Modern Prefabricated Housing

Modern prefabricated housing mainly refers to modular construction, also known as 'prefab housing'. It involves breaking down a building into independent modules, which are manufactured in a factory and then transported to the construction site for assembly.

Construction Process

Ceilings, floors, plumbing, and electrical wiring are all prefabricated on factory assembly lines and then transported to the site for assembly like building blocks. For example, at a construction site in Shanghai, tower cranes transport and install the prefabricated 'building blocks'; in a public housing project in Shenzhen, Guangdong, five residential buildings nearly 100 meters tall are assembled from 6,028 concrete modules.

Advantages

• Short Construction Period: Compared to traditional construction, modular construction employs parallel operations, along with the use of automated vertical warehouses and intelligent production lines, reducing the construction period by more than 60%. For instance, in the public housing project in Shenzhen, Guangdong, the completion and delivery period was reduced from 2.5 to 3 years to just 1 year.
• Controllable Quality: Each 'building block' has a detailed 'ID card', including project name, product model, and production date; the position of each steel bar is precisely located, with error and precision controlled in millimeters.
• Energy Efficiency and Environmental Protection: Most construction processes are completed in the factory, with on-site casting for connections, significantly reducing noise, dust, construction waste, and traffic congestion at the construction site. The construction period of prefabricated buildings is 30% shorter than traditional methods, reflecting energy efficiency and environmental protection characteristics.
• Easy Maintenance: Flexible repair and continuously expanding application scenarios.
• High Cost-Effectiveness: A prefab house can be delivered to your doorstep for as little as 200,000 RMB, offering significant cost advantages in European and American countries. For example, in the United States, where labor costs for construction workers are high, the total cost of labor and materials for building a house can easily exceed one million RMB, making prefab houses much more affordable.

Market Situation

• Domestic: Since 2022, China has implemented policies for renovating old residential areas, focusing on repairing and renovating prefabricated panel houses and only demolishing buildings that meet the criteria for dangerous structures. 'Prefab housing' mainly comes in three forms: steel structure, concrete, and wood, with Chinese companies having comparative advantages in steel structure and concrete. In the first four months of 2026, enterprises in the Guangzhou Customs district exported movable houses worth 1.4 billion RMB, a year-on-year increase of 38.1%; in the same period, the Shenzhen port exported movable houses worth 1.68 billion RMB, a year-on-year increase of 19.6%.
• Overseas: It continues to gain popularity overseas. In the first quarter of this year, China's prefabricated building exports grew by 45%, with Guangdong Customs alone exporting 1.4 billion RMB worth in the first four months, a surge of 38.1% year-on-year. Europeans and Americans have a high acceptance of Chinese prefab houses, and according to market research agency predictions, the global modular construction market size will exceed 142.8 billion USD by 2030.