How Much Do Shipping Container Homes Cost?

Updated On: June 21, 2022

worksheet-full

Table of Contents

In almost every instance, when a person is captivated by incredible examples of container homes, the first question they ask is, “How much do they cost?” The cost of container homes can vary depending on size, quality, materials used, distance from skilled labor, container delivery distance, etc.

For this reason, we have broken this post down into two halves. The first half will use examples to show you what you can get for your money. The second half will cover costs in more detail and explain the various factors that impact the cost.

Examples and Costs

Containers of Hope in San Jose, Costa Rica

containers of hope stairs

Cost: US $40,000 

Size: 900 Square Feet

This home was built a few miles outside of Costa Rica’s capital for a staggering $40,000 and is named Containers of Hope. It has two bedrooms and a sloped roof to allow the hot air to escape on warm summer days. The home was built for the Peralta family who wanted to be debt-free and grow vegetables off their land.

View Containers of Hope in our Container Project Database

Grillagh Water House in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland

grillagh water house night angled

Cost: US $220,000   

Size: 1,440 Square Feet

Time to Build: 10 weeks after the foundation was completed

Patrick Bradley, a professional architect, designed this stylish dwelling on his family’s farm. Despite being on-site almost every day, he still had a full-time job and hired out the vast majority of the construction. Had he done more of the work himself, or just lowered his luxurious tastes a bit (he supposedly spent $25,000 on the bathroom and $53,000 on the kitchen), he could have built the home for far cheaper.

View Grillagh Water House in our Container Project Database

Manifesto House in Curacaví, Chile

Manifesto House

Cost: US $93,000 

Size: 960 Square Feet

Time to Build: 90 Days

The Manifesto House was built with several shipping containers but clad in wood to create a unique texture and protection from the piercing sun. The two architects, Jaime Gaztelu and Mauricio Galeano, claim the home was made with 85% recycled materials. It features three bedrooms and an outdoor terrace to enjoy the sun.

View the Manifesto House in our Container Project Database

Graceville Container House in Brisbane, Australia

graceville container home front angled

Cost: US $490,000 

Size: 6,000 Square Feet

Time to Build: 6 Months

Here is an incredible example of what can be achieved when you combine shipping containers with a fantastic architect. This spacious pad has three floors, four bedrooms, a double garage, art studio, gym, and swimming pool.The house recently sold for over $1,400,000!

View the Graceville Container Home in our Container Project Database

Riverfront Jupiter Container Home in Jupiter, Florida

riverfront jupiter florida container home stairs

Cost: US $100,000

Size: 960 Square Feet

Time to Build: 2 years in total (self-paced with a big delay for a redesign to include the 2nd floor)

A home that is scenic yet simple, this container house leverages it’s location on the shores of a beautiful canoe-friendly river to draw you in. But once in front of and inside the house, you appreciate the efforts that went into the design that is both cozy and open, depending on where you are.

View the Riverfront Jupiter Container Home in our Container Project Database

Impacts on Cost

The project management triangle paradigm governs container home construction, just like with all other project management undertakings. The paradigm shows us that time, cost, and scope (quality) are constantly in conflict with each other. A crucial thing to remember with this paradigm is that we can typically only prioritize two out of the three: time, scope (quality) or cost.

Factors That Effect Shipping Container Homes Cost Triangle

  • We can build the home quickly with high quality, but this will be expensive.
  • We can build a high-quality home for a small amount of money, but this will take a long time.
  • We can build the house quickly and for a small amount of money, but the quality won’t be great.

Regardless of which of the three are most important to you, you definitely need a detailed project plan to get you there.

Below we explain this paradigm and show exactly how this relates to shipping container buildings.

Time

The first big implication for the cost of your shipping container home is time. How fast do you want to be living in your dream home? Most of us would answer “as soon as possible”, but unfortunately this will drive up the cost of your home.

So, if our deadline can’t move, the only two factors that can be changed are time and quality. If your quality is fixed, which is normally the case, the only factor left which can move is the cost. For example, let’s say you have a time frame of four months to fully construct your new home. Four months is fixed and so is the quality, so cost is the factor that has to give. Costs will inevitably go up because both your time and quality are fixed.

