New Zealand’s premium choice for Tiny Homes. Building luxury tiny houses without the expensive price tag. Creating happy homes since 2016
If you’re looking for prefab homes for sale in NZ to fit your budget and expectations, you’ve come to the right website! Absolute Tiny Houses NZ are expert prefabricated house builders. With state-of-the-art construction materials and years of experience, we build beautiful, luxury prefab homes in NZ that are optimized for NZ conditions and perfectly suited to the NZ way of life.
Modern kitchens, ample bathroom space, LED downlights, endlessly customizable floorplans, and no hidden extras make us the smart choice when buying prefabricated homes. Get in touch with us today to find out how you can get started.
Prefab Homes, also known as “prefabricated homes” or just “prefabs”, are homes constructed offsite then transported and installed onsite. This is the biggest difference between prefabricated homes and traditional homes – the construction occurs entirely offsite.
The term “prefab” can be used to describe bigger structures that are built in separate components and then put together on-site, such as tilt-up concrete buildings and the like. But when talking about the Tiny Homes industry, prefabricated homes are usually always built in a factory and then transported to their destination.
If you’ve been looking for prefab homes for sale in NZ, you will have discovered that people choose prefabricated homes for many reasons. They are generally a lot cheaper than traditional homes, involve less hassle than a construction project, are easier to upkeep and maintain, and have a greatly reduced carbon footprint across their life cycle. They are becoming more popular, both as a holiday home and a primary place of residence.
Prefab houses in NZ have a longer history than you might think. Starting in the 1800s, many original settler buildings were prefabricated to some extent. Take, for example, the Governor’s house in Auckland. It was prefabricated in England, all 16 rooms, and shipped to NZ. In the 1920s, the New Zealand Railways Department started manufacturing prefabricated housing. Over six years, they manufactured approximately 1600 prefabricated houses, which were transported by train. It took two workmen two weeks to assemble each house.
For many years, prefabricated homes fell out of fashion. Fast forwarding to the early 2000s, we saw prefabricated homes making a strong comeback largely due to the growing tiny house movement and the desire to live more simply with reduced environmental impact.
In the early days of the Tiny Homes Movement, the houses were prefabbed with some on-site construction required. Now, in many cases, the entire tiny home is made in the workshop and transported to you ready to move in.
Unlike the earlier prefab houses that were placed on slabs or foundations, these days you can leave your tiny house on its delivery trailer. In doing so, you do not require a concrete foundation or piles. Nor do you require permanent plumbing or electrical work. If you do choose to place your prefab house on foundations your tiny house will be hoisted onto a flatbed truck, transported to your location, and hoisted by crane onto its foundations. However, it’s entirely possible to leave your house on its trailer. Technically this is an important point that we expand on below.
Your tiny prefab home that is on its trailer is permanently portable. In this configuration, a prefab home is legally considered the same as a caravan (providing it still fits within size restrictions for road travel). If you decide to relocate you can take your home with you providing you have a vehicle with enough pulling power, you can transport your prefab home anywhere you need to go. Bear in mind, that your tiny home is not a caravan that is designed for constant travel.
If you decide to put your tiny prefab home on foundations, it may fall under the building code and local council considerations. You can still set up to go off-grid. If you don’t want the hassle of the building code, cranes, etc, you may just want to think about keeping your home on its trailer. You can still build a deck and the other things you were thinking of.
Here in New Zealand, there can be many advantages to choosing a prefab home over a traditional build. The biggest factor is price – prefab homes in NZ cost a mere fraction of the average New Zealand house price. This price factor makes prefab homes in NZ an appealing way to break into the housing market and finally say goodbye to rentals. You will be surprised by just how affordable owning your own tiny home can be.
Affordability comes from a few factors. Size and speed of construction both significantly contribute to affordability. While traditional house builds can stretch out to nightmarish lengths of time, prefab homes in NZ can usually be all done, dusted, and ready to go within a few months.
Rather than have messy construction work going on at your block for what seems like forever, prefabricated homes are constructed in our workshop and then transported to your property.
But what about after it’s installed? While it’s true that you won’t find any prefab mansions around, the reduced size of a prefabricated home means cheaper utility bills, a smaller carbon footprint, less maintenance costs, and less financial stress. Many people find that simplifying their lives with a smaller prefabricated home has been the antidote to many of their life’s stresses and have never looked back.
Following this, the environmental benefits of prefab homes in NZ are clear. Simply using less water and electricity is just the start. You can install optional extras such as solar off-grid power, a grey water filtration system, a rainwater collection tank, and a waterless composting toilet to reduce your carbon footprint dramatically.
We offer fixed-priced prefabricated tiny homes at two price points.
To see the difference between our Standard and Custom builds go to our Plans and prices page and check out the ‘Look inside’.
If you are thinking about building a prefab home, give Michael a call so that he can better understand your needs and answer any questions you may have. Your call will be a free, no-obligation call.
Refer to the above pricing calculator above. Once you have selected the options available it will give you your price. You will need to select which:
It takes approximately 2.5 months from the build start date.
Yes… absolutely. The average house price in NZ is well over $600K. Higher in major cities and lower elsewhere. Our most expensive build is under $170K
There are many ways to compare the two. At Absolute Tiny Homes we define cabins as simple structures, traditionally built from natural materials established on stumps and in some magical spot. They have the bare essentials and often their rustic charm.
We define Tiny Homes as masterpieces of design that maximize every inch of space. Prefab homes can be on wheels or foundations. Whereas cabins tend to be placed on foundations.
Benefits of Prefab homes are numerous. The key one is the certainty of knowing what you will get from our fixed-price contracts. This provides you with peace of mind. From there the benefits fall into both short and long term. Other than the more affordable build (than traditional) houses), there are real savings with the more affordable services and reduced maintenance. To learn more, follow the link.
https://absolutetinyhouses.co.nz/blog/6-benefits-of-prefab-houses/
Yes you can. When you talk to Michael about your vision and needs you can explore the design, layouts, and customizations.
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