One thought came to mind when asked about window installation and other materials getting installed in China before shipping them .. I would think you could source all that material there and whatever you couldn't install or need to keep uncovered for inspection could be placed and secured in the container itself and then things like the windows could be later installed on site but with the materials you get from China .. another person commented on sending a rep to the factory and basically sleep there to make sure they are doing what they promised .. that is something you certainly will find you will have to consider.. as for building new ones from scratch .. I thought the Appel to shioping containers were the lower cost in acquiring them after one time use .. sort of recycling them into viable housing .. have you looked into grants of this type ..or maybe even rehabilitation type grants that may provide money that could offset your labor cost here .. if your recycling and providing low cost housing along with providing local jobs .. I have heard of city or state programs for those types of projects .. not necessarily for container home but you never know until you ask .. Just a idea .. as for myself , I have researched building a SFH out of used containers that I can source right here in Fl .. a couple things that I found stopped me from going forward right away on one that I had planned to flip .
This is just what I was told about a year ago
1. Because they are relatively new , a lot of banks won’t loan money on them because appraisal’s can prove difficult for true value and they are not sure about depreciation rates like mobile homes tend to depreciate over time ..
2. The city I was interested in building it seemed put off when I asked about restrictions .. they didn’t know enough about them to decide on the spot ..and I was told permitting might be a problem because again .. inspectors are not familiar with them enough to not run into problems signing off on some things like load limits ( i was looking to maybe build at least a two story with 8 containers total of close to 3200sqft woth two of the upper ones canter-leaving over the parking area ) the property I was looking at aquiring for this project was right across the street from a $1.1 mil 3800Sqft new house on the lake . And the surrounding homes were anywhere from $200-280 a sqft .. I had a custom builder quoting me $110 a sqft for one of his CBS homes to drywall and I figured with a container home I could have built it complete for that .. plus the $100k for the land, which would have put the project at around $450k completed .. so if it could sell at even $200 a sqft , we ( my investment partner and I ) could gross around $200k which is really lowballing it because in reality if we had built it , then it should have sold at the top of the scale , closer to $300 a sqft seeing how it would be the only and first one in that area )
Which is another reason we decide not to .. or I should say he decided not to fund it!
Because it would have been the only and first one .. coupled with the first two reasons .. our thought process was that it would have to se as a all cash or a large cash deal and that would limit our field of potential buyers ..
My hope is that in the not to distance future I can build one for myself and my wife by using the equity we already have in our exsisting home ( around $250k equity ) and that way we could have a nice beautiful cool place to live and use it as a stepping stone to possibly building more in the future as investments .. whether they are SFH's or MFH ..
I certainly will follow this thread .. And I’m excited to read any updates you or any other posts ..
I wish you the very best ..
God Speed ..
