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by liseman 3375 days ago
thanks for the feedback. what are the most compelling prefabs you've found that are actually shipping, and how much do they cost?
1 comments

Prefab is a loaded term - unfortunately, depending on people's experiences, it can be loaded in very different ways.

At YC, there's Acre (Pacific NW, California, Colorado): http://www.acredesigns.com/

I work with BrightBuilt (New England originally, now shipping in the mid-Atlantic as well): http://brightbuilthome.com/

Up here in Maine we also have Ecocor, which is a panel product: https://www.ecocor.us/

I think those are a couple of good prefab examples, although none of them hang their designs on the shipping container form factor (and I specifically picked three 'prefab' companies with very different delivery methods). Most prefab companies I have experience with have gone that way, primarily because the width constraints of a container aren't great once you get above one or two modules.

I think the branding (or rebranding) of small homes built on tow-able platforms as 'tiny homes' was a genius stroke of marketing. If you can do that with the Boxouse that's some secret sauce, but in the absence of a strong brand I think the Boxouse units will end up being called 'trailers' as opposed to 'prefab'.