but suddenly modular housing is seen to be the way of the future, and you would have to say about time too.

There is now chat in the Australian Property Investment magazines that modular housing is the way of the future. Pre-built housing has never been big in Australia. In a country where termites and other nasties love to chomp on houses brick is the traditional building material of choice. Pre-built housing tends to be associated with Park Homes which are low cost small units in holiday parks or purpose built retirement villages. Pre-built houses haven’t been popular with investors either mainly because the reality that capital gain would be less than an equivalent on site build.

The odds are improving for pre-fabricated houses. Their advantages are

• over the 30% cheaper to build and also cheaper to run
• environmentally friendly because of the scale of manufacture
• pre-fabricated houses take 6 to 8 weeks to assembly in the factory; a traditional home can take a year to build
• in the face of serious skill shortages a modular, factory-based build will be easier to get staff for and probably need less skilled staff too.
• modular design mean that houses can be built to order or even added onto as the owner’s requirements changes
• pre-built homes can suit sites with access problems where a crane can maybe lower the building onto the foundations
• pre-built homes are ideal for remote towns where the availability of building skills and materials are limited and expensive

For the investor a house which is 30% cheaper to build than a traditional home but should rent out for the same rent has got to be a no-brainer. Add to that the much quicker build time so lower holding costs: its got to be good. For the potential renter its a great idea too: a house that is cheaper to run can save a fortune in air-conditioning bills in country like Australia where is air-conditioning is pretty much a necessity for most of the year.

The new modular designs are funky and cool too: a far cry from the traditional park home look. Use of new building elements and particularly steel frames means there is a lot of options to create the large open spaces we all want in a modern home.