MODULAR HOMES
HOMES OF THE FUTURE
Imagine as a first time buyer living in a brand new, low- cost, innovative modular home, which is luxurious and fully furnished? Sounds pretty tempting... Lynda Clark talks to Chris Baxter from HOMErs to explore what it’s all about
banking which helped me to understand and appreciate what he did and what his plans were. “The war in the Ukraine broke out in February 2022 and one Sunday evening I had a call from Alex around 11pm. I remember I was watching TV at the time and when I answered the phone Alex asked to talk while humbly apologising for calling so late. I told him that it was 1am where he was and he was in the middle of a war – so of course I could talk! “Alex is really into high-tech robotics and AI so he said, ‘I never thought I would get into real estate as it’s never been my thing, however 500,000 homes have already been destroyed here since the start of the war (it is now over a million) and I want to find a solution to help.’ He explained that he had invented a modular house and sent me a video; it was pretty basic at the time but did the job and provided a fully furnished liveable home with power and water. He had an existing factory making vending machines and had sat down with his team and come up with this modular structure to put his V1 house together. Since then, the product has gone from strength to strength and 18 months down the line we are making these homes which are high
HOMErs was actually born out of the Ukrainian crisis by technology entrepreneur Alexander Stepura, who began producing modern modular homes with galvanised steel for people who had been made homeless by the war, repurposing his Kyiv-based vending machine factory to accelerate production. Chris, a Surrey-based investment expert and great friend of Alexander, explains how this incredible project came about. “I was a UK-based investment banker for 30 years, initially working for major league US banks. In 2003, I was headhunted to move from Merrill Lynch in London to go to live and work in Moscow in what was then a booming market across Russia and Ukraine. It was a very exciting time, we had an office in Kyiv and I made many good friends there. “I then came back to London in 2015 and set up my own investment business. As I know the markets in the UK and what works in the former Soviet Union, the idea for me was to continue to connect these worlds. A former colleague married a Ukrainian girl and stayed in Kyiv and he introduced me to Alex Stepura. Alex is a brilliant engineer and a real entrepreneur, with a curious and creative mind. I had an engineering background before I went into
quality, luxurious, and dramatic in style – like nothing else I have ever seen.” Chris has lived in a large house in Surrey for the past 26 years and has never done any serious renovations on it. He said, “It was an old house when we bought it so it’s not surprising that after all this time the pipes burst and we needed all new plumbing and the roof needed replacing plus lots more work. In order to do all this major renovation work, the builders said we must vacate the property. It occurred to me that as I have a large garden we could assembly the V3 modular home in our garden and live there. Four trucks arrived from Kyiv with the home on board and in
38 First Time Buyer June/July 2024
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