Oamaru construction company Hastie Construction has dipped its toe into building transportable homes.
In partnership with North Canterbury building company Heartland Homes — which has a history of building transportable homes — it has built a 90sqm house which will be on display at an open home on Sunday before it is loaded on the back of a truck and driven to Ranfurly.
Owner Hayden Hastie said it was the first transportable home his company had built and he hoped to partner with Heartland Homes to build more.
Heartland Homes, owned by Vicki and Geoff Foster, is based in Amberley, 25km north of Rangiora, but builds homes all over New Zealand. It also has show homes in Waikato.
Mrs Foster said transportable homes could often be cheaper.
"A lot of it is based around escalating costs of tradespeople and often the inability of them to get to site.
"We’ve been doing it in the North Island for over 15 years and it certainly gives options, which is the key."
She said it was possible they could build more homes in Oamaru and ship them around the South Island in the future.
"Particularly through Wanaka and Central Otago, there’s a bigger demand for houses but sometimes getting tradespeople to site in a timely fashion can be a challenge."
