Buyer guides · 7 min
Building a feasibility model for modular guest rooms
Brochures quote returns. Lenders and boards want a model. Here is the structure of one — the lines it needs, and which of them a quotation can actually answer.
Why brochure ROI figures do not survive a board meeting
Occupancy and nightly-rate claims in a brochure describe someone else's site in someone else's market. They cannot be audited, they do not travel across destinations, and a lender will discount them to zero. A feasibility model has to be yours: your rate, your season, your cost base. What the party building your rooms can legitimately contribute is the capital and delivery side — and it should contribute it in named lines, not one number.
The capital side, in lines you can defend
Split capex into supply, logistics and local scope, then hold every quotation to the same columns: product; packing; freight per container; destination charges and duties; foundations, utilities, crane and installation labour; approvals and engineering of record; contingency. The landed-cost guide sets out how those lines are built. A model with one 'unit cost' line cannot be stress-tested and will not be believed.
The revenue side is yours to set, but its variables are known
Four inputs decide the outcome and none of them come from us: achievable nightly rate for your location and standard; realistic annual occupancy after seasonality; the number of lettable rooms your site consents allow; and operating cost per occupied room. Model each as a range rather than a point, and test the case at the pessimistic end of all four at once — that is the version a lender reads first.
Where delivery method changes the model
Two lines are genuinely affected by how a building is delivered rather than by what it costs. Time to revenue: a factory-built room is manufactured while the site is being prepared, so the gap between spending and earning is compressed — and a numbered installation sequence is what makes that claim checkable rather than promotional. Phasing: a repeatable building lets you open in tranches and fund later units from the operating income of earlier ones, which changes the peak funding requirement even when total capex does not.
What to ask for in a quotation
Ask for the capex lines split as above with exclusions in writing; the container count and installation sequence for your configuration; the payment stages and what evidence releases each; and the warranty position. Those four turn a quotation from a price into an input your model can actually use. Ask instead for a return figure and you will get one — it just will not mean anything.
Common questions
Will you give us an ROI figure?
No. Returns depend on your rate, occupancy, consents and operating costs, none of which we control or can verify. We supply the capital and delivery lines that go into your model, stated per project, and leave the revenue assumptions with the party who has to defend them.
What can AeroPodHomes contribute to a feasibility model?
Named capex lines for your configuration and destination, the container count and packing format, a step-sequenced installation programme, payment stages tied to evidence, and the warranty position — the inputs, not the conclusion.
How should phasing be modelled?
As a change to peak funding rather than to total cost. A repeatable building lets later tranches be produced against a proven configuration, so model the funding curve per tranche and keep total capex per room roughly constant unless the specification changes.
Is a modular room really faster to revenue?
The manufacturing runs in parallel with site preparation rather than after it, which compresses the gap between spending and earning. Ask for the numbered installation sequence and the hold points behind that claim — if the sequence exists, the compression is checkable; if it does not, the claim is marketing.