In a recent interview with Andrew Barden I asked if his company was considering entering the modular home business. After I published it I took a second glance at his opinion of our industry.
Andrew Barden: “I’m fascinated by modular. I think that modular is still in its teething phase, there’s unbelievable untapped potential.”
This had me wondering why someone in the panelized construction business would view the 100+ year old modular industry as a child with teeth about to sprout and then it occurred to me that he was observing our industry from outside the forest while I was observing it from inside.
By moving outside our industry forest and looking at it with a new prospective I think I see some problems more clearly.
Here is the first of my observations of our industry:
No Effective Residential Modular Building Associations.
Our industry has two main associations, the Modular Home Builders Association and NAHB’s Building System Council. Both are run by very good people that try every day to further the benefits of modular construction, both hold annual meetings that attract factories, builders and suppliers, both send out regular communications to their members and both work tirelessly to promote modular housing to new home buyers.
Why then would I say they are ineffective if they are doing all these things? Well, it boils down to the small number of members each has been able to garner over the past few years. With over 100 residential modular factories, more than a thousand modular home builders and hundreds of building material manufacturers and suppliers across the US, only a very small number have joined either association.
Most of those choosing not to join simply sit on the sidelines and wait for the few that contribute to an association to fight restrictive legislation, those terrible and costly new building codes, promote our industry and then they read what the associations post on social media.
Without a large membership reaching across the entire US bringing in more dues into their efforts we may forever be left in the “teething stage” as Andrew Barden observed.
Stop sitting in the corner sucking your thumb, take a minute right now to visit both the MHBA and BSC websites and join one or both. It will be the best investment you will ever make for the residential modular housing industry and your business.
United, builders and factories can speak with a loud voice that gets the attention of state legislatures, code officials and more importantly, new home buyers.
