Manufactured Housing Is Ready for a Bigger Role. Are Our Communities Ready to Let It?

I keep coming back to a simple question whenever the conversation turns to affordable housing: How many workable answers are we willing to overlook while waiting for something better? Manufactured housing deserves a serious place in that discussion, particularly when the objective is getting people into new homes they can reasonably afford.

A recent Moneywise article examines why manufactured housing remains underused despite its potential. It describes an industry still dealing with outdated perceptions, financing obstacles, and resistance to allowing its homes into more neighborhoods. To me, that raises a practical question for everyone involved in housing: What good is a lower-cost home if the buyer cannot find a workable path to owning it?

I have no problem with using American-made materials to build American homes. Supporting our manufacturers, keeping people employed, and strengthening domestic production are worthwhile goals. But when pursuing those goals slows the construction of housing people desperately need, I think we have earned the right to ask a few uncomfortable questions.

That is the dilemma surrounding Build America, Buy America, the domestic sourcing law Congress enacted in 2021. Its requirements apply to certain federally funded construction projects, including affordable housing. Developers have reported difficulty finding qualifying products and securing waivers, leading to delays and added costs. Associated Press reporting

For an industry already trying to make difficult projects financially possible, this adds another consideration before construction can move forward. Finding a product that meets the plans, satisfies the building code, and fits the budget may no longer finish the purchasing conversation. Someone also has to establish whether it meets the applicable domestic sourcing requirements.

I keep looking at the housing offered to young adults and wondering how we arrived here. An individual bed or sleeping pod, shared bathrooms and showers, a communal kitchen, and a lounge where everyone works on laptops or watches television. For some Gen Z members trying to establish themselves in California and other expensive cities, that arrangement provides a foothold they can actually afford.

A New Name for Shared Living

Usually called co-living, this housing ranges from a bed in a shared sleeping room to a private bedroom with shared household facilities. Those are very different levels of privacy, even when the advertising uses the same label. In many ways, we are revisiting the boardinghouse idea, with Wi-Fi, shared workspaces, and a different marketing approach.

Fresh Eyes on Modular Construction By Jorie Wisnefski

Last week, Gary Fleisher wrote about humanoid robots entering the modular housing factory, and I thought about my own history with robotics and wanted to learn more.

So, I started investigating with Fresh Eyes.

A factory seems like the perfect application for robots. Unlike a jobsite, a factory is controlled. The work is repetitive. The materials are in one place. The process can be mapped out.

But the more I dug, the more I realized that "controlled" doesn't necessarily mean "predictable."

Take lumber variability as an example.

For years, we have talked about residential and commercial modular construction as though they were two departments within the same industry. Both build inside factories, both transport large components to job sites, and both depend on engineering, code approvals, skilled labor, transportation, cranes, and field completion. From the outside, the similarities appear greater than the differences.

Inside the industry, however, the distance between the two business models is growing.

Commercial modular construction is increasingly becoming an integrated project-delivery system. More advanced companies form relationships with developers, architects, general contractors, institutional owners, lenders, and major suppliers long before the first module enters production. Residential modular factories, meanwhile, often continue operating primarily as product manufacturers serving independent builders, dealers, and individual homebuyers.

That difference affects almost everything: sales, engineering, production scheduling, purchasing, financing, risk, transportation, field coordination, and even how factory capacity is valued.

What appears externally as a small niche within the larger construction industry is becoming a market in which project economics are being rewritten. Factory-controlled production can compress schedules that conventional field construction struggles to match. Supply-chain integration is becoming a competitive differentiator, not merely a purchasing function. Developers and contractors that secure dependable manufacturing relationships early can offer schedule and cost certainty their competitors may not match.

The factories that understand this shift are moving beyond selling modules. They are selling control over time, risk, labor, and project delivery.

I keep coming back to a question that deserves more attention whenever housing affordability comes up: How serious are we about making room for the homes people can afford? We can encourage factory investment, improve production and promote better designs, but eventually every home needs an address. That is where the conversation moves from what the industry can build to what a community will accept.

A recent Governing article by Pew’s Dennis Su and Rachel Siegel examines how states can expand manufactured housing through changes to zoning, financing and other policies. Their argument deserves the attention of everyone in offsite construction: improving the home itself only goes so far when the rules around its placement and purchase remain obstacles. Read the Governing article.

For me, this raises a practical challenge for public officials. Before commissioning another housing study, take a proposed manufactured home through your own approval process. Find out where it can go, what the buyer must do, and how much uncertainty that buyer faces before anyone can schedule delivery.

