Guam HNC, in collaboration with Nexus Corp., the Korean company financing the operation, broke ground for a steel home model house in Yigo yesterday.

Building a steel house — which has a steel frame that is covered with concrete slabs — is completely new to Guam, said Thomas Son, chief operations officer for Nanum Consulting Corp., a local company spearheading the project.

Steel homes are becoming more popular in Korea, Son said. It only takes 30 to 45 days to build one, and using steel cuts down on costs. A completely concrete home can take more than three months to build, pushing up labor costs, he said.

Plus, the steel-framed homes can withstand typhoon winds up to 200 miles per hour, he said.

The model home, which has four bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, a living room and a garage, also will use new green technology that uses heat produced by running the air conditioner to heat water, Son said.

There will be several different types of homes, and the companies are targeting the affordable housing project. Son said the companies still are in discussions about pricing. He also couldn’t reveal the initial investment made by Nexus.

Guam HNC and Nexus chose Guam because there’s a demand for affordable housing, Son said. The investment isn’t connected to speculation over the military buildup.

The companies already own enough land in Yigo to build 100 homes, and are planning on constructing in phases of two-bedroom, three-bedroom, and four-bedroom houses, based on customer demand, Son said.

“This steel housing gives even an average Joe an opportunity to purchase his own home,” he said.

Housing units on the island grew by 6 percent — or 3,000 units – over the past 10 years, compared to population growth of only 2.9 percent – about 4,500 people.

Military estimates from the Record of Decision show that Guam already has nearly 3,000 vacant housing units.

Put alongside weakening demand in the rental market, a downsized military buildup and “massive” proposed construction of affordable housing by Guam Housing and Urban Renewal Authority, the new numbers point toward greater housing oversupply.

However, Albert Wu, president of FADA Investment, a company that buys and sells real estate, said Guam isn’t plagued with an oversupply of housing.

Traditionally in Guam, several families live in one home, and people would like to move out but they can’t because there’s a lack of affordable housing, Wu said.

Some of the housing built over the last 10 years was high-end housing in anticipation of the buildup, he added.

Governor Eddie Calvo plans on building 3,000 new affordable homes by 2017. That alone would be a “decades worth” of new housing, but there are several factors to consider, including the accuracy of the census data itself, so it’s difficult to make definitive projections.

Census

Housing increased in northern and central Guam while it decreased in the south, according to the Bureau of Statistics and Planning.

The central villages of Guam — Asan-Maina, Barrigada, and Mangilao — showed the greatest increase in housing unit counts, said Tommy Morrison, director of the statistics bureau.

Dededo had the greatest number of total housing units, hovering around 13,000. Next was Tamuning, at about 9,000. The village with the lowest number of total units was Umatac, with just under 200.

The 2010 census counted 50,567 housing units around the island of Guam, compared to 47,677 housing units a decade earlier.

With more than 250 elderly and individuals with disabilities on waiting lists, GHURA isn’t giving up on plans to maximize housing opportunities down at Guma Trankilidat in Tumon. GHURA executive director Marcel Camacho says the current facility is grossly underutilized and there is an increasing demand for elderly and disabled housing. He notes, “If you combine the lists you’ll see that there’s a minimum of 250 people waiting for senior and disabled housing. And I think there are more out there,” he said.

Camacho says frustration is mounting for those who are on the waiting lists for Guma Trankilidat and senior housing that is available in Agat and Dededo. He added, “Do we have specific plans for it? No. What we have been doing is working with the affordable coordinating council that the governor has created and try to look at various areas on the island that are owned by the government entities.”

During the last administration there was an effort to try and expand Guma Trankilidat but it would require moving the residents up to the Ironwood housing up north temporarily, something that was met with resistance. While GHURA is committed to adding more housing units for the elderly and those with disabilities, Camacho says the agency is seeking the assistance of the private sector to help create more affordable homes.

Eighteen private companies responded to a request for information, of which Camacho said, “The criteria we asked them to include was their capability with financing the development of at least 100 units, their experience with developing the units, their ability to design projects and lastly their ability to manage a development.”

The Guam Housing and Urban Renewal Authority intends to hold a seminar to educate contractors about financing programs that are available to them including private activity bonds. Camacho says Guam has not used its allocations in the past so there’s about $360 million available for affordable housing. The agency meanwhile is also looking at alternatives to the traditional hollow block/concrete homes that are often too costly for low-income families and the elderly.

“So if we can make a product available that can be as little as $25,000 and the consumer can then put in some labor and effort to finish the home, then maybe that’s what we need,” he explained.

The number of people waiting in line numbered in the hundreds this morning before GHURA opened.

Applicants will be placed on a waiting list for Section 8 or public housing assistance and will be selected based on GHURA criteria which are: being a U.S. citizen with a job, a U.S. citizen who is unemployed, a Compact of Free Association [COFA] citizen with a job, COFA citizen without a job.

Applicants should bring with them birth certificates and social security cards for everyone in the household and a picture ID of all adults in the household.

By the end of the day, GHURA expects to have seen several thousand applications for Section 8 housing.

To help those prospective homeowners, the Guam Association of Realtors will hold a housing opportunity forum from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. today at the Hyatt Regency Guam.

The event is free to the public and will provide information catering to Guam’s workforce and first-time homebuyers.

Homeownership on Guam is only at about 48 percent, one of the lowest percentages nationwide, while the overall U.S. Census Bureau lists home ownership at 65 percent, according to the association. Over the last decade, prices of homes on Guam have increased, and while sales have also grown, homes have become less affordable for those in the low- to middle-income workforce.

Participants in the forum include:
- Guam Bankers Association
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
- U.S. Department of Agriculture
- Veterans Administrations
- Micronesian Self-Help Housing Corporation
- Guam Housing and Urban Renewal Authority
- Guam Housing Corporation