The £25k flat pack home

Ready made:the £25k home built in six hours IS too good to be true, but there are still benefits to pre-fab housing

The £25,000 home is not the cheap and quick fix it has been billed as, but pre-fab homes can still be the cheaper and quicker self-build option. Here's how to get started.




The £25,000 flat-pack home that can be constructed in just six hours has hit the headlines this week.


The impressive M.A.Di home, made in a factory, can be transported to virtually any location and built without the need for concrete foundations.


It even has the capacity to become “completely off-grid" with solar panels, LED lighting, and grey water systems.

It looks pretty chic, too. But Londoners hoping to make an affordable first step on to the housing ladder shouldn't splurge all their savings on a pre-fab home just yet.

BELOW MINIMUM SPACE REQUIREMENTS

Firstly, it only provides 27sq m of living space.

The minimum size for a single-storey new-build home in the UK is 37sq m; a two-storey home must be at least 58sq m.

This means UK buyers would have to buy the 84sq m version — which raises the price to just over £55,000. Secondly, the cheapest land listed for sale in London at the moment — a plot with planning permission for a two-bedroom house in Peckham — costs £324,999 on plotfinder.net.


While the location is ideal, with many first-time buyers now finding themselves priced out of Peckham, buying the land to put the house on brings the total cost to £375,000.


This is still cheaper than the £479,000 average first home in London. But the biggest barrier to buying a first home in the capital is finding the sizeable deposit required, and a hopeful buyer would need to find at least £55,000 for the modular home plus the deposit for the land.

"Obtaining a mortgage [would also be] unlikely as [M.A.Di homes] are classed as temporary structures," says Samantha Ferneley from Buildoffsite Property Assurance Scheme.

The good news is, thanks to stamp duty changes announced in the Autumn Budget, first-time buyers would only need to stump up £1,250 (as opposed to £6,250).

MODERN DAY MODULAR HOMES

Pre-fabricated homes, and extensions are slowly becoming more popular in the UK, for good reason.

"Pre-fabs have come a long way since the boxes of the 60s," says chief executive of HomeOwners Alliance, Paula Higgins.


"There are brilliant examples out there and opting for a pre-fab can be a good way to guarantee that you get the quality you want, because they are built in a highly controlled factory and assembled on site."


As such they have been touted as one answer to the housing crises, with the capability of closing the gap between supply and demand.

Winston Churchill initially gave the green light for prefab construction as a housing solution for families bombed during the Blitz.

The manufacturing technique peaked in 1968 when around 450,000 prefab homes were built in the UK contributing significantly to the capital’s post-war housing needs. Today only around 2,000 of the original pre-fab homes remain, having suffered from a reputation for poor quality.

Thanks to huge technological developments this reputation is changing fast and pre-fab elements are fast becoming a regular feature on Grand Designs-style builds.

Luxury hi-tech pre-fab homes promise to feature delivery drone landing pads, facial recognition technology to unlock the front door, robot vacuum cleaners and interactive bathroom mirror screens, as standard.

Most also have strong eco-friendly credentials, such as being built from sustainable materials and including rainwater collecting gutters, solar roofing and a car and house battery pack.

SECURING THE PLOT

The first, and crucial step, when opting for a modular home is purchasing land and being confident you will be able to get planning permission.

"It would be best to find land with planning permission attached to it, but this is scarce and comes at a big premium," says Higgins.

"Speak to the local council before purchasing your plot, to find out if there are restrictions. For instance, if it is in a conservation area you may need to build something that is in keeping with your neighbours and an ultra modern modular home is unlikely to do that."

One way to overcome the hurdle of finding land with the right permissions in place is to consider buying an existing (run-down) house and knocking it down.

The initial expense of this would hopefully be offset by the quick build times and the ongoing energy savings from living in a highly-efficient home.

https://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property-news/the-25k-home-built-in-two-days-is-too-good-to-be-true-but-there-are-still-benefits-to-prefab-housing-a115821.html