The really sad truth is that if you want a home, you generally need to pay an architect, general contractor, many sub-contractors, teams of people who accomplish foundation, framing, roofing, electric, water & plumbing, refrigeration, interior finishing & drywall (or plaster), finished carpenters for cabinetry, flooring, and maybe even interior design. This was just a short list, but every one of the categories of work have paychecks that increase the cost of your domicile.
Of course, this is usual. This is common. This is just the way it is. You can't do anything about these expenses. Everybody has to pay them. This is just the cost of building a home.
I suppose you can take some depreciation on these costs by purchasing a used home. I guess this is a second-hand house. Please don't read "second-hand" as a pejorative label. Used doesn't need to imply abused, although that can also be true. Most people, however, care for their homes because these homes are viewed as investments. We care for our investments. Therefore, a previously-owned home can be a good purchase if you buy at the right time.
The way real estate fluctuates, you may find yourself waiting for years for a down-turn that will allow you to buy your home at a price you can handle, and then you may wait more years for it to appreciate enough for you to realize and increase on your investment. Then, if you subtract the interest on your mortgage from the appreciated value of the property, you may find you still have your head under water.
"Nutz! What could I have done?" you may be asking yourself.
I just stumbled across pictures of shipping container homes. Shipping container homes? Yep - forty foot shipping containers modified into homes.
My first thought was that if I wanted to move to another country, I could pack up my home, and it will ship as a standard container (for all intents and purposes). Second thought, I could buy a freezer container and make a temporary freezer room for my bakery. Third, these containers can stack, so it is a simple process to have a two-story home on a limited land space.
Ok, it's not so simple. How many of us have a huge crane around to stack or even just install a shipping container on our property? There are some costs, but they may not add up to the costs of all the labor detailed in the first paragraph of this article. The cost encountered will, however, be significant. I haven't looked into those costs at this time.
I have considered the difference between the container home (or room) and a traditional prefab home. You will be limited by specific size of container. If security is an issue, there may be no prefab home that can offer the protection of a shipping container. As an American-Israeli living in Israel, I prefer the security of an entire home built to withstand the rigors of shipping. A steel house is like living in a house built like our security rooms. When my family is at stake, I say "Security first!" - especially if bombs are falling (like in Sderot or Ashkelon).
The concept of living in a metal box is a little intimidating, though, so I decided to look through the internet for some examples of people making houses of shipping containers. I include a few of those sites here.
This house is in Jerusalem, and it is covered with wood slat treatment.
Jerusalem Pine Trees House
This treatment of a container makes me think of living in the openness of a tent type environment.
Open Source Housing?
Shipping container homes may be the ultimate in recycling. Here are two links to recycling & reuse sites showing examples of the use of shipping containers.
10 completely different treatments of the shipping container as a structure
10 pretty visions for shipping containers from around the world
Some of the images above are stark, and some are soft, while still others are advanced architecturally. One of the homes pictured is the first in America to conform to all building codes.
Writing this article created several questions for me. How much does it cost to buy a container? How much does it cost to have one converted? How much does it cost to have it delivered & installed? How does it handle weather? How much does it cost to pack up & move. Can I have windows and close the box to be a secure environment at the same time? Can I have sliding security walls? Will the walls withstand a series of shots from a 50 caliber machine gun? Can it withstand an RPG? Will it withstand a SCUD missile?
Ok, maybe I am getting a little bit carried away. How about this for a fairly serious question that I didn't see treated on any site so far. Can I use a shipping container as a prefab basement providing a strong foundation for a house above? It seems to me that a steel box would not have "foundation shift" in a limited area, and therefore would create less cracks in a traditional house built above the shipping container basement.
There may be many uses for these containers that have yet to be explored. If you have some ideas, and want to do some research, here is a link to a company that both sells and modifies shipping containers for private and business applications.
many suppliers of shipping container homes & offices
Most of these suppliers are in China. Is it possible that this kind of modification can be done in other countries that have major ports and excessive numbers of containers, or containers that have exceeded their "life-span"? Maybe this is a new industry for our country or even our family. Israel is filled with building cranes, has major ports and thousands of shipping containers.
