Exterior of the "container house" near the 107 National Highway, Xinwu Street, Shenzhen Bao'an District, March 17, 2010. [Photo/CFP]
Clusters of temporary apartments transformed from containers for rent have appeared in the suburbs of Shenzhen, Guangdong province, the Guangzhou Daily reported.
Inside a container house.[Photo/CFP]
With the average housing price in Shenzhen approaching 20,000 yuan per square meter, migrant workers, low-income residents and even college students are turning to container-restructured apartments for shelter.
A man surnamed Chen, who runs the container housing business, told the newspaper that such containers were mostly provided for construction workers.
Another man surnamed Zhang, who also runs the business, said they had 40-plus unfinished orders and were too busy to handle them.
He said the rent for a container of 6 meters by 3 meters was only 6 yuan per day, or 180 yuan per month, or 2,160 yuan per year. The low prices, plus custom-made features, made the container-restructured apartments very attractive, he said.
It takes just 10,000 yuan to buy such a container, according to Zhang, but the land use right has to be approved by the government first and it is almost impossible to obtain those rights for personal use under current laws and regulations.
"If you wanted to buy a container for personal use, you had to find somewhere to locate it or it would be moved for being illegal," he said.
Industry insiders said it was common in cities such as London and New York for containers to be transformed into single apartments, but it was not likely that such apartments could provide a solution to the low-income's housing problem in Shenzhen, according to the report.
