We bring you a selection of 10 of the best modern prefab homes under 100K euros to show you the diversity of options available and some current trends.
Prefab house design is blooming in Europe with AI-driven advances in material and process technology. Due to rising house, land, fuel and construction prices, more people are looking for an affordable house with their very personal stamp on it from the ground up. As high-quality sustainable homes can now be delivered in pieces or even whole, they’re ever more attractive for commercial use as hotels and holiday rentals.
Modern prefab is no longer so niche or unfamiliar, and it’s easy to find manufacturers and built examples that give customers the confidence to choose prefab and manufacturers to invest in the market to bring us more products and options. Europe has come a long way since the infamous concrete panel houses of the 1960s.
We’ve scoured the European prefab market, assessing prefab house models on their pricing, materials, buildability, availability and sustainability. Signs of buildability include the certifications they have in place to make them compliant with building regulations in different countries, how many have been built previously, and where.
We consider the implications for foundations for each model and also how well-suited they are to self-builders. Our selection of 10 prefab houses represents the range of pricing and styles that are available in Europe today. We included a standard EU VAT rate of 20% in calculating starting prices to give you a more full and comparable price, but some are an insulated shell, and some are turnkey products.
Bare in mind that once you get into the design process with a manufacturer, the price will vary as you tweak the design, depending on delivery costs etc.
Whilst direct comparison can be tricky as manufacturers don’t all provide the same details for their designs, the following selection will give you a very good idea of what is available on the prefab market.
Norge House produce an impressive range of stunning homes, emphasising Scandinavian design and methodology, built in Latvia and shipped to anywhere in the world. House 124 is spacious and beautiful with three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a floor area of 121.6m2.
Once the factory kit is installed on site you’ll have a weatherproof structure complete with windows and doors. The frame is constructed with C24 timbers and OSB board, the insulation is mineral wool, and the internal and external cladding is northing pine.
PVC windows
Foundations are not included in the kit price, but Norge House supplies the foundation requirements so you can build them yourself or hire a local team.
This is a more compact and lower-cost model by Norge Haus, but the construction detailing and basic fabrication package is largely the same as House 124 above. It has one bedroom, one bathroom and a floor area of 47.6m2.
This basic factory package does not include the roof covering, services and internal fitting-out, which gives you the opportunity to build or manage these items yourself to have a realistic chance of getting the whole project completed for under 100K.
Norge Haus emphasises quality and has over 40 years of experience improving timber engineering and sustainable supply chains. Norge Haus has sufficient capacity and experience to deliver on substantial B2B projects across Europe.
The Woodec factory package is similar to Norge Haus in that it doesn’t include the roof covering, foundations, services or internal fitting-out unless you choose to pay for those extras. This gives you the freedom to stretch your budget by rolling up your sleeves to dig the foundations yourself or project manage local contractors.
Woodec, a smaller and newer company than Norge Haus, based in Estonia, supplies timber-framed houses mainly to Norway and Sweden. This five-bed, three-bath, 217m2 house can be put together on your foundations in 2-7 days, according to Woodec, leaving you just to put on the roof cover and fit it out. It comes with triple glazing, very well-insulated walls and roof space.
This beautiful compact house is offered in three fully finished versions depending on the insulation level and glazing. We’ve focused on the ‘standard’ version here, but if you can stretch to the ‘comfort’ version, you’d save money in the long term through reduced energy bills and be cosier. The ‘comfort’ version is 57,000 euros, and the ‘premium’ version is 64,200 euros. The ‘standard’ version has 150mm of insulation and double-glazed windows, whilst the ‘comfort’ and ‘premium’ versions have 200mm of insulation and triple-glazed windows. The ‘premium’ version also gets you kitchen and bathroom appliances and faucets.
All three versions have a floor area of 39m2, two bedrooms, and one bathroom, and all come fully wired and plumbed. The exterior finish is vertical spruce cladding on the walls and a metal standing-seam roof supplied by Balex. The process takes 2-6 months from design to installation, with delivery available anywhere in Europe. Ilum House highlights the rigid structure of its design and claims that no foundation is required and that the house can be easily relocated at a later date.
Ilum House invites you to visit their production site near Riga in Latvia, where they harvest and season their own timber as part of their business model and environmental strategy.
