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Updated 11 months ago, 12/28/2023
Shipping Container Apartments VS Stick Built (Oregon)
I have been obsessed with shipping containers homes and apartments for the last 15 years. I am now in the position to build my first small apartment complex and I want to use prefab shipping container studios to do so. Each unit is made from a 20' shipping container and consists of a full bathroom, kitchenette, mini split, and vinyl flooring. These units are "plug and play" essentially and hook right up to your plumbing and electrical onsite. The total cost for 10 of these units is around $250K, but I am working on getting a bulk discount from the company that builds them. Each unit is just shy of 160 sqft.
What are the chances that a builder would be able to build a 1,600sqft building consisting of 10 studio apartments for that same price? I own a couple of homes, but this will be my first big kid project. I have a ton to learn and I am open to suggestions. I would think that land development, rough grading, wet utilities, dry utilities etc should all be comparable either way I build so in my mind it comes down to permits possibly being a lot higher with the prefab units????
Looking to network and build a team, I have already met a great lender from my first post who is extremely knowledgeable. If you're a Project Manager, General Contractor, Architect, Land Developer etc I would love to chat.
I will attach a rough drawing I did using SketchUp. This shows the units broken up into two seperate 5-plex units just as an example.