Elizabeth Tilley, Property Journalist
A luxury beachfront home has been delivered by truck to one of Queensland’s most expensive stretches of real estate and installed in just one day, showcasing a construction method that could slash building costs by up to 30 per cent.
The three-bedroom, two-bathroom home at Palm Beach was built largely off-site before being transported in sections to its Jefferson Lane location, where cranes lifted the modules into position alongside multimillion-dollar mansions.
Arkular installing a modular home on the beachfront in Palm Beach. Image: Instagram.
A close-up of the modular home after being trucked in and installed by crane. Image: Instagram.
Designed by modular housing company Arkular, the 206 sqm residence is a far cry from the basic prefabricated homes traditionally associated with factory construction.
Arkular design architect Bill McCorkell said the owner initially explored a traditional build but found the cost was well beyond his budget.
Instead, he opted for a customised architectural design that offered greater certainty over costs and construction timeframes.
Mr McCorkell said the project took 10 to 12 months from planning to installation, compared with an estimated 18 months to two years for a conventional build. “We shut the street down for a day,” he said.
“But that’s better than having ongoing building works for 1.5 to two years.”
The modular house by Arkular that client ordered for a prime beachfront site on the Gold Coast. Image: Instagram.
The street was shut down for a day to allow the home to be trucked in, but that’s compared to months of building works. Image: Instagram.
While the modules were installed in a single day, service connections, landscaping and other finishing works will be completed over the coming weeks.
Mr McCorkell said Arkular homes typically cost about $4000 per square metre, rising to around $5500 per square metre for more expensive designs.
The Palm Beach home cost slightly more than the company’s standard offering because of its exposure to salt and surf.
By comparison, he said traditionally built luxury homes could start at around $8000 per square metre, with modular construction potentially delivering savings of 20 to 30 per cent at the higher end of the market.
This modular home at 42 Whispering Gum Ave, Eumundi, is for sale for offers over $2.44m.
Arkular has around 15 projects completed or in planning in Queensland, with manufacturing undertaken on the Sunshine Coast.
Mr McCorkell said many clients approached the company after discovering the cost of a bespoke architectural home was substantially higher than expected.
But the growing appeal of prefabricated homes extends well beyond luxury homes.
Sunshine Coast hinterland couple Sibel and Yalcin Karaman invested about $100,000 in a glass-walled flat-pack pod to help pay the mortgage on their property.
The 6m by 2.4m pod, supplied by Queensland company Elsewhere Pods, arrived as a prefabricated kit that the couple assembled themselves.
Unlike Arkular’s largely completed modules, the pods are delivered flat-packed and can be assembled in days.
Sibel and Yalcin Karaman in the ‘Elsewhere Pod’ they now generate about $500 a night in income from. Image supplied.
The bedroom inside the Elsewhere Pod on Sibel and Yalcin Karaman’s property. Image supplied.
Elsewhere Pods founder Matt Decarne said demand was being driven by the speed and simplicity of installation, as well as the flexibility to use the structures for accommodation or rental income.
“Housing innovation must be part of the answer to Australia’s broader affordability squeeze,” Mr Decarne said.
“We built Elsewhere Pods to be more than just a house. It’s about security, stability and choice, whether you’re recovering from disaster, downsizing, investing in a rental, or simply want a beautiful place to call home.”
The projects come as new research reveals Australia’s construction industry is struggling with declining productivity, soaring costs and lengthy building times.
An Elsewhere Pod on a rural property. Image supplied.
A report by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA), produced with Urbis, found the number of dwellings built per construction worker had fallen 40 per cent since the 1970s.
Construction times have increased 40 per cent since the pandemic, while building costs have surged 88 per cent since 2014-15.
Yet modular construction accounts for fewer than 5 per cent of new Australian homes.
CEDA head of research Danika Adams said Australia needed to fundamentally change the way it built homes to meet its housing targets.
“Traditional construction is not keeping up. These methods already exist, they work, and the challenge now is scaling,” Ms Adams said.
This property at 160 Glenmore Dr, Bonogin, comes with a modular home that could be used for guests or to rent out.
The report found modern construction methods, including modular building, prefabrication and robotics, could reduce building times by 20 to 50 per cent and cut costs by around 20 per cent when implemented at scale.
Property analyst Michael Matusik said Australia was still largely building homes the same way it did half a century ago — on-site, exposed to weather and heavily reliant on manual labour.
But factory-built construction offered faster building times, more predictable costs and less reliance on scarce trades.
This modular property at Lot 5, Eatonvale Meadows, Tinana, is on the market.
Apartments.com.au chief executive Mike Bird said modular construction could also help unlock approved developments stalled by soaring construction costs.
“If you can build the modules in a factory while the foundations and site works are happening at the same time, you take months out of a program,” he said.
“That’s months less interest, months less exposure to weather and trade shortages, and buyers getting the keys sooner.”
CEDA warned that fragmented regulations, inconsistent standards and financing constraints remained barriers to widespread adoption.
Ms Adams said modular construction was not a silver bullet but offered a practical way to deliver more homes at a lower cost.
This modular home at 26 Zillmann Rd, Tansey, is on the market.
“This is not a silver bullet, but with coordinated policy and united support from industry and government it is a tangible, scalable and evidence based way to build more homes, faster and at lower cost,” she said.
But with Australia’s housing shortage worsening, the report concluded modern construction methods offered a practical way to deliver more homes, faster and at lower cost.
The Federal Government has estimated modular apartment construction could be up to 20 per cent cheaper and 50 per cent faster than conventional methods, while committing $39.3 million to trial prefabricated housing construction.
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