My Dream Home (MDH) is an inclusive business that contributes to addressing the chronic shelter shortage in Cambodia through the production of affordable and environmentally friendly construction materials. MDH has developed interlocking bricks similar to the concept behind the well-known LEGO® bricks. MDH’s bricks are made from local materials that are abundant across Cambodia. When interlocking bricks are used to construct a building, the project requires less cement and labor, and the time to complete the project is shortened. A home using MDH’s interlocking bricks can be built in three months or less. In addition, MDH also produces breeze blocks that make buildings more comfortable with enough airflow and sunlight, especially the great architectural design purposes.
MDH believes that DIY technology is crucial for local people to reduce the cost of building so, training the community to build affordable homes by themselves is crucial to make the houses even more affordable. The house owner can participate in the building so useless labor. Most importantly, the total cost to construct a home via a “do-it-yourself” method using interlocking bricks is upto 20% cost less than when traditional bricks. The training to the local community and house owners is free.
What social issue we are addressing?
Most of the construction materials in Cambodia are imported from neighboring countries and especially China. Huge housing backlog for poor Cambodia has had a high building boom since 2016, but most buildings are in the capital city (Phnom Penh) and either for office space or for higher-income housing. According to a 2017 study by VTRUST (a real estate company), only 0.3% of all built homes were priced at less than $25,000. Preliminary findings of the national census survey (2019) showed that the country in March 2019 had 15.3 million people and 3.34 households. Given the rural-urban migration trends and the fact that families are getting smaller and more households are founded, the government estimates that more than 1.5 million homes (houses and apartments) are needed for the low-middle-income families of Cambodia. Of this only 0.4 million is currently served, resulting in a huge potential market of 1.1 million in the coming 5-8 years.
Key problems for the poor and low-income people to avail housing comprise:
· a) high and substantially rising land prices on an annual basis,
· b) no saving product for housing to pay for the 30% upfront cost,
· c) very high bank interest rates and short term repayment requirements (typically interest rates of 12% per annum for 5 years repayment,
· d) affordable housing space in areas only available far outside of the city (key problems for Phnom Penh), and
· e) high building material cost with less appropriate building style not caring about community needs, environmental improvements and parking.