Offsite Builder

• Altadena’s slow recovery highlights how permitting, design costs and underinsurance can delay rebuilding for years. • ReMo’s pre-approved modular homes reduce design review time while meeting California’s strict wildfire-resilience requirements. • The company sees its approach as a model for disaster recovery, workforce housing and tribal communities.

• The factory-built portion of a modular home likely accounts for just 1/3 to 1/2 of that final $450,000 selling cost. • Many industry newcomers don’t understand that FOB (free on board) costs are just a starting point. • The real story of offsite construction is not factory production, but managing a complex housing delivery system.

• The 70-year-old, Toronto-based company is scaling robotic construction, targeting buildings up to ten stories. • Unlike modular, the mobile “micro factory” model avoids factory overhead and high transport costs. • Workers from aerospace, architecture and even gaming backgrounds can be fully trained in less than six months. Nhung Nguyen is CEO of Horizon Legacy, a Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based real estate and construction company that’s been in the industry for over seven decades.

• The company built its reputation by matching QA/QC processes to each client’s quality, durability and compliance priorities. • Director Ron Hegdahl relies on layered inspections, stop points, audits and witness testing to prevent costly mistakes. • Modus turns quality into a competitive advantage by documenting performance, tracking KPIs and showcasing processes to clients. What does a robust QA/QC program look like in practice?

• Volumod’s Ethan Fernhaber and Fading West’s Eric Schaefer say that while factory ownership provides control, it comes with unrelenting pressure to keep production moving. • Factory ownership rarely improves margins quickly. Schaefer advises securing 12 to 24 months of committed work before investing in a manufacturing facility. • Both executives emphasize that success means learning to think and operate like a manufacturer, rather than a builder who has moved indoors.

• Housing costs are driven by factors that include land and material prices, labor productivity and regulation. • Factory-built construction improves efficiency through automation, standardization and controlled environments. • Better business models are needed to unlock industrialized construction’s potential. No newsflash, but the housing industry is experiencing an epic affordability crisis. One that is leaving Americans house poor.

Every few months, another headline announces that a company has “printed a house in 24 hours.” The videos are impressive. A giant robotic concrete printer slowly moves back and forth while layers of concrete rise from the slab like toothpaste from a tube. Investors smile, politicians tour the site, and reporters talk about the future of housing. Six months later, the home still isn’t finished, because all that was printed were the exterior, and perhaps some interior, structural walls.

I get asked several times a month, “How much market share does modular, industrialized construction have?” Today it’s between 3% and 5%, but there was a time when that number was higher. That is, before the Great Recession wiped out about half of the existing factories. Of course, many site builders were also wiped out. But when demand returned, they simply hired more people, bought more tools and equipment, and were back in business.

Emerging standards can reduce uncertainty, streamline approvals and create the conditions for offsite construction to scale. Builders, manufacturers and other professionals in the offsite construction industry want to be able to scale their businesses, and to make the process of designing, permitting and building structures as smooth as possible. However, there can be barriers to achieving the level of scalability and efficiency they dream of.

• Designed as a true OSB substitute, Plantd panels require no changes to codes, fastening, or workflows — removing adoption friction for builders. • They’re made from grass feedstock harvested multiple times yearly. This enables stable pricing and rapid replenishment compared to timber-based panels. • Modular upsides include the option of pre-cut panels, reduced waste and localized production, with lower transport costs.