Have I got a deal for you. It’s called “House in a Box” and it is exactly what you hope it’s not–a house in a box. They can be shipped right to your location for “easy” assembly and installation. Talk about a great investment. Where else can you buy a 1,150 square foot home for just $36,000 via mail order? If you are the ultimate do-it-yourselfer, a kit house may be just the thing.
One hundred years ago, Sears, Roebuck & Co. began selling the first mail-order, pre-fab homes. From 1908 to 1940 Sears sold some 75,000 mail-order homes. With 447 different styles, these homes ranged from the multi-story Ivanhoe series to the more sedate Goldenrod, a 3-room no bath affair. Well, the Sears mail-order home is enjoying something of a renaissance.
Here are a few modern day options if a House in a Box appeals to you:
Rocio Romero
Rocio Romero is the owner and principal of Rocio Romero, LLC. Rocio received her Masters of Architecture from Southern California Institute of Architecture and her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Environmental Design with a major in Architecture from UC Berkeley. At Rocio Romero, LLC, they design, manufacture, build, ship, and sell kit homes. Their flagship home is the LV series, which Romero has sold more than 150 since launching the product in 2003.
Here is what one of her model homes looks like:
Flatpak
Flatpak offers an interesting alternative, even in the mail-order home business. Homes are designed from the ground up much like my son builds homes with his legos. They don’t have standard prices, but estimate that their homes cost between $200 and $300 per square foot. I guess they don’t sell an economy model. Flatpak also has the strangest website I’ve seen in some time. But the cool part is that they’ve put pictures of their homes on Flickr.
Here’s one of the pictures you’ll find on Flickr (and the snowplow is not included in the purchase price):
Nexthouse
Empyrean International has designed and built kit homes for years. The “Nexthouse” is the newest model for a company who’s service mark is “sustainable home building systems.” They describe Nexthouse as having been
designed around a central clear-spanned living, kitchen and dining volume that opens onto a large outdoor living space through the use of a 24-foot accordion door, which is suspended from a gallery space above that also houses an automated insect screen. When lowered, this screen allows the entire main volume of the house to function as a screened room, providing a new dimension to living and encouraging passive whole-house ventilation. Built almost exclusively with wood, NextHouse brings warmth to modern design and provides a clear relationship of interior to exterior.
In other words, if you’d like to live in a screened-in porch, Nexthouse is for you. In all seriousness, the home actually looks rather nice and boasts 5,000 square feet:
Cost
As a final note, we should add that these homes aren’t all inexpensive. While Rocio Romero has a model starting at $36,000, that doesn’t include the land, permits, construction and various interior items. And one couple who recently bought the Nexthouse spent in total $800,000 for the 3,000 square foot version of the home.
I think Mike and I will wait for the first Nexthouse foreclosure before considering an investment.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I would love to have a self build house and this type of house really appeals to me. I think the advantages of having a very quick build are really good especially in the UK as the quicker a house is watertight the bestter with our climate!
I’d probably lump this in with do-it-yourself Electric Vehicle conversions or make-your-own biofuel: sounds interesting..for someone else.
$800K for $3K SF? That’s $267/SF for a new build house? Yikes I could hire the “This Old House” guys for that much $$.
Good article.
I have looked at a number of these high end kits. I still can’t figure out why the price per square foot is so high. The whole theory is that working in a controlled production environment, the costs should be cheaper. Every kit I have looked at is more expensive than me just stick building it local. Maybe some day….
Hey Rob,
Since you wrote an article about the “House in a Box” concept I thought you should know that there is actually a company called “House in a Box.”
http://www.houseinabox.com/
Sulema amen,
Iku