Factory lead time

A modular home is built in the factory while the approvals are finished and the footings go in, so the factory's lead time only becomes the critical path when it is longer than the paperwork, which on a block with no planning application is often the case. Few makers publish a lead time, and none of the makers listed on this site state one on the pages read for the listings; the number lives in the quote and changes with the order book. The question to ask is not how long the build takes but which production slot the deposit buys, in writing, and what happens to that slot if the approval is late. A home that leaves the factory before the footings are approved sits in a yard at someone's cost.

Where the factory sits in the timeline

Across the region most jobs run three to eight months from first call to keys, and six weeks on site is the pattern when the slow parts were done before the contract. One install in Moreton Bay signed mid October, started on site on 22 October, craned about two weeks later and finished about six weeks after starting, because the reports and the building approval were in hand before signing.

What the lead time hides

• The order book. A maker with a full yard quotes a longer slot in summer than in winter, and the slot moves when a bigger order lands. Get the slot in the contract, not the email.
• Selections. A factory cannot start a home whose tiles and tapware are undecided. Decide before the deposit.
• Design changes. Each maker has a cut-off after which the layout is fixed; a change after it is a new slot.
• Payment stages. Factory stages are where the deposit cap and the lender's schedule bite. Progress payments.
• Storage. If the block is not ready when the home is, ask who pays to store it and for how long. A finished module in a yard is the maker's cash tied up.

Two things to put in writing

The production slot and the delivery window, with what each side owes if either moves. Schedule 1B of the QBCC Act gives the installer's contract a start date and a practical completion date and a commencement notice within 10 business days of starting on site, but the maker's sale contract has no such rule unless the maker is the licensed builder for the whole job. The date is whatever the sale contract says, so make it say something.

How long a granny flat takes, call to keys has every stage with what stretches it.

See it for your block

• Compare homes and makers
• How long a granny flat takes, call to keys
• Makers that install their own homes

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