HOUSING HEAVEN – James Sackl

By MITCH CATLIN

James Sackl is an Aussie-made entrepreneur by nature.

Whether it’s DIY floating backyard decks (by Terraform) or his guilt-free potato crisps (Thunderbird Chips by Wallace Foods), Sackl tells Australian Life, “I find a gap and plug it.”

But his venture in Mansfield, in the Victorian high country, could be the global home-run.

He purchased the local caravan park in the region as a test-site for his revolutionary affordable housing concept.

“Caravan parks are allowed to have unregistered movable dwellings, so it gave us a chance to experiment with our building system and then grow the business” says Sackl.

The business – pre-constructed building sections and a process to rapidly build community-sized developments in the middle of Australia’s biggest housing challenge.

“If you can build a vertically integrated community quickly you will be able to encourage household formation. It is our response to the macro crisis that is housing in Australia in 2026,” he says.

His company developed a sectional building system that sees parts of these 7-metre wide home shells with commonalities – like roofs and walls – be put together on site. They are simply bolted together with modular facades, using light steel, timber and glass.

“They’re literally a house cut into sections and finished on an automated factory line and then put together on the allocated space as if it was a Formula One crew,” he explains. “It allows the quick connection of electrical and plumbing. It’s literally all done in one go”.

The team is currently building up to eight a week with all 143 sold to be completed in coming months. They sold a staggering 40 on site in a week.

Mansfield is very special for the launch as the team bought the water rights on site as part of its goal to create a community village. The detailed report uncovered how pure the water was in the region– equal to any hot spring in Australia.

So, they piped each villa with its own rock pool hot spring as the team builds out more communal facilities including on-site massages and treatments, restaurants and other wellness activities.

The fully equipped villa properties sell for $750,000, and can be leased for between $600-800 a night for people wanting a getaway in Aussie Mother Nature.

Since the controversial May Federal Budget that saw a significant overhaul of taxation and superannuation for investors, the project has seen significant interest, because the classification of the property enables people to use their self-managed super fund to buy straight off the plan.

Mansfield is step one of the roll-out of these “rapid homes”. The team is currently looking at site to roll out across Australia over the next 12 months, with a project in South-East Asia already in planning.”