Cheap prefab houses: the most affordable by brand

Per square metre it comes to 249 €/m², and VAT is included.

It sits 42 % below the median for home kits over 60 m² (427 €/m², 67 houses), and what it includes explains why: the spruce shell with its doors and windows, and little else. The roof arrives without waterproofing, and the slab, the floor, the services, the sanitary fittings, the unloading and the assembly are on you. The same house with a thicker wall is the Alicante house (in Spanish). It suits you if you have someone to put it up and finish it; it does not if you expected to move in for that figure.

It is the Hobycasa Alcoy (in Spanish) with a thicker timber wall: the same outline, the same doors and the same windows.

That wall is what you pay extra for, and it is worth it if you will use the house beyond summer, because more timber holds warmth and coolness better. Even so, it sits 19 % below the median for home kits over 60 m² (427 €/m², 67 houses). You get the shell with its joinery; the slab, the floor, the watertight roof, the services and the assembly are extra. It suits you if you want the Alcoy for more months of the year.

It publishes the size of every room, and the three bedrooms are a good size (10.5, 9 and 8.6 m²).

It is only sold and delivered in the Canary Islands, with IGIC on top, so its price cannot be compared as it stands with one from mainland Spain. It arrives dismantled on pallets, on treated timber beams, with the walls, the doors and the double glazed windows; the base, the assembly and the services are contracted separately, and the bathroom and kitchen are fitted out later. It suits you if you live on the islands and want to assemble it yourself or with its team of carpenters. It does not outside the Canary Islands.

It leaves the factory with the kitchen and bathroom fitted and the services and finishes done: on the plot, all that remains is to set it on its base and connect it.

Its price per square metre is close to the median for homes that arrive finished with assembly extra (1,369 €/m², 21 houses): it is not a bargain, it is a finished house. Transport to mainland Spain is included; unloading the lorry, setting it on the base and the foundations are extra, although another of its pages says assembly is included. It is made in northern Europe by a group whose terms of sale are governed by Lithuanian law, with a company and a sales representative in Spain. It suits you if you want a finished house with no building work on the plot.

The price includes putting it up on your plot and painting the outside: you do not receive a pallet of planks.

Its price per square metre sits 25 % below the median for homes over 60 m² sold as a structure (600 €/m², 57 houses), and it shows: inside it stays raw, with no insulation, no services and no paint. That way it works as a country house where the climate is mild. To live in all year round, Yustas sells the same house ready to live in, with the thick insulated wall, electricity, water and the bathroom, which costs a little over two thirds more. Its prices apply within 50 km of Jerez de la Frontera.

The photo shows one of its houses already delivered (in Xàtiva, Valencia), not a rendering.

It is made from shipping containers prepared at its plant in Paterna (Valencia) and joined on the plot, on one or two floors depending on the project. What its price covers is unclear: Dos Días does not say whether it includes VAT, transport, foundations or utility connections, and it gives different figures for the same model depending on the page. The architect's project is extra, and for building land it sells a dearer version with what the Technical Building Code requires. It suits you if you want a made to measure container house; ask for an itemised quote in writing.

The living room with kitchen sits in the middle with the three bedrooms around it, under a single pitch roof that rises over the porch.

Its price per square metre sits 46 % below the median for home kits over 60 m² (427 €/m², 67 houses), VAT included. You get the spruce walls, the doors and the windows; the roof finish, the floor, the unloading, the assembly, the slab and the services are extra. The seller pitches it for holidays and weekends, not for an urban plot with a building project. It suits you as a country house. As a main home it does not, without a fair amount of work.

Its own quote puts a price on every item still needed to live in it, so you know the total cost before calling.

With the foundations, the interior lining, the electrics and the plumbing it charges separately, the house rises to a little over one and a half times its starting price (57 % more), and that is still without transport or VAT, which it does not include either. What it does cover is the hard part: the glued laminated timber structure, the wall and roof insulation and the timber board façade. The living room with kitchen takes the whole front and opens onto a full length porch, and the main bedroom has its own bathroom. It suits you if you want to budget the whole job with a single manufacturer.

Its plan is symmetrical: two identical wings, each with its bedroom and bathroom, on either side of a shared living room.

It only works in the Canary Islands, and its price includes IGIC, which is not VAT, so it cannot be compared as it stands with one from mainland Spain. What it covers goes beyond the shell: the structure insulated with rock wool, the floor, the interior walls already painted, the timber façade and the covered terrace. Left out are the windows and doors (it fits them free of charge if you supply them), the foundations, transport and final assembly, although its general page says the opposite: get it in writing. It suits two couples or renting out by the room.

It sells the same house in three steps (structure only, partial finishes or turnkey), so you can buy the shell and finish it with another company.

Its starting price is the first step, without VAT and meant for whoever will finish it with their own builder. The finished turnkey house costs almost three times as much and it only builds it in Catalonia; to the rest of mainland Spain it delivers it with partial finishes. Its prices are set for a 50 km radius around Barcelona, so outside it transport and travel are added. No step includes the foundations, the project, earthworks, utility connections or the permit.