The big advantage of a shipping container is the ability to cheaply ship it. Once you cut into it you can't ship it anymore. It's not a great use of recycled material as it uses way too much steel for a dwelling.
I'm actually in the market for a shippable shipping container house. Similar to https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sPgjndFqqwY . He gives the quote of $50K including high quality fittings and market price labor. I will probably build one myself then ship it to where I need it. I'm an expat and I historically move countries every year or so. If you were to build a clone of this I would buy it.
Another benefit of shippable shipping container homes is you can service customers anywhere around the globe! Not just SF.
But I remember very pleasantly a holiday in one of these prefabricated (in Sweden): with a good (big and serious) design work and targeting the recreation market they could even raise prices.
An example: [http://www.vipp.com/en/shelter/the-vipp-shelter/the-vipp-she...] - [https://youtu.be/LCyN1hxQtdA]
> I doubt any homeowners here would want it next to them.
IMHO it all boils down to your product: if you're selling a high quality tiny home / shelter / box, then I definitely want one of those next to me.
There's General Steel Buildings, which makes steel house kits.[2] They're not popular, but they are available. For a little extra, you can get fake brick to hide the steel exterior.
You can get some nice prefab houses for well under the $29K these people want for a modified 150 square foot shipping container. In mobile homes, $29K gets you a 16 foot wide unit with 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, 14 foot square living room, kitchen, A/C, and appliances, installed.[3]
Siting is the problem, not manufacturing cost.
[1] http://butlermfg.com [2] https://gensteel.com/steel-building-kits/houses [3] http://www.montysheavybuilthomes.com/index.php?pageID=14676_...
Attractive product, unattractive design. There's nothing there to make me want your product over another company doing the same thing with more emphasis on design.
I am a mid-twenties millennial looking for a starter home (considering a container home) and I'm not really seeing something I want.
I'm not seeing what benefit do you add to the existing ecosystem?
The reason you anchor on that 80k number is because custom building usually has a lot extra. Better quality. High cost materials. More carpentry. This is basically a plywood box and a solar system. And a solar system of this size is only a few grand installed.
Get a designer in your team ASAP IMO as I think the styling is going to seriously hamper you in the short term otherwise.
I don't see how this could scale past cities where rent is insane and have housing regulations that allow this kind of home.
What is the advantage of this versus other pre-fabricated homes? What justifies the price?
One question, is the main focus of the business to manufacture and sell the Box houses or offer then for renting with AirBnB or similar sites? If the latter do you have some planed strategy to lower the high CAPEX needed for scaling?
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1554/1773/products/share_t...
Is there a place where I can try them out. I will be visiting SF and definitely want to experience staying in a container home before deciding to make a call.
A dream of mine is to buy some land in a remote place with a gorgeous view and place a container home there.
I've been in shipping container buildings before (e.g. Frietag store in Zurich) - they are not really a great size. Many Mobile homes that are comfortable feature pop-out sides. Any plans for expanding them?
Some real positives - fireproof envelope, Envelope can be welded to, several formats available - including ones with side doors can be "racked" can be made airtight (allows you to specify air exchanges, rather than estimate them) portability with the right equipment.
"For instance, the coatings used to make the containers durable for ocean transport also happen to contain a number of harmful chemicals, such as chromate, phosphorous, and lead-based paints. Moreover, wood floors that line the majority of shipping container buildings are infused with hazardous chemical pesticides like arsenic and chromium to keep pests away."
and
"Reusing Containers seems to be a low energy alternative, however, few people factor in the amount of energy required to make the box habitable. The entire structure needs to be sandblasted bare, floors need to be replaced, and openings need to be cut with a torch or fireman’s saw. The average container eventually produces nearly a thousand pounds of hazardous waste before it can be used as a structure."
"About 20 million consignments of all sizes containing radioactive materials are routinely transported worldwide annually on public roads, railways and ships."
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fue...
Note that sprayed on closed cell insulation does little to nothing to mitigate many of the toxins which can be found in shipping containers including mercury - it just makes it poisonous for longer. To use them for a dwelling all wood needs to be removed and they need to be sand or water blasted down to bare metal.
Those photos don't really fit the "sleek finish out" and "premium materials" description. The tub looks dirty, the bed slats are all wonky, and it looks overall extremely cheap.
It's certainly not $20k worth of add-ons to the barebones bit (https://boxouse.com/collections/buy/products/boxouse-barebon...).
Oh and by the way, this type of housing is cheap but not necessarily inexpensive. A trailer in upstate GA an hour and half away from Atlanta in the middle of nowhere makes $500 a month. In Oakland, market rates (and all roads lead to a market rate) will likely get this to $750-800. People are going to start piling into these things to make the economics work, which will make them more dangerous, more unstable.
