Today we are looking at steel frame construction (traditionally used for warehouses in SA) or the modular steel frame house business to be more specific. I have spoken many times before for the need to build affordable houses for ordinary people. I have spoken about why houses are so expensive to build in SA and the main way to work around that is to cut out a lot of the labour required. But for some reason modular, pre-engineered houses are still expensive in SA. It does not appear to me that we are able to manufacture “modules” in a warehouse and transport it to site to assemble in an affordable manner. Leaving people with two choices either expensively engineered homes built by engineers or hiring Julius Malema’s friends from across the border for their usual substandard work.
Housing businesses I have looked at before
Can Houses Be Cheaply Mass Produced in SA?
Start a Modular / Prefab House Business
Start a Tiny / Small House Business
Start a Tiny House Rental Business
Start a Stumbelbloc / Interlocking Block Building Business
Now this is a subset of the cold formed steel business (rolling, pressing, stamping, bending at near room temperature). However I am not going that far back in the value chain. We will be focusing on pre-engineered framing systems for light steel frame houses, the plans (design services) thereof, plot and plan and selling the complete houses.
Business Models
We will be looking at the following business models:
Designing plans for steel frame houses
Manufacturing: Engineering the steel houses from the frames
Plot and plan: Sell plots with plan (plus if you got approval already)
Selling complete houses
Build and rent out steel frame houses
