Can energy efficient, resilient, workforce housing be built affordably?
My partners and I have purchased a 14 acre parcel in Northern KY. We have a plan awaiting final approval to build a community of 69 units. Thirty duplexes and 9 single family homes. Ideally units will be under 1300 SF and have a front porch and garage. They will be be net-zero ready or fully PV equipped net-zero. Land and infrastructure will put the lot costs at around $50,000 prior to construction. We have an option, if it makes financial sense, to build a wall assembly factory offsite. We don’t have a plan yet for the construction methods for offsite wall assembly.
We have been getting quotes from $200 to $400 per SF for on site construction. This is too expensive for this area, We cannot sell a modest 2 or 3 bedroom, 2 bath house on a small lot for $300,000. This is not just our problem, If energy efficient homes are going to succeed for most home buyers we need to find a way to build them cost effectively. Does anyone have any ideas of who is working to solve this problem that we could work with.
We hope this project will succeed and serve as a model for future developments that solve housing problems for those who need them.
GBA Detail Library
A collection of one thousand construction details organized by climate and house part
Replies
You've come to the right place.
"This is not just our problem, If energy efficient homes are going to succeed for most home buyers we need to find a way to build them cost effectively."
I don't read anything in your description that shows that energy-efficiency is what's driving the cost up. Rather, my take is that it's really hard to make the economics work with small-footprint custom homes. There's a reason that almost every custom-built house you see is gargantuan.
This thread has a lot of thoughtful advice:
https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/question/design-elements-for-cost-effective-energy-efficient-and-simple-construction
It's true that any custom home is expensive even when poorly built. However we do still find in this area large scale developers building code minimum townhouses that sell for under $200 /SF.
No garage... but adding the land and infrastructure they must be building for under $150/ SF.
mlanin,
Habitat for Humanity have probably spent more time thinking about and refining how to do this than anyone else. They have done a lot of energy efficient and resilient projects economically -and have a lot of useful guides. That's where I would start.
Thanks for the suggestion! We are in communication with H4H. They don't work in the area of our project but are interested in continuing a discussion about working together. Its not obvious that they will have the resources we need in our needed time frame. But we have had good meetings and look forward to developing a relationship with them.
mlanin,
Good luck with your venture. I hope you come back and tell us how things turn out, and what you learned along the way.
Something has to give. Modest houses around here (BC. Canada) sell for $600K to $700K. That's unsustainable and helps no one.
In a southern state, “net zero ready” really only means electric appliances. A southern house has AC, so you’re only truly changing the stove and water heater at most. That should add zero or negative cost vs the alternative. Efficiency isn’t your issue here IMO.
I'm in nky (Covington) and have learned a lot on this site. Professionally, I work on sustainable transportation.
Looking at your site plan, I am wondering if you can reduce your road width to 20' from 25'. 12.5' lanes are wider than freeway lanes. How about some cool car ports instead of garages? Maybe you could squeeze in a few more units?
I'm guessing you are going all electric and no gas. We installed Fujitsu cold climate duct heat pumps and they work great. Installing midea at our church this summer. Skip the resistance strips and save on that cost. I would forget solar and just focus on a decent air tight, well insulated structure.
But hard to compete with the production builders when they know all the tricks to build cheaply.
I second mgensler's suggestions.
Consider rectangular, standardized plans, with elements such as porches customized to give some variety. Consider using SIPS and team up with a company like Eco-Panels to optimize your designs to their standard components. At this volume they may be able to offer a good discount on their normal rates. SIPS are not cheap. But they considerably reduce construction time and site labor. So there can be good cost savings if properly managed. Detailing is very important as far as durability. Ec0-Panels shows good details on their website. Use the panels for both walls and roofs. Put the houses on concrete slabs on grade with no basements, if soil conditions allow.
All good ideas (rectangular/simple roof/porches & decks for additional outdoor space) & using SIPS construction (like Eco-Panels or Raycore) which can be used effectively for DIY so should be faster to construct, but I would also consider a "slabless" slab that uses plywood instead of concrete ...
I've never had the chance to do a "slabless" slab. But I hope to at some point. It seems like a great option.
The price per sq ft of SIPs would seem to disqualify them from consideration with the budget the OP has.
I wouldn't rule them out without a quote from a SIPS manufacturer. It would need to be for a design that uses standardized panels, and it would need to take into account the full construction process, not just the framing stage. How would it affect overall schedule? Would it save time and therefore interest payments? The cost comparison would also need to include the insulation, and any other system affected. It would definitely be necessary to have an electrician involved who already has SIPS experience because there is a learning curve involved there.
JGSG,
The building budget being discussed is in the range of $150 psf. You simply can't do a SIPS house for that. There is a reason you only see them used on medium to high end houses.
Of course, I'm not sure what you can build with that budget. In my market just two bathrooms and a kitchen could put you over $200K.
Deleted
Why stop at modular/factory built walls? Why not go up to modular homes? The home I grew up in was kit home from Sears site poured foundation and each half was put on and fastened together. Get 3/4 of these modular models and then you might be able to control some of the costs that way. I hope.... Just a quick idea. Hope your project goes well.
Developing real estate is risky, time-consuming work. Even people who are experienced sometimes lose their shirts, bankruptcies are not uncommon. The biggest mistake you can make is to assume it's all just going to work itself out, you really have to sweat the details.
Looking at Zillow, it seems like houses in that area sell in the low to mid 200's. Let's say you can get on the high end of the range for good-looking new construction, so 250K for the detached houses. If the land cost is 50K that's at most 200K for the house itself, less the cost of selling it and whatever you need to make. I hate per-square-foot cost estimates because it glosses over too many complexities, but they are useful for expressing what neighborhood you're shopping in. At 1300 SF that's absolutely no more than $150/sf and probably quite a bit less.
It's pretty straightforward to sit down with a sharp pencil and list out everything that goes into a house and come up with a budget. What's trickier is squeezing it to fit where it needs to go. I suspect to get to that price point you're going to have to make them very plain.
Another approach would be to look at modular.
You have to prepare yourself for the possibility that the reason you were able to acquire the property is that more experienced developers looked at the asking price and the market potential and saw no potential for profit.
I don't think you can talk about the "cost of housing" without discussing the cost of land ...
A housing land trust, also known as a community land trust (CLT), is a system where a non-profit organization owns the land, while individuals or other entities own or lease the buildings on it. CLTs are intended to create affordable housing solutions for working families. Here's how they work:
A non-profit acquires land through donation or purchase, and builds homes on it.
Qualified buyers purchase the homes, but only pay for the building, not the land.
Buyers lease the land from the CLT for a long term, often 99 years, and agree to sell the home at a restricted price.
When the homeowner sells, the CLT has the option to repurchase the building, control the resale price, and limit who can buy it in the future.
Homeowners typically pay a monthly ground lease fee to cover property ownership costs and administrative expenses.