[josh_s]

Lots of interest comments on the efficiency of building homes.

The bigger issue is the cost of land. The differential for land to build is often 10:1.

So even if the prefab shave 10-20% the price for a custom build, it's still not making much of a difference for the normal buyer.

unless a develop or government was opening up mutiple parcels of land well below the costs to build a house, prefab is not really going to be worth it.

[davkan]

If the land cost is 10:1 then chances are that is a lot ripe for townhomes/apartments. Desirable single home plots in the suburbs of my mid sized city are like 1:3 with the cheapest new builds from a local builder.

[bombcar]

> The differential for land to build is often 10:1.

What does this mean?

Land around here is cheap as free.

[stouset]

That is almost assuredly because nobody wants to live there. Now try this for locations that people actually want to live in.

[fragmede]

With what size housing unit though? If we're trying to make livable dense housing, the developer is going vertical and getting much better than 10:1.

[trollbridge]

Trailer parks are a thing that does exist; you can even often find an available slot in one. It turns out that most people don't want to live in a highly-dense area with mass-manufactured housing.

[josh_s]

yep, and that's what we see a lot of round here. this is still not driving pre-fab adoption. ie, a single family dwelling selling for $3m, knocked down and replaced with 8x apartments sold for $750k. no interest doing a prefab single family dwelling at any price.

[meetingthrower]

Right but that margin is tight!? Total rev of $6m, entry cost before anything built of $3m. $3m to play with. 8 units selling for $750k and you want to build them for under $300k a piece? Tight.