The Next Gen of Mobile Homes

Happy Thursday. Today, we're taking a break from the news to look at the PropTech industry and the growing popularity of prefabricated housing.

Mobile homes have a bad reputation, evoking Eminem in Eight Mile or Canada's Trailer Park Boys. So it surprised me to find, when helping my mother look into retirement communities, that mobile homes are fast becoming reputable and desirable housing options for the 55+ crowd. The popularity of mobile homes (aka manufactured homes and aka prefabricated homes, give or take a few differences) has been rising, no doubt also in part due to their average price of $78,500, significantly lower than your average home.

Working out of factories rather than the mobile-home sites, builders devise and plan new ways of building, insulating, and delivering homes to a site (either owned land or rented space in a community). The cost is favorable to traditionally-built homes because builders can buy supplies in bulk and achieve greater efficiency than an onsite construction crew.


                                                                             Veev factory floor

Luxury Prefabs

Veev uses prefab principles to deliver permanent residential homes, creating luxury homes with smart technologies. The company just raised a Series D round from Bond Capital. Seattle-based Stillwater Dwellings is gaining popularity for its luxury offerings in places like Napa. For something smaller scale, United Dwellings in Los Angeles will build you a backyard ADU (accessory dwelling unit) and manage a tenant for you to earn extra income or to have a place for your mother-in-law. 

For more on this topic, check out this New Yorker piece on private equity firms buying up mobile home parks or drool over these enviable prefabricated houses from Grand Designs.