Chinese-made homes assembled in Melbourne, a first for the city – realestate.com.au

In the city’s north, Melbourne homes are being built almost entirely in China. This would be a first for the city.

In Craigieburn, a series of five townhouses are being assembled from prefabricated modules made in an environmentally controlled factory in Wuxi, west of Shanghai.

The construction works are being completed by Melbourne developer Kincaid, along with national housing giant Stockland and China-based but Melbourne-based prefabricated housing materials company Signex.

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Kincaid CEO Kris Burt said that while they initially shipped parts for five homes, the factory behind them offered to fulfill hundreds of orders.

“We really want to get as much of it done in China as possible, this will be 75-80 percent… we will try to get it to 85 percent,” Mr Burt said.

Because the homes could be built about 10 months faster than normal, he said tens of thousands of dollars could be saved on shorter construction times – and that in a competitive market, developers using the factory-led approach would pass most of that on to buyers.

Developer Kincaid’s townhouse development in Melbourne has just finished lifting its pieces by crane.

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The four-bedroom, three-bathroom townhouses each feature two living areas and a double garage (also prefabricated in China), to an eight-star energy efficiency standard under the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme and sold for $699,000-$749,000.

Mr Burt noted that he believed it was a first for Melbourne, especially at this level and for a townhouse project that could easily be scaled up to many more homes. Mr Burt said the approach had quickly won over buyers, with investors buying all five in three weeks – despite them not yet being built.

The homes are currently awaiting the installation of their kitchens and are expected to be occupied by Christmas, despite the floor only being poured in early November.

An on-site crane installed everything from floors to fully formed external and internal walls, bathroom pods effectively connected into place, complete with a shower, toilet and waterproofing already completed, and even most internal roof spaces.

Modules being moved from shipping to the construction site.

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The only locally made aspects are the kitchens and the exterior of the Colorbond roof.

Kincaid Chief Operating Officer Joel Martin said it was “like a jigsaw puzzle”, with prefabricated walls already having external rendering, studs, insulation, plastering and electrical wiring.

The modules are checked on site to Australian standards before being put on a boat, and again when they arrive on site.

Mr Martin added that they had informed potential buyers that the houses would be manufactured as modules offshore, and that they were “concerned about how the market would perceive that”.

“But we sold it out in three weeks, and that shows the market is OK with it being made in China,” he said.

He said the biggest difference between the houses and a traditional building, in terms of actual construction, was that they were flat packed.

Both he and Mr Burt said the modular homes, which currently have an exhibition space run by Signex in Tarneit, felt sturdier than traditionally built homes and this was attractive to buyers. Signex was founded by Melbourne-based Jeff Xu, who also runs developer Golden Age.

One of the prefabricated segments is lifted into place.

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Mr Burt said if the country is to meet the National Housing Agreement target of building 1.2 million homes by 2029, these types of modular buildings should become more common.

While he would like to work with Australian manufacturing in this area, he didn’t know “how far away we are from that”.

Linda Allison, executive director of the Urban Development Institute of Victoria, said while she had heard of modules for houses being “kind of” shipped from China, she had not encountered that on the scale of the Kincaid project.

“There are discussions about it, but there is a tension between that and trying to keep an industry afloat in Australia,” Ms Allison said.

Workers prepare the local assembly of the factory-made components.

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In both cases, she said the sector was “new” and things were likely to change as there were bigger regulatory changes and progress in this area.

“But I think we’ll see more of this,” Ms. Allison said.

“Developers are constantly trying to innovate and reduce costs.

“Right now, most of the industry doesn’t see the savings as significant at this point, regardless of whether they reach the number it’s just a perception.”

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