The Aussie dad said he knew revealing he earns $400 a week in rent from the modified container would stir up “controversy” but argues it’s a good deal.

An Aussie dad spent $30,000 on a shipping container from China and turned it into a two bedroom home that he now rents out for $400 a week.

Zackary South documented the arrival and set up of the portable home on TikTok, with his videos gaining millions of views.

The container took three months to arrive from China and his first video shows it being delivered and folding out to become a two bedroom and one bathroom home, with a kitchen and lounge room.

“I intentionally put how much we get in rent for the container home. Now, I knew that was going to stir up a bit of controversy, so that just shows a bit about your mindset,” he said in a TikTok video.

“So if you have seen that $400 rent for that container home and thought ‘Man, that’s expensive’ you have a renter’s mindset. But if you saw that and thought ‘Damn I need to get one of them’ … that’s an investment mindset.”

“The container home has a car port, it also has a nine metre by four metre lock up shed. It also includes water, electricity and internet, so for $200 per person, there’s two of them that live in there, flat out I would say that’s a pretty good deal for both sides.”

The 28-year-old said he originally planned to put a granny flat on his one acre property but then decided to take the risk when he came across the portable homes.

He roped in his whole family to set up the home, which measures 12m by 6m and is 17 sqm overall.

The team had to use a car jack to level the container on blocks, before lifting up the floors and walls and screwing them in.

There were bench stonetops and four pre assembled cupboards to install in the kitchen, along with 12 windows that include fly screens, while South said he was also able to choose the colour of the laminate flooring.

“I started to vlog all the renovation as I have very big plans ahead,” he told The Mirror.

South’s one-year-old daughter is currently undergoing chemotherapy so he also wanted to do the TikTok videos for her.

“I wanted my daughter to be able to look back on these videos and see everything that we have completed,” he said.

“Once I put the video on TikTok, my comments were filled with people who were positively surprised at how easy and cheap this type of accommodation can be.”

The home contains no separate laundry, with the washing machine and dryer kept in the bathroom, and there are no wardrobes in the bedrooms.

But the Gold Coast-based man has had tenants inside the home for the past six months.

In a tour of the place, he reveals he supplied a pantry and extra benchspace, while there is a benchtop oven and hotplates in the kitchen and twin shower heads in the bathroom.

He said things he wish he could change in the container was its 2m height and he would have opted for the corrugated roof if he could choose again.

South said his first video about the container home had attracted close to 30 million views.

“I think that this type of portable container home could solve the housing crisis and homelessness, so I’m glad to have inspired people to talk about it,” he added.

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