container houses

As everyone knows, a huge flood happened here in Manila about a week ago (and there's another storm up north this week). There were several municipalities hit by typhoon Ketsana: Marikina, Rizal, Pasig and Laguna.  I'm not sure how accurate this is but I heard that people living in those places are now moving out and selling their PhP 15 million houses for only PhP 5 million. It's a big discount but I don't know if anyone's buying.  Most people are now going for real estate situated on higher ground.

Here's an idea, how about getting one of those houses made out of shipping containers? If you want to move, you can simply have your house transported to another lot. It's durable-- designed to withstand tough conditions, as well as cheap and environment friendly.

port-a-bach.com

You need to have it insulated though and I'm not sure what will happen if lightning strikes.  Also, you should bolt it down so it doesn't get stolen or displaced when a big flood comes, like what happened here:

shipping container displaced by the flood, stuck on road divider
from PinoyExchange.com - '40 ft. shipping container as a house'
posted by KuyaDanny

For those interested to learn more about this topic, you can visit http://www.shipping-container-housing.com/.  It contains tips, links to companies that build container houses, background info on the industry and even a history of shipping containers.   According to them, "shipping container housing can represent a real solution to social and ecological problems".  I agree.  Who knew that inside that cold hard steel lies a warm cozy crib?

Sources:
http://www.pinoyexchange.com