2 days ago
Tradie's 'cheap and easy' solution to Aussie housing problem
The ongoing housing crisis is a topic of conversation on the tip of most Australians' lips, whether you're a renter or a property owner. Many are quick to point to high demand, low supply and skyrocketing prices as causes of the problem, but few can come up with solutions that keep all stakeholders happy.
A former tradie has been quietly working away on an answer to the problem, which costs under $100,000 and takes just 12 days to build. Brad Busuttil, an electrician turned business owner, transforms shipping containers into homes.
The low-cost alternative to traditional housing won't be right for everyone, but select Aussies are snapping them up to put on their land, and freeing up housing stock elsewhere while doing so.
Brad, from Victoria, told Yahoo News he built his first shipping container home "for a little bit of fun" before realising just how "cheap and quick and easy it was to do". With a background in affordable housing, he decided to offer the product to the public and has been astounded by their popularity.
He now sells container homes to Aussies around the country through his business, Deluxe Tiny Homes, which cost between $45,000 to $70,000 to buy.
This year, he's already delivered 15 tiny homes to clients around the country, with his main customers fitting into three different demographics. "There are investors, so people who have plots of land they don't know what to do with and don't want to do a half-million-dollar build," he explained.
"There are then people who are about to build a new home, and rather than rent out another property for 12 months, they pop it in the backyard and live there. The third one, which is most common, is people with elderly parents close to retirement age," he said.
Brad explained that the container homes are built "exactly like a normal house", with the same set of standards as a new build house. "That way we have no issues," he said.
The shipping containers are brand new, and are "heavily insulated" and water sealed before framing, plastering, floorboards, as well as a kitchen, laundry and bathroom are installed. The entire build is done off-site, and delivered, where customers are given instructions on how to connect the electrical and plumbing.
With the housing crisis an ever-present threat, he believes it's a short-term option for those in need. "People can't get into houses, this is a good short-term solution," he said, explaining that while the homes are "comfortable", they're " not massive".
Despite admitting they are not going to be a long-term solution for most people, Brad believes his tiny houses will "outlive any of us".
"There's a misconception they'll rust and fall apart, but a lot of people forget these containers are designed to spend their entire life out at sea with corrosive water," he said.
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Dr Peter Davies, a leading sustainability researcher at Macquarie University, told Yahoo News tiny houses have a place in helping Aussies afford housing. He'd like to see the concept used as "part of a suite" of solutions, but not a "reactive response" to a lack of housing supply.
Davies believes that one factor exacerbating the housing problem in Australia is that, for the most part, people want larger homes. But smaller, and even tiny houses, are "generally something that needs to be explored more fully in the suite of housing solutions", he said.
Davies said he wouldn't underestimate the value of the low time and financial investment needed to build a tiny home, but what he doesn't want to see is it being used as a "substitute for poor planning outcomes", and a longer-term solution is still required.
So, what would a longer-term solution look like? Dr Heather Shearer, an engineering and built environment academic at Griffith University, believes that this comes as an increase in medium-density zoning in Australia's big cities.
"It's what they call the missing middle," she said. These properties include smaller townhouses and duplexes as opposed to larger family homes or apartment complexes. "Suburbs need to have higher density but not vertical sprawl high rises," she explained.
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