In the event that your quality is not fixed, we can maintain the initial cost of the project. For example, because we have a smaller time frame and no more money, we have to reduce the scope or quality of the project. This means that our three story house just turned into a two story house!

It’s not all bad news though. Time can be your best friend. If you decide you aren’t in a rush and are willing to take more time to build, you can get your dream home within budget! We can allocate a huge amount of time, like one year, to build our home. This will allow us to produce a really impressive container home for a fraction of the cost.

Is it starting to make sense now? Hopefully!

Cost

The second factor in the triangle is cost, or the budget. Now practically everyone who has built a container home, or any other home for that matter, starts with a fixed budget in mind. Whether this is $50,000, $200,000 or $1,000,000, it’s usually fixed. Because of this, we can only adjust the scope (quality) or the time it takes to build our house.

For example, you start with a budget of $100,000 and after a month of building your home, you realize that you’d like to make your container home slightly bigger. The only way to do this without massively increasing the cost of the build is to extend your deadlines significantly.

Let’s say, again you start with $100,000. After a few months of building, you are starting to fall behind schedule due to a few unforeseen events. If your deadline to finish the building is fixed, your only option left is to drop the scope (quality). Then you would decide to install a slightly cheaper kitchen, or make your home two stories instead of three, etc. You get the idea.

Scope (Quality)

The scope is what you are wanting to build. It explains the boundaries of the project such as how many square feet, how many stories, whether it will have a deck or swimming pool, etc.

The scope is the last factor in the triangle. This factor is twofold because it includes both the scope and the quality, but they are often interchangeable.

After you carefully planned your container home building, you begin the construction. Just a few weeks in you discover the project is running behind schedule. You don’t want to change your design because this is what you’ve been dreaming about, so you can change either your budget or the length of time to build the home.

If you increase your budget, you still get the home you designed and chances are you will keep to the deadline.

However, if you’re budget is fixed and you don’t want to change your design, then all you can do is extend the deadline. Allowing the project to overrun on time will keep the costs down. Finally, you can change the quality of your build by buying used shipping containers instead of new ones.

Have you been surprised by any of the cost differences in shipping container buildings?  Let us know in the comments below.

DC-combined-transparent-angled

Check out more great articles:

11 Responses

  1. SCOPE is the #1 biggest factor in what a home will ultimately cost and the time required to build it. It’s the Size of the project combined with its Complexity and level of Quality–and SIZE of the project will totally dominate the secondary influences that Time and Cost may have.

    TIME only has influence when changes drive you into (or away from) schedule timeline extremes. E.g., an army of construction workers cannot build a home on site from scratch in a couple days, but they will burn up a fortune trying. Too many cooks in the kitchen is the cliche, at some point adding more people has a negative effect and actually slow you down while costing you more. Final project cost also goes up when your schedule is too loose. Efficiencies found in Synergy and Momentum are lost when projects take forever to get done. You must keep a reasonable pace to have the optimal outcome.

    COST is impacted from expensive (or cheap) materials, and the labor/tools needed for the project. Scope primarily drives Cost. Rework mistakes add to costs, and inefficiencies do as well. In the end, if I’m not making mistakes, my schedule is reasonable, then SCOPE is going to drive cost and the timeline. The most effective way to reduce scope is lower sf or forego some expensive luxury items.

  2. Thinking about a container home for my retirement years in Michigan. Can these homes be made friendly for the aging population and are they insulated well enough for hard winters and hot summers?

  3. Hi,

    I want to built one house in Toronto, Canada.
    Do you have an office so I can visit and discuss the details.
    Ansari

    1. We aren’t a container home builder and don’t have a public office, but feel free to email us if you have any questions that aren’t covered on the website. Good luck!

  4. I like the it it doesn’t even look like a cointaiiner. I would like to see the interior can you ship it to Barbados.?

    1. We don’t don’t sell or ship actual containers at this time, but there are a number of companies that do. If you’d like more help, send us an email via the ‘Contact Us’ page

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *