My Bella Casa is an offsite construction business, working to deliver new, quality, long-term homes to regional, rural and remote communities across Australia.
My Bella Casa is the brainchild of Tamika Smith, passionate entrepreneur and regional advocate, who recognised a dire need for affordable, quality housing in regional communities.
“The regional focus was really important to me, because I recognised the data was skewed from a social housing point of view – it told a very different story to what was happening on the ground in regional communities because without the housing availability, the data was often not collected at all.”
My Bella Casa sought to overcome one of the key barriers to regional housing supply, the efficiency of quality construction. The cost of new builds, even renovations, rarely stack up in many regional areas for traditionally built homes, which has been further exacerbated through trade shortages.
Ms Smith recognised the opportunity that modular could deliver in overcoming such challenges, however soon realised that groundwork needed to be done to overcome the stigma around modular.
“Previously modular has been stigmatised by ‘dongers’ and often associated as a lower quality home. The more work we did with housing providers in regional locations, the more I was dedicated to establish quality homes for the people that needed our help the most.”
Offsite construction of new homes through My Bella Casa provides a cost-effective alternative to traditional building methods, particularly for the smaller one- and two-bedroom dwellings that are most in demand on social housing waitlists, and particularly absent in regions.
“My Bella Casa was an essential link in the broader picture of us being able to deliver the turnkey package from developer, construction, funding all the way through to owning and operating.”
Utilising 15 years experience in construction Ms Smith has worked with housing providers, investors and all tiers of government to advocate and deliver new social and affordable housing targeted directly to each community’s needs.
She cites collaboration as key to the model’s success.
“Local government has been incredibly supportive to see long-term housing outcomes delivered with this new approach. This was part of the driving force for My Bella Casa, to connect all the dots, to make it simple to deliver and be accountable for the end goal – helping people, in need of a home.”
Tamika Smith was a panellist at the National Regional Housing Summit in February 2024.