For example: http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/The-Village...
Hire a decent photographer, large sensor, low f number. You'd be surprised what a good camera with a competent person running it will do. Go wide angle.
Your unique selling point should be the thought you put into the layout. Anyone can insulate and sling in some furniture, the real hard part is making the space lovable/liveable. Choose a theme or period, industrial is a good start. You have bamboo flooring, why not use it for the fittings?
o Put beading/moulding around the windows. Its simple and cheap.
o Match the doors and frames to the plywood/cladding
o Change the electrical outlets to metal, anything other than the stock white
o Use industrial light cases, it'll match the industrial look better
o Make sure the stuff you install is straight, and neat, the bed slats are wonky!
o The bamboo flooring looks great make use of it more!
o when taking the photos, think about where the light is coming from, make sure its streaming through the windows making the place look bright
Also, don't give up...
You might want to try brass, as it might fit with the wood better. You could even use floor plates (if they are legal in your part of the world). it might also just be a case of putting them in less obvious places.
http://cdn.homedit.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Container-...
In the above example, they are not that dissimilar to your $25k offering, apart from the ceiling is white plasterboard/drywall, which is smooth. Also the appliances are hidden, its a living room, not a nuts and bolts room :)
This guy has very solid ratings locally, nice portfolio, and worth hitting too - http://www.dannyosterweil.com/about/ - I think he's probably within a few miles of you guys.
"Large sensor, low f number, go wide angle" means absolutely nothing...don't go to a photographer saying some shit like that.
I looked for something similar in Spain, a house in a rail wagon, something like this:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nEZddcafnkk/SAoPN_PCK_I/AAAAAAAAAk...
http://vilssa.com/aprovecha-un-vagon-de-tren-para-hacer-tu-c...
https://decoracion.trendencias.com/casas/casas-poco-convenci...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXbBXpruaW0
Some of them were extremely cheap and simple but they had lots of charm and taste.
Your houses look totally ugly to me, cold. Humans not allowed kind of feeling.
You probably need to learn some design. Even when people will tell you the only thing they care is price, it is extremely depressing expending long hours in an ugly place.
At YC, there's Acre (Pacific NW, California, Colorado): http://www.acredesigns.com/
I work with BrightBuilt (New England originally, now shipping in the mid-Atlantic as well): http://brightbuilthome.com/
Up here in Maine we also have Ecocor, which is a panel product: https://www.ecocor.us/
I think those are a couple of good prefab examples, although none of them hang their designs on the shipping container form factor (and I specifically picked three 'prefab' companies with very different delivery methods). Most prefab companies I have experience with have gone that way, primarily because the width constraints of a container aren't great once you get above one or two modules.
I think the branding (or rebranding) of small homes built on tow-able platforms as 'tiny homes' was a genius stroke of marketing. If you can do that with the Boxouse that's some secret sauce, but in the absence of a strong brand I think the Boxouse units will end up being called 'trailers' as opposed to 'prefab'.
For $29k you can get something that you can drive and is generally furnished better (in a lot of municipalities these tiny houses need to be on wheels to skirt code violations anyway).
I think a bit of sprucing up (with wood and a sound paint-job) would go a long way to remove that whiff of trailer park that I get from your landing page.
Once they are vehicles, it's much easier for them to be impounded for violating parking and other vehicle-related regulations, which the proposed uses seem as likely to break as building regulations.
right now, that process is completely opaque and mysterious, and people who have done it don't seem to want to share.
Even putting one of these on your own lot as an accessory structure is going to be very difficult in much of the country.
These rules are all legally codified class discrimination, and is very much largely about middle class single family homeowners keeping out what they call "undesirables".
In their worldview, "undesirables" can include anything from a mixed use building with commercial on first floor and an apartment on top, to turning a single family home into a duplex, but there is nothing more detested by these folks than mobile home parks.
It's an American caste system and it leads to unnecessary high housing prices. Very broadly, America doesn't want to invest in fixing social problems and there is a big focus on just moving the problem to other areas. The counter-productive part of this is that high housing costs drain resources from families and that induced poverty state leads to the social problems that are trying to be hidden in the first place.
Zoning is in need of serious reform, it is possible to go up against it and it is possible to win. I have, but it wasn't easy, and you really need public opinion on your side.
Market positioning can make the difference, and there is opportunity for things to change due to the bad economic position many towns find themselves in. Many places simply can't afford their snobbery anymore.
The rebranding happening with the tiny home movement has a chance at breaking through this and I hope that it does.
