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With a recession on our doorstep, I thought I’d do another side hustle newsletter on an industry that always thrives during tight times. It’s the ‘alternative,’ lower-cost vacation industry. People always need to get away, and that “getting away” even happened during the pandemic, which sent RV sales through the roof across the US.

With that as my opening preamble for selecting this particular side hustle, I said to myself, “How would you do this, if you were going to start it right now, (and you didn’t happen to have a best friend who’s a developer like me)?”

Who makes these structures?

This was the first question I need to answer, so I began by trying to track down the suppliers of the homes used by Issac French and the Montana home. It looks like Isaac French sourced his units from a company in China called www.galaktikahomes.com They have a strange pricing model, which is based on the price per square meter. As the one sold on MyTotel is 22 square meters or approximately 236.8 square feet, the price they quoted me was $13,648 USD, and the house includes a complete bathroom and kitchen.

They said that a 40-foot container can hold 4 houses. The reference price for a 40-foot container is about $9,000. But the actual freight will be charged according to the shipping date. Looking at the rates for April of 2022, it was approximately $18,500 to ship that size container to a west coast port. From there it was 415 miles to my area from San Diego, and the cost ranged from $1 to $4 per mile or approximately $1,660 to complete the journey for a total of approximately $29,000 or $7,250/house. And then it has to be assembled on site. That was estimated at 1-2 days by the manufacturer, but watching their videos, it took 3-4 people and a forklift to complete the package. You’ll have to talk to a contractor to narrow that cost down. My guess is you’re looking at $15,000 to $20,000 per unit. So, about $35,000 to $40,000/home – all in – unless you have a lot of handy friends and relatives.

When I tracked down the Green Valley, Montana home, I came up with this great company up in Canada that ships them fully assembled and puts them on your lot and foundation. Their name is Drop Structures and their website is www.galaktikahomes.com

Here’s a short video of Drop Structures building the units, wrapping them for shipment, loading them on their truck-pulled trailers, and setting them in place at a customer site: