BOXABL
What?
BOXABL is a startup building Accessory Dwelling Units or ADUs. ADUs allow adding an additional housing unit on a plot of land. BOXABL focuses on making housing affordable, you can get one for $50.000. They made a lot of interesting choices in putting together the dwelling. It arrives at your location folded down to save on transport costs and unfolds in about an hour. The fact that they ship it in one piece also means the structure needs to be robust enough to survive the transport. The units are built out of different modules and at the moment they don’t offer customization so every unit is identical. All of which means the building of the units could be fully automated in the factory, with the goal of industrialize house-building.
Photo by Boxabl
Why
All through Europe and North America affordable housing is becoming a hot topic. One way of dealing with the rising prices of real estate is defined by the tiny house movement. Simply put they counter the raising prices by making housing smaller.
BOXABL certainly fits into this movement but tries to couple it with an automated manufacturing approach to further lower prices.
Why not?
The reason why real estate is expensive is not just because of the construction costs, but because of the land costs. You still need a place to install your BOXABL dwelling and installing additional ADUs is probably not the most efficient way to use the available land compared to the redevelopment of the available plot.
Who?
BOXABL was founded in 2017 by Paolo Tiramani the CEO and founder of Las Vegas-based 500 Group an intellectual property and product development firm. 500 Group is also the largest investor in BOXABL boasting a $4 million investment.
Who else?
The Tiny House movement is booming and with it, a lot of companies are trying to fill in that need. Notable players in this space are New Frontier Design and Tiny Heirloom, but the market is definitly in a growth phase and every area seems to have its own flavor of artisanal producer of Tiny Houses.
On the other side of its market thesis, BOXABL meets other startups that are trying to industrialize housing like Plant Prefab, who recently raised $100 million from Amazon, and Sekisui Heim.
Further reading?
Marker on the Amazon investment in prefab
Things happening…
Last week world standards day took place a gentle reminder that much of progress is due to people not creating the same thing over and over again… Propertyweek has an article talking about the importance of adopting technology in the real estate sector…