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Housing, Commercial Real Estate Boon For U.S. Builder In Cameroon

Housing, Commercial Real Estate Boon For U.S. Builder In Cameroon

When the U.S. building industry went bust during the recession, one Florida business was already eyeing an emerging market faced with a critical housing shortage.

Southwest International Construction Corp., a Venice, Fla.-based builder and material exporter, had been planting roots in Douala, Cameroon, constructing a factory there to produce the structured insulated panels used to build American-style homes in American-style gated communities in Africa.

Where others have failed to build a better mousetrap – affordable and energy efficient homes in Africa – Southwest International is finding success. The insulated panels, key to its business plan, are assembled by local employees in its new Douala factory. They create energy-saving exteriors that address homeowners’ concerns about Africa’s steep electricity rates.

The factory and its Cameroon-based construction subsidiary Quality Habitat Corp., will manufacture and build 2,000 homes annually, according to Tim Truax, Southwest International’s production manager in Venice.

“We have $25 million in construction projects on the books,” Truax said. “Once we get going we’re expecting $200 million to $300 million a year in housing projects. The government of Cameroon has said it needs 10,000 homes to make up the shortage. There’s a growing middle class in Africa and in Cameroon, in particular, there’s a huge housing shortage.”

Southwest International and Quality Habitat have been granted contracts to build four additional panel-assembling factories in surrounding countries. Southwest International has pre-sold all of the 183 homes — priced from $48,000 to $85,275 (excluding sales tax) — planned for its first garden community.

In its research of the best building technologies world-wide, Southwest International determined that the most suitable technology was also the most simple: glue, foam and cement panels first introduced for exterior walls in the 1930s. In the 1950s these panels were perfected with Styrofoam by Alden B. Dow, the brother of Dow Chemical’s founder. Dow’s original foam-insulated panel homes in Michigan are still standing some 60 years later.

Truax said the panels have been structurally tested to survive hurricanes, earthquakes and fires.

“It’s great construction,” he said. “We have procured more land to continue with hundreds more homes.”

The technology will make homeownership more affordable, he said. The panels have an insect barrier and life expectancy of 50 years.  They also provide sound and temperature insulation and will reduce energy consumption by 70 percent compared to existing homes, according to Truax.

An experienced crew can assemble the exterior walls of a 1,076-square-foot home in a day.

“Traditional housing in Africa is not efficient building,” Truax added. “Electricity is very expensive and homeowners pay power bills that are three times their mortgage payments. Americans pay eight cents per kilowatt hour; Africans 27 cents. The country needs more efficiently insulated homes to bring power bills down.”

Florida resident Jerry Smith, construction supervisor at the Douala factory, has been in the French-speaking West African nation since earlier this year. He oversees 200 employees who assemble the panels and other components of Quality Habitat’s first gated community.