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Comment by zdragnar | Hacker News Reader

Modular homes are virtually indistinguishable from ground-up-stick-built homes, and are most definitely not prefabs.

https://www.wausauhomes.com/ and http://www.wisconsinhomesinc.com/ are a pretty good example of what you can do. Either they typically ship in 3-6 sections and are stitched together on-site by your framers, electricians and plumbers, or they ship wall and roof segments that take 2-5 days to stitch together. From that point on, it's the same process as your standard custom home, excepting that the frame was built in an environmentally controlled environment.

Edit: they're definitely not what you are referring to by "cheap" though. You'll probably save a bit of money over totally custom, but not along the lines of a tiny home either.

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Modular homes that are not stick-built onsite tend to appreciate a lot less. And if your assessor or appraiser categorizes it as a manufactured home it is even less. Try to sell one to find out how much of a local stigma they have, even though they are perfectly fine and are usually built out of 2x4s too. But I heard people saying they don't shop at Ikea because it is a "cookie cutter" store. Buying a house is often a status issue.

Buying a house is often a status issue.

If the Tech Worker class wants to do the world some good, then bucking the "stick-built in the dirt" expectations of society would seem to be an area where we could do a lot of good. If we as a buying cohort gave such homes cachet through economic and social power, then the cost of building homes and new housing stock would be reduced through modern manufacturing and economies of scale. More people would be able to buy higher quality homes for less, all up and down the socioeconomic ladder.

A significant chunk of the cost of modular building is in transportation, and there's only just so much you can do for the overall cost when most of it is in materials anyway (gas and wood are very variable costs).

Back when I was looking at building, the total price outcome really wasn't substantially different for very similar plans.

Part of the problem is that it's labor and materials intensive. Even if modular homes became more popular, the transportation cost alone means that you're not going to be buying from out of state in most cases. Also, keep in mind that houses are around for decades if not centuries. If a house cost $50k and I could swap it out every 10 years for a newer model on the same property, that might be worth it. Sadly, that is not and will likely not ever be the case.

A significant chunk of the cost of modular building is in transportation

It's a chicken and egg problem. If the market were bigger, there would be more factories, with one locally sited.

there's only just so much you can do for the overall cost when most of it is in materials anyway

A big part of the cost is labor. Economies of scale can fix this by making labor far more efficient and replacing part of it with factory automation, but the market has to be big enough to keep many local factories busy for that to work.

If a house cost $50k and I could swap it out every 10 years for a newer model on the same property, that might be worth it. Sadly, that is not and will likely not ever be the case.

Houses are designed to last only 20 years in Japan.

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