I would love to develop a piece of land with a group of affordable small houses but it's a total non starter in my area.
... The new space 'will be organized, beautiful, and largely inside, hidden from the prying eyes of nosey neighbors and nettlesome bureaucrats.'"
(http://sfpublicpress.org/news/2015-03/shipping-container-hom...)
Putting a bunch of containers into a warehouse somewhere sounds like a good way to repeat http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/oakland-warehouse-fire-v...
You know, Warren Buffet already has that business model and moats don't get a lot wider than Berkshire Hathaway. He also has his own predatory bank, insurance companies, real estate brokerage franchise, railroad, and container manufacturing.
Good luck.
2. Your presentation needs work.
- Barebones: needs a photo that's less dark, also more than one photo (including inside and outside) - Standard: decent photos, looks bright & clean - Boxouse Deluxe: despite having some nice details this looks like a junky piece of crap. The photo quality is the worst of the three, and the house in the photo is messy and unappealing. The side with the mattress looks sloppy (is that a deflated air mattress? A sleeping bag over a sagging mattress? Whatever it is I don't want to even sit on it, much less sleep on it) and the Ikea-esque drawers with the awkward space between looks unfinished or dysfunctional. The other side by the metal tub has a trashcan and two gadgets plugged in... don't know what they are but that whole side just looks like random junk in the corner of a garage.
The boxouse in the "Visit Boxouse" page is bright, has some design and is appealing: this is what a deluxe one should look like, not the sloppy thing you have there now.
3. If your business model is to deploy them to people's houses for free and split rent revenue, why is your website geared around individual sales?
An amazing channel. My first thought about Boxhouse was, if I've ever seen you on there! You should totally make an appearance.
If you haven't read the graphic novel about Honest Tea, I recommend it. One thing made an impression on me: you can't sell sustainable organic tea if it tastes bad.
This was born, as you say, out of "frustration with paying high rent for crappy apartments." It seems your 1st attempt at solving this frustration is to charge a high price for crappy containers.
People have become strongly accustomed to excellent design, and so what used to be passable is now off-putting.
The core problem is that there is nothing about what you're doing that provides credible justification that your approach is a real advance. The trial program ain't it, neither is the rent-sharing. You need something more surpising. What would be compelling enough to tempt a claustrophobic person like me to buy a Boxouse? Nothing I've seen yet.
What about building a little hotel out of stacked Boxouses? I'd be more apt to try it if it came with all the amenities of a normal hotel, and gave the perception that lots of people stay there. (Yeah, I know, I'm a follower, whatever.)
You obviously have something going for you if YC took you, but whatever appealed to YC does not come through on the website. I hope things turn up for you guys (sincerely).
1. Legality - Most tiny homes aren't legal to put on a slab or connect to utilities in jurisdictions around the US. This is getting better over time with people lobbying to allow smaller homes as "accessory dwelling units".
2. People don't want to feel like they're downgrading - looking at your pictures, Boxouse looks pretty low quality, similar to a hostel or dorm room. While that may appeal to some, most consumers wouldn't choose to live or stay in a home like that. Instead, I think tiny home builders need to concentrate on making more beautiful and functional spaces.
I'd love to chat more with Boxouse (or anyone) about tiny homes and/or connect you with my friend's company. You can find my email in my profile.
That said, help me understand who your GTM target is.
1 - Is it basically SV, young tech guys who want a cheaper and a unique place to live? This is what I'm taking away reading your post. 2 - Is it migratory/seasonal workers who work on a farms during harvest season? 3 - Is it people who want to live off-grid, and plan on buying a lot and just want to drop a house there for cheap?
Some of my initial thoughts:
A - As someone commented, the images don't really connect to any of the segments above. I can see the photographer is going for a certain magazine look. But it doesn't do a real good job of telling a story about these units and your target market.
B - Again as others have commented on regulatory issues both for fire safety and also city regulations. That last part might cause issues with your original vision of lower rent alternatives.
C - Financial model. It seems to me if you are going the rent-share service route and you'll need to put down $40-50K for each unit, you will need a lot of capital as you scale. I'm guessing it will take 3-5 years to recover the cost of each unit (rent-dependent). Which creates a lot of challenges, unless you setup some kind of a partnership scheme. Either individual partners, who will put the money down to help renters finance this as part of revenue share scheme. Or large banking institution who will help underwrite each units.
D - Pricing. As others have pointed out, the pricing once you get to $50k is close to a decent used RV house. And the interiors don't look that great. I'm curious what the cost will be once you put some type of economics of scales into this. Given all the dimensions are set. Can't you just have a shop in China produce all these parts? Is there an opportunity to partner with Lowes or some large retailer who buys in bulk?
