Today, thoughts of working on a modular home factory production line isn’t the job many younger Americans want to grow old in. They also do not want to work in many other jobs where “hustle” is a requirement, like restaurants or construction. About 6% of the population or...

Many of the problems we hear about and actually see on jobsites, both offsite and site built, involve the poor quality of standard SPF #2. When I was the General Manager of a large lumber yard back in the 1980s, it wasn’t much better. I can still remember the yard men cutting the steel...

One of the words most often heard when talking about the modular construction industry is “capacity.” Webster defines it as “the amount that something can produce.” Somehow that just doesn’t seem like the right definition for modular construction. One of the...

As more builders, developers, and customers begin using modular construction instead of just thinking about it, the existing modular housing industry is being pushed, pulled, and thrown into a new reality. Too Much Demand! How can that be a bad thing? It can if there are very few new...

The construction industry in the US is facing a shortage of skilled trade laborers but many off-site housing factories are overlooking the opportunity women can bring to the table. The current skilled labor shortage is due to several factors, including the emphasis on getting a four-year...

The Off-Site construction industry is having a great year despite COVID-19. Most builders and developers are too busy working with new buyers, planning projects, and doing all the “in your face” work that needs to be done right now to worry much about next month, let alone next...

Usually I am the first person in line shouting the benefits of modular construction to help the affordable housing market, but not this time. That’s because it doesn’t matter how you approach the affordable housing market if there isn’t enough factory capacity to keep ahead...

When the first automobiles began showing up on the streets more than 100 years ago, most were built in barns and warehouses one at a time. There were no car dealers as the two or three person shop that built them also sold them. Car builders began popping up in every small town in the...

When we think of poverty, we think homelessness, food banks, and welfare. Chronic poverty was once compared to catching a grasshopper in a jar when we were kids. The jar had a lid with holes poked in it. For a while, the grasshopper jumped up and kept hitting his head against the lid. Then he...

Shortly after COVID-19 became the most debilitating thing that has happened to the US economy in recent history, modular construction stepped up to fill the demand for temporary medical facilities. Many modules were built to meet that need, but here we are just 5 months later and that market...