A home that generates its own power? Wagga's Prefabulous is preparing to deliver

With NSW caught in the middle of a housing shortage, modular housing company Prefabulous has stepped up to deliver an environmentally friendly, world-class product entirely built in Wagga.

On his flying visit through the Riverina this week, NSW Premier Chris Minns stopped in for a tour and gave a glowing review of the rapidly growing company that will soon transport its first home to Sydney.

“It’s a great example of ingenuity and seeing a spot in the market and really taking a chance and a risk on themselves,” the Premier said.

“Starting off as an opportunity to build housing for remote regional communities and then realising that the quality is so good and so strong that they can easily sell it into Western Sydney communities as well, is a great example of what’s possible in regional New South Wales.”

Historically, prefabricated houses have had a dubious reputation with ‘fast and affordable’ being the focus, but the industry has challenged that perception in the past decade with a range of stylish, architecturally designed and robust products hitting the market.

Prefabulous Managing Director Gavin King said they were determined to produce a premium product that stood out.

“We started about three years ago after we’d done a bit of a survey on what people liked as far as looks and styling that was away from everything else that was on offer,” he said.

“We ran a social media campaign for a period to see how it would go over and we got a great response.

“We wanted something fresh and different, so to have that point of difference we had to have a good design team and a good build team.”

Their first project was to deliver villas to the Riverina’s now iconic Witton Malthouse.

“That was the project that kicked us off and then Cupitt’s winery saw that and then, next thing you know, we’re building 10 down the south coast,” he said.

With positive reviews, national media coverage and word-of-mouth driving demand, Gavin said they were able to quickly step up construction and will soon relocate to a larger site within the Bomen Special Activation Precinct.

“We have two fully qualified architects on staff and we’ve got numerous builders that are qualified in different areas so we can handle high-end, million-dollar homes right down to granny flats and the budget end of town,” he said.

“By building here in the yard, you get economies of scale that keep the costs down, there’s less waste and there’s also constant supervision.

“Our construction managers are on site all the time for every job, and it really accelerates the construction time.”

Environmental considerations are also at the fore of the Prefabulous business plan and they are partnering with the CSIRO and the University of Wollongong to deliver a 7-star rated, ‘net-zero’ dwelling.

“We’re well and truly down the path of building homes that can generate their own power,” Gavin explained.

“We didn’t want it to be another project that was a research piece that was shoved on a shelf and never saw the light of day again, so I went and got an end user, which is Ingenia Holiday Parks, so we’re going to build for them based on the outcome of this research.”

With the prototype set to hit the ground before the end of the year, Gavin hopes to incorporate cutting-edge solar technology and set the standard for sustainability.

“That will be set up in the caravan park here in Wagga where people can come and book in and stay in a net-zero project that generates its own power.”

You can learn more about Prefabulous here.