FEATURE
Modular homes a valuable addition to the market
Tony Houston, Managing Director of Neilston Group
Aside from the odd mechanic or motor enthusiast, most of us would never think of building our own car. We know that these vehicles, so important to our daily lives, are reliably and affordably manufactured. Yet when it comes to our homes – by far the biggest investment most Kiwis make – we still mainly build each one from scratch. This takes time and, as we see from the affordability statistics, a great deal of money. Auckland is listed as ‘severely unaffordable’ in all 15 of Demographia International’s Housing Affordability Surveys, including 2019, ranked as the seventh-least-affordable housing market out of the 91 markets surveyed. One way to address this affordability challenge is to manufacture homes to obtain the scale and cost reductions we enjoy with cars and other products that we trust and depend upon. Around the world, homes manufactured in factories, known as modular homes, are playing an increasingly important part in the building and construction sector. At Neilston Group, we began investigating the affordability challenge more than five years ago. We explored lots of different options. New Zealand has a long tradition of prefabrication, format design and standardised building units to try to reduce cost. But we wanted to go a step further. Could we design and specify a high-quality terrace home for New Zealand conditions that we could have manufactured in one of the world’s volumetric modular construction centres? More than three years of focused research and development is now entering its most exciting phase. Our challenge is ongoing, but in bringing our first product to market, we’ll find out how Kiwi home buyers respond to our initial production model, and we expect to keep getting better and further refining our design and production methods.
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The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand
New Zealand’s first three Modul homes – one of which is an Open Home – are in Nuggett Ave in Auckland’s Hobsonville Point. These are freehold, terrace houses, across the road from the Hobsonville Point secondary school. In the coming months, we will install a further 13 new homes of this type up Nugget Ave to Buckley Ave, 12 of which will be Axis Series homes, offered to the market at $650,000.
What are modular homes These homes are designed by Shanahan Architects for Kiwi home buyers and for New Zealand conditions and lifestyles. They each comprise four modules – two six-metre modules downstairs and two nine-metre modules upstairs. These modules are then connected internally, leaving the exterior steel construction as the outer walls and roof. Each modul arrives complete with all fittings and finishing for the interior of the home. Appliances are added here. They are double-glazed and fully insulated and have been designed and built so we can seek a New Zealand Green Building Council 6 Homestar rating. A feature of Modul homes is that they are a standard design and format. This is key to producing homes as a manufactured product. We opted for three-bedroom, 1.5-bathroom, two storey terrace homes with front and back decks and a small, low maintenance back yard, believing this format to be the most attractive across a large cross-section of the market.
