Just when you thought Maura McCarthy and Bill Haney, the founders of Blu Homes, didn’t have any cards to play in the modular home game, it appears they are going back to ‘Day One’.
They’ve been manufacturing their premium priced folding homes in their Vallejo factory for five years but is shifting back to outsourced production to make its homes more affordable outside the greater San Francisco Bay Area.
Once serving 22 states, they recently said that they would only sell their homes in northern California. I can’t remember which of the three CEO’s they’ve had in the past year made that announcement but apparently that is out the window in favor of once again marketing their homes to areas outside CA.
Two factories located outside CA that had once built their homes for them are back on the table as possible subcontractors to furnish their homes.
The move from only serving the northern CA market may have been prompted by the high price of a Blu Home, something that even those customers may have found too high. So along with outsourcing their production, they are moving their marketing efforts away from that area and going back to selling in other states.
They are also lowering their prices 15-25%, cutting back on staff to about 15 people and will use one of their model homes for offices.
At one time Blu Homes got more press exposure than the rest of the modular home industry combined. They proclaimed they were the face of the future for our industry. That was a bold claim for a company that has built approximately 250 homes over 8 years. I can’t believe any modular home manufacturer with over 100 production and marketing staff could survive on 30 homes a year. There are modular factories in the US with fewer workers that can turn out 250 custom homes a year.
With well over $100,000,000 in investor money, well over a 100 people working on all phases of production, a PR program that any modular factory would love to have and a series of Whine and Cheese Open Houses prove once again that when outsiders with no history in our industry try to teach the rest of us how to manufacture modular homes that failure just might be around the corner.
Welcome back to the future Blu Homes. Outsourcing your production, establishing a marketing program only for northern CA and lower pricing.
What’s next….Beer and Pizza Open Houses in local VFW’s?
