If there’s one thing we constantly hear about it’s the growth of the world’s population. Since 1950 the number of people on the planet has grown by one to two per cent each year, rising from 2.5 billion to more than 7.7 billion. This is expected to continually grow until the year 2100, when the earth’s population should stand at an estimated 10.9 billion.
With this comes a huge number of questions, and one of the biggest for many countries across the world, especially ones with large populations such as Germany, the UK and the USA, is; where will they all live?
With new homes already a hot topic, there is one solution that could be the answer moving forward for several different reasons – prefab homes.
What is a prefab home?
If you already have a preconceived notion of what a prefab home is, forget about it. While you may think they’re small, cheap and cheerful boxes, this isn’t the case anymore.
While still more affordable and quicker to build than other houses, these now offer flexibility, quality control and more accuracy than before. They’re even becoming very popular in Germany itself.
Constructed using a combination of modern-day techniques such as 3D printing as well as anchoring technology from the likes of RS Components. A prefabricated home is still built off-site and transported to be assembled at its final location but are now made to be permanent rather than temporary.
The prefab home market
As mentioned above, Germany is beginning to embrace the move into the prefab home market, and, this looks to be a trend that’s now beginning to move across the rest of central and northern Europe.
In recent research, Germany was found to be the strongest market overall when compared to the UK, Poland, Switzerland, Austria and Scandinavia, with a total of 25,000 prefab homes constructed in 2017 alone. Meanwhile, the UK has the strongest market growth rate, with around 12,000 units being built during 2017. A great solution to an ever-constant housing debate in the UK.
Expected to grow by 3.2% between 2017-22, Germany is should see just shy of 30,000 units built annually by the end of 2022, while the UK market is expected to grow by 3.2% to just under 15,000 annual units.
In total, the market will produce around 70,000 units by the end of 2022 to account for 6.4% of the market. While low compared to traditional housing, the market looks to remain steady, estimated to be worth billions (it grew from €10.8 billion to €14.2 billion between 2014-17 alone).
Reasons for growth
While housing has always been a hot topic, there are countless reasons attributed to the current and expected growth of the prefab housing market.
The key trends for the growth of the prefabricated housing market were:
- GDP development
- Financing conditions and land costs
- Population growth
- Energy efficiency regulations and government subsidies
- Planning security
- Construction period
- Technology acceptance
- One-stop-shop solution
- Price of prefabricated house
And, with the continued growth of the population and the advancements in technology, who knows what these houses could look like in 20 years. All we know is, this is a market that everyone should be keeping an eye on.