Good luck! I'm very impressed you guys have taken it this far and hope it'll succeed.
On a more general note, this is not really a positive solution to the housing crisis which would be repealing nimby laws and the fed stopping pumping up asset prices. But best of luck.
What kind of foundation do you recommend?
Does "deploy containers to yards for free" mean shipping is free? To any state? What rent revenue are you talking about? I can't just put one of these in my backyard and rent it out because of zoning and neighbourhood bylaws.
Why is square footage not mentioned anywhere? Usually a primary concern for any housing consideration.
If there's insulation included in the bare bones kit why is it not shown in the photo? Any why is it so dark? Are you trying to scare people away from that option?
You should have a photo of one of these set up in a nicely landscaped yard with a great entrance path and a beautiful exterior.
Also, how do you plan to get away from the image of metal box houses being tied to shanty-towns and favelas?
Isn't near every apt just a box, with slight changes around the frame? The question is how you carve up space within the box
Certainly, but the thing with expensive cities is that the hard part of that is finding the space and meeting the legal requirements, not getting the box.
That's also the problem in suburbs (though the space problem might be a little easier, legal requirements are at least as much of an issue.)
In the west we don't have favelas so while I think it would be a down-point, I don't think there would be such a strong negative connotation.
Can you seriously just drop these off in people's backyards and legally rent them out?
Also at the local level are things like occupational taxes and building permits. Unlike room and whole house rental, a container provides direct visible evidence of the activity from the air, over a neighbor's fence, or sometimes from the street.
Seems to me that the barrier to people turning their yards into what amounts to trailer parks or micro-apartment compelexes has always been zoning regulations, hability regulations, and building codes, not getting the housing units built or delivered.
Walls in houses, assuming stud framed, are insulated to R20 but effective R value is less due to thermal bridging, air infiltration.
Also there has got to be a B2B market for these. I know in the Alberta Oil Sands there are lots of camps for employees. Maybe you can provide a better product.
If you can get a new container for just $2550, why is a bare bones $9K?
Seems one could rack out their own very easily. Just wondering.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/STORAGE-CONTAINERS-NEW-20-CARGO-SHIP...
It's kind of cool to think that you could live anywhere in the world that has an open port, but how the heck do you get it off a boat in Chile or Ireland the same that's cheap and freeing?
The fee to deliver your container to it's final destination can be from a couple of hundred dollars and up depending on how far the truck driver has to go from the logistics company.
Logistically you can ship a 40 ft container (max weight) from China to Toronto Canada (delivered to premises) for $2000-2800.
You do not need to have a crane operators license or class.
- USB Wall outlets
- A panel system around the house to keep cords organized
- More pics
- Info on how much weight can the bed / tables hold
As for questions, how much does would that Solar power (1kw) on the Boxhouse Deluxe power? Could it handle a Macbook Pro playing video games, a 4k tv screen, a heater running 16 hours a day?
Don't let the negativity in this thread get you down. You will work out all the problems listed in this thread, and zoning change is on the horizon all across the country.
There is a real need for housing like this. Pre-fab housing is a proven model, my father developed modular home projects starting in the '80s and swears by them.
If you ever have been on a stick built job site and have gotten to know the workers well socially, you can see the advantage of indoor, factory precise, standardized construction that is supervised.
There is a lot of substance abuse, laziness and the contractor relationship and payment structure very often goes south in home construction.
I think the best decision you could make today is to ditch the shipping container as the starting point.
Just build them out of wood. It's the cheapest material there is besides some composites perhaps. You already are building a wood framed wall inside the metal container. They could still be made the same size, and shipped the same way.
Humans need space.
As an example, I'll bet this house has better air quality than mine: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/15/a4/8c/15a48c913...
And yes the small cabin in the woods with good air circulation might have better air quality than a flat in the city.
But wasn't your argument just a minute ago that these tiny homes are for "walkable" cities?
A 20 foot shipping container has something like 39,000,000 to fill, from a quick Googling of their volume.
> But wasn't your argument just a minute ago that these tiny homes are for "walkable" cities?
Sure, if you can't parse the comma and the fact that the walkable cities portion of that response was to your "Humans need space" claim, not the "a person in a hotel room-sized house will suffocate from CO2 build-up" claim.
I wouldn't mind this density if it were at least being used to some advantage: for example mixing up the zoning to make a neighborhood walkable, perhaps a local library, or local grocery store or local cafe. But no. Everything is on top of each other for miles on end, with the same cookie cutter tiny townhouse next to each other with no walkability at all.
And then you have these section 8 areas that subsidize undesirable housing (raising crime) and just raise the cost of housing for everyone else.