The OECD reports a €57 billion annual underinvestment in housing in the EU

Millions of homes need to be built each year in the EU. To quote some of the European governments, the need for new homes per annum is: 375 thousand in Germany, 100 thousand in the Netherlands, 340 thousand in the UK, 62 thousand in Ireland and 30 thousand in Belgium.

In total, 3M new homes are needed in Europe per year, while 1.5M per year are expected to be in the affordable and social segment. Over time, the company plans to service housing projects with a 2% SOM in the countries it enters, starting with Belgium, followed by Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and Ireland. Its initial market will be the Flanders region in Belgium, where it aims for a higher SOM of 5%.

 

Sale of the company's service is planned to start in 2024 in Flanders and throughout Belgium in 2026. Onwards, it plans to expand internationally across northern Europe, specifically in Germany in 2027, the Netherlands in 2028, followed by the UK in 2029 and Ireland in 2030. To achieve this internationally, the design library needs to be adapted to comply with local legislations, but also to reflect local market preferences. The company has already initiated a feasibility study funded by VLAIO to determine adaptability, based on an analysis of the legal constraints and marketing preferences of three countries of Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands. 

Company's target clients are affordable housing developers, municipal building agencies, social housing companies, and landowners. Company will target them at project development stage initially with own efforts lead by its CEO and later with marketing& sales team as they onboard. The sales team is planned to be organized by territories. In later years, the company will also expand via a network of architects and a reseller/franchise model.

.

The company will use both traditional and digital marketing to raise awareness of its service, process, and timber housing in general, to educate, and drive demand.

ToGatherHomes offers a unique solution that sets it apart from competitors locally in Flanders, in Belgium and on a European level. In an industry where collaboration among multiple parties often consumes significant time and effort, the comprehensiveness of the company's solution is a game-changer. It also creates a strong natural barrier to entry. While there are no direct competitors with a similar range of services, there are five categories of players with some competing offerings. 

1. Architects, who often do the work manually and create the designs themselves from scratch.

2. Companies such as Augmenta, Modulous, Autodesk, Shapediver, Higharc, SWAPP, etc., offering configurators and certain tools/programs to help during different parts of the designing and building process. 

3. Companies offering ERP (e.g., SAP Belgium, Microsoft, etc.) and the producers and vendors of the needed materials for construction projects (such as Umicore, Recticel and Knauf).

4. Companies offering (prefabricated) timber-based housing designs and delivery, i.e. the construction firms themselves. Examples are QUBIC HOUTBOUW and Dewaele Houtskeletbouw.

5. Companies offering tools related to permission and planning documents, such as GoSmartBXL and Projective.

Considering categories 1, 2, 3 and 5, rather than viewing these entities as competitors, the company is evaluating possible collaborations and/or buying the products or services. These collaborations are not only potentially beneficial for the current development of the system and helping it stay within budget/on schedule, they could also hold promise for future partnerships concerning data provisions for cost calculations and engaging architects interested in utilizing the platform. 

Category 4 could be seen as the biggest competitors for ToGatherHomes. Recently, there have been some new entrants in the international market (e.g., Lister Buildings, Finch Buildings, Boom Build, etc.). Some of them are design solutions, while others have internal manufacturing capabilities in their own local markets along with their designs. Their designs are mostly for market-rate housing, compared to the company's ability to address the social housing segment of the market. Their design specs and price points do not meet the VMSW (“Vlaamse Maatschappij voor Sociaal Wonen”) requirements for social housing, making it improbable for these companies to enter this niche part of the construction market. Secondly, in contrast to the company's multi-typology homes and apartments with a Flemish heritage design look, category 4 type organizations’ designs are primarily regular apartment buildings. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, companies like this do not automatically take local legislation into account. The rules and regulations specific to social housing in one or another country/region can have a large impact on the design. So, ToGatherHomes clearly sets itself apart in directly adapting its housing units, typologies, and designs in general and thus further facilitating the social housing design process.

A specific example is the Dutch Finch Buildings company, which has modular solutions -prefabricated structures made up of repeating pieces (modules)- or houses built with robotics, but they have not achieved affordability standards and are indeed not designed to social housing codes from the start.

With all these different players, there are in fact some that do combine certain aspects of the housing development. The companies whose service offerings lie the closest to that of ToGatherHomes’, have been compared in Table 2 and are the following:

•       Lister Buildings, a Dutch company that realizes circular residential buildings by designing, developing, producing and managing from one digital platform and working with bio-based materials and the latest technological insights. Yet, as mentioned before, their designs are for market rate housing -compared to ToGatherHomes' ability to design social and affordable housing complexes according to the VMSW requirements. Their price points do not meet the VMSW requirements for social housing either.

•       Modulous, a player from the U.K., has created a software platform, TESSA, which provides precise designs at the concept stage, comprehensive cost information (estimation for the design), and highly engineered design solutions. While the design software comes closest to what ToGatherHomes wants to do, they only offer multi-family housing schemes (apartment buildings of 3 to 25 stories) made of steel which do not automatically take local rules and regulations into account concerning the construction of (social) houses. With their designs also being represented in a much more minimalist way and the platform not generating any documentation needed for building permits etc., makes the ToGatherHomes’ system more advanced as it automates more of the processes prior to construction and is more user friendly.

•       The Vanhout Group, a Flemish company, is working on a project they call CIRCL, with which energy-efficient homes can be designed and built to the client’s wishes in only 6 weeks by integrating circularity and digitalization throughout the construction process. Yet, they will not have as extensive of a service offering as ToGatherHomes will have, only offering single-household, market-rate dwellings.

•       Machiels Building Solutions, another Belgian company located in Genk, belongs to the top with its automated production line for timber frame elements, and is used to build or renovate facades, offices, homes, or public buildings without scaffolding. Although Machiels also does not automatically build according to VMSW requirements for social housing and generally do not target social housing organizations, they would make for a good partner to ToGatherHomes due to their extensive timber frame constructions. Hence, talks are ongoing between both firms to try and establish a professional partnership.

Despite certain similarities between ToGatherHomes and these players, it has become clear that there is no single system on the market that can accomplish all that ToGatherHomes will be capable of. Considering ESG concerns, almost everyone takes the environment and sustainability into account. Yet, ToGatherHomes goes one step further, making people’s social life a focal point and focusing on social housing. With ‘community’ being a key value, the company strives to make a difference not only for nature, but for people, too.

In summary, many parties are seeking to address the issue of the housing need and sustainability from multiple angles. There are not really any players with as comprehensive and specific of a focus on time and cost savings of projects and sustainability as the offering ToGatherHomes has. The company's service is a unique solution that sets it apart from competitors locally in Flanders, in Belgium and even on a European level.