In almost every MGM musical in the 1940’s, just as Judy
Garland and Mickey Rooney seem to run out of luck, someone comes up with the
idea of putting on a show. Ideas follow fast and furious, until the cliché line
(“My uncle has a barn! We can do our show there!”) serves as the
turning point after which a huge musical seems to magically appear.
The same thing seems to be happening on the “prefab” side of
the modular home industry. The “prefab” I am referring to is really just a
modular home that is built west of the
primarily in the Land of Oz called the West Coast.
East coast new home builders call their homes “modular” and
buy them from large production home factories. These builders rarely use social
media to tout their wares. There are a few exceptions but for the most part
they are traditional new home builders and advertise like they have for many
years, even decades. But they can learn a lot from their west coast prefab
contemporaries.
Jetson Green and many other blogs and websites devoted to
everything green and sustainable have for many years published articles about
prefab homes that are either Lego designed or made from shipping containers.
The people behind almost all these newfangled “prefab” homes
are Architects, designers or dedicated tree huggers with a vision. There is nothing
wrong with that. In fact, the self proclaimed Inventor of Prefab housing,
Michele Kaufmann, is an Architect. But unlike MK, they didn’t go out and start
a factory which went belly up a short time later.
Instead, after they had their designs, they searched for a
modular home factory to build their unique home and then went on a marketing
tear the likes of which the more traditional modular home builder has never
considered.
Just like Judy and Mickey, they say “my uncle builds modular
homes. We can have him build it for us.” This is a very smart way to get
started. No factory overhead if the business goes belly up. And just like Judy and Mickey, they market
their designs to every green, tree hugging blog and journalist they can find. Many
of the factories turning out these “one-off” prefabs do not have assembly
lines, relying instead on cribbing their homes which requires a longer build
time and higher costs. That doesn’t appear to be a major problem to the west
coast new home buyer.
That buyer loves the idea that their home might be featured
on a blog somewhere. Even Walt Disney’s nephew is pimping his new Blu Homes
prefab modular.
The west coast prefab people can teach the east coast
builders quite a lot about getting the message out about their homes. Could you
imagine the buzz our industry would get if every modular home builder and their
factory started mimicking the efforts of the west coast folks? There would be
mayhem with all the orders for new homes coming into the factories. Buyers
would begin to understand the benefits of modular construction. Developers and
tract home builders would flood the factories with orders.
But alas, it won’t happen anytime soon. Most factories
simply sit back and think that as the economy improves, it will automatically
increase sales for the factory. 3% of a
rising tide is good enough.
 |
| Just waiting for that old 3% rising tide to wake me up |
I’ll bet those west coast guys are looking at the stodgy
east coast home builders and asking why they aren’t trying harder. Your guess
is as good as mine.
