SITE BUILT vs MODULAR HOME - PICKING A WINNER

2,000 years ago our ancestors were building homes from sticks, fastening systems and mud bricks with straw for roofing.  Today we are still building with sticks (dimensional lumber), fastening systems (nails and screws) and straw roofing (shingles and metal).  They also used any labor that was at hand to build their homes.

Here we are in 2011 and guess what, most people still want a site-built home.  Do you know why?

Because nobody is telling them why modular home construction is superior.  Consumers have been told over the years that you have to watch their house being built to insure they get a quality job.  Let's agree on one thing right now.....the average new home buyer doesn't know the difference between below-average and superior construction.  It's not their job!

What the new buying public needs is an easy to understand reason to buy a modular home instead of a site-built home.  So here we go, a comparison that every modular factory person and every modular home builder can use to educate the new home buyer.

Site Built Home Construction	Modular Home Construction
* Disorganized construction	* Organized construction
* Workers are independent from each other	* Each production station is organized
* Work is fragmented	* Work is compartmentalized
* Poor communication between trades	* Total communication between trades
Inefficiencies of site built homes	Efficiencies of modular homes
* Raw Materials delivered to site	* Raw materials on hand
* Many trips to each job site by workers	* Workers drive to central factory
* Physical labor applied to every piece and part	* Automated and labor saving devices used
* Work area set up and taken down daily	* Work stations are permanent
* Linear construction process	* Multiple stations working on same project
* Inadequate hand and power tools	* Professional tools and machines in place
* Down-time due to weather	* Very little downtime if any
* All materials exposed to weather and vandalism	* All production secured under roof

Now for some real eye-opening facts:

• Majority of those working in site building have no more than a high school education and have no formal training in the work they do every day.
• Training and supervision on site-built homes is often performed by those with the few skills and little training themselves.
• Street corner pick up laborers are used by many smaller site builders to hold costs down.

When the housing recession finally starts to turn around in 2013, who will be available to build the houses?  Recession has decimated the labor and subcontracting pools.  The trades needed by site builders will not be a popular destination for young people.

This means that the site building industry will be faced with extremely high turnover rates, dropping labor skills and higher wages.

A few years ago Consumer Reports said the new homes are the most defective product consumer can own.  Since modular construction only has 3% of the total new home market, they couldn't have been talking about us.  Consumer Reports noted that there is a 15% serious defect in new homes.

Interestingly, the same report sighted manufacturers in America have a 1% serious defect rate and if a home is built in a factory, it has a huge advantage over site built homes.

I could also do a comparison of green, energy saving and sustainability between site built and modular construction but I will save that for another article.

Faced with these realities, home buyers will begin looking for a better way to build their new home and modular should be the answer to their prayers.