Based in, you guessed it, Riga, Latvia, CMB Housing offer this basic insulated frame for you to finish off yourself onsite. It’s a Passive House design which means that it is extremely cheap to heat, comfortable and well-ventilated. The option is to have it formally certified as a Passive House, which costs a few thousand euros but also adds value to the house.
You can select additional items, including foundations which cost 24,480 euros if you order them from CMB. If you purchase a fully finished house, the additional items take the total to 137.400 euros, but you could achieve this build for 100K if you purchase the basic package and use the remaining 40K of the budget to complete it yourself.
Your prize would be a 130m2 living space with four bedrooms, a home office, and two bathrooms. Passive house standard, optional formal certification.
This is a fully-formed drop-on-site luxury smart house, though for some, it might be considered a garden room or guest suite. It contains one bedroom, one bathroom, and 40m2 of living space. A half-size version is available at 20m2.
It’s built in Estonia to ‘Nordic standards of insulation’ with triple-glazing, LED lighting throughout and energy-efficient heating and ventilation. It can be ready to ship within four months from the factory in Estonia though there are also offices in the US, Australia and Scotland. No foundations are required.
Made in Riga, Latvia, this one bedroom, one bath, 36m2 unit is a unique honey-comb inspired hexagon shape. A significant aspect of this design is that additional units can be connected in the future.
The wall panels are built in the factory, and the manufacturer points out that this product is well-suited for self-builders. It’s made with eco-friendly materials a wall-mounted HVAC system provides high-quality ventilation whilst efficiently retaining heat. A concrete base is included in the standard package though a more complex timber version is available.
Interesting, It comes with an IKEA kitchen and sofa. The Bee House can be delivered anywhere in Europe.
As with many models, the basic price does not include transport and installation, so it may be a long shot to sneak under our 100K budget. However, this Estonian-made one-bedroom, one-bathroom house has something unusual that you might be tempted to consider: an (optional) integrated sauna in the bathroom.
This stunning 34.2m2 home includes electric underfloor heating, though the sauna and a dome-window are additional extras. A concrete foundation is delivered with the house to anywhere in Europe.
Three beds and one bathroom are spectacularly arranged in this visually striking and surprisingly large 61.4m2 house. This time-framed turnkey solution is designed and built in Spain to Passive House standards.
A compact version is available for 60,000 euros. Heat recovery with ventilation is a standard part of the Passive House requirements for air quality and minimising heat loss, and it is highly unlikely that you will ever need to use the 6kW wood burner for anything other than aesthetic enjoyment with the door wide open.
The Mohma Premium can be delivered anywhere in Europe. Woodville states that no foundation is required, but in practice, you will still need to make some allowance in your budget to provide suitable ground to reduce any risk of subsidence and protect the underside of this structure.
The Tiny House Country has two bedrooms, one bathroom and 48m2 living space. It’s a beautifully made turnkey house made in Germany. Like other similar concepts, it uses high ceilings to enhance the sense of space.
But, one particularly interesting feature is infrared underfloor heating. Infrared heating gives a very different quality of heat than convection heating. It radiates heat to evenly warm up people, objects and surfaces in the room. In contrast, convection heating causes air currents, displacing dust or causing differential temperature in different parts of the room.
This beautiful compact house with its external larch cladding can be delivered anyway in Europe in around six months, and no foundation is required- sounds familiar now, doesn’t it? But, if your project is in Germany, you can enjoy free delivery.
Conclusion:
There is a growing number of prefab house manufacturers from all over Europe, though production is still dominated by companies in Latvia and Estonia exporting into Scandinavia.
Prefabrication naturally lends itself to high-quality, low-cost and eco-friendly construction. Nonetheless, to achieve a fully completed house for less than 100K all-in, we found that you really have two options:
Buy a timber frame package, possibly put it together yourself, but certainly build your own foundations, fit it out internally, and put the roof tiles on.
OR
Buy a small but beautifully finished cuboid with 1 or 2 bedrooms cleverly arranged, often utilising mezzanine spaces. They have minimal or no foundations, which represents a big saving for your project. Due to their size, from 30-60m2, these models are usually delivered to site in just two or three parts and substantially fitted out in the factory, which is great for quality control.
We’re seeing a growing trend for the concept of pods or modules that can then be connected together to fit the customer’s required space and budget at the time of purchase, and some advertise the ease of adding further modules at a later date to expand the house with evolving household needs.
We can’t wait to see what new models will be released this year.