I have to wonder what we are measuring when we celebrate another affordable housing development. Are we counting completed apartments, or asking whether the people who need them most can actually move in? An Associated Press report published by ABC15 describes more than 4,500 apartments classified as affordable sitting vacant in Austin while people with extremely limited incomes struggle to find shelter. That should make everyone involved in housing pause before announcing the next success story.

The report identifies a mismatch between the incomes many subsidized developments serve and what the poorest renters can pay. It also describes developers whose mortgage and operating costs make deeper rent reductions difficult without additional assistance. Those two realities deserve to be considered together. Blaming a developer does little good if the property cannot cover its expenses, but calling an apartment affordable offers little comfort to someone whose monthly income cannot cover the rent.

For those of us in offsite construction, this raises a question I believe belongs in every discussion about housing innovation: affordable for whom? Before we debate factory capacity, production speed, or the next building system, I want to know the intended resident’s income and the monthly housing payment the project must achieve. That gives the construction team a meaningful target. Otherwise, we risk congratulating ourselves for solving a production problem while leaving the affordability question unanswered.

I would like every affordable housing announcement to explain who can realistically live there, what residents will pay, and what assistance is needed to make those payments possible. Those questions should shape the project from the beginning. A ribbon cutting marks an accomplishment, but I believe the more meaningful test comes afterward, when a resident receives the keys and can afford to keep them.

CLICK HERE to read the entire ABC15 article

Gary’s Observation

I remain convinced that offsite construction has an important role in the housing conversation, but we should be precise about what we promise. A better way to build deserves serious consideration; it also needs a financial plan that connects the finished home to the intended resident. My question for the next affordable housing panel is simple: show me how the person with the smallest paycheck gets through the front door. If we can answer that clearly, we have something worth celebrating.

Bring Your Questions to the East Coast Factory Innovation Roundtable

Gary Fleisher, the Modcoach, and Jorie Wisnefski invite you to the East Coast Factory Innovation Roundtable on October 28, from 8:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. at the Inn at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Sponsored by Uni-Frame and 4WardSolutions, this one-day event includes breakfast and lunch.

This will be more than another meeting where speakers simply tell you what they can do for your company. Attendees will have more opportunities than ever to ask questions, challenge ideas, and discuss the real issues facing offsite construction.

Companies may bring up to four people, with management, engineering, production, and sales professionals strongly encouraged to attend. Builders, developers, factory teams, suppliers, and people from across the offsite construction community are invited to join the conversation.

China Isn’t Just Exporting Products Anymore—It’s Exporting Houses

For years, the words “Made in China” brought to mind electronics, appliances, furniture, and countless consumer products shipped worldwide. Today, that same manufacturing reach is moving into housing, as Chinese companies increasingly promote prefabricated and modular homes to international buyers seeking faster construction, lower labor requirements, and more predictable pricing. What was once viewed as a niche export is becoming part of a much larger global housing conversation.

Chinese manufacturers seem to understand something many American offsite companies still struggle to accept: the international market does not always want another factory—it wants a finished building system that can be purchased, shipped, and assembled. By combining standardized designs, industrial-scale production and established export networks, these companies can offer homes, classrooms, offices, worker accommodations and emergency housing to buyers thousands of miles from the factory. A single production line can turn out 50 housing modules a day.

That does not mean every imported modular house will meet the building codes, climate demands, financing requirements, or consumer expectations of every country.

Buyers must still examine structural standards, fire resistance, energy performance, transportation costs, foundations, utility connections, installation responsibilities, and long-term service. An attractive factory price can quickly lose its appeal when the building reaches a port, and everyone begins asking who will obtain approvals, complete the site work, and stand behind the warranty.

Even with those challenges, China’s growing presence in the global prefabricated-housing market should attract the attention of every American modular and offsite manufacturer. Chinese producers are not waiting for the world to discover them. They are displaying their products internationally, refining standardized designs and presenting factory-built housing as an exportable consumer product rather than a regional construction service. Whether they ultimately succeed in every market is less important than the fact that they are willing to compete in them.

Gary’s Observation

The greatest lesson may not be that China can manufacture modular houses more cheaply. It may be that Chinese companies think globally, while much of the American modular industry still thinks within a comfortable delivery radius of its factories.

American manufacturers have tremendous strengths in engineering, code compliance, quality, and regional market knowledge, but those advantages will not protect them indefinitely from international competitors that improve their products with every shipment.

We should not dismiss these homes simply because they arrive in containers or because some early examples may fail to meet our standards. We should study how they are designed, marketed, sold, and delivered, because the company that learns how to turn a building into a repeatable global product may help determine the next chapter of offsite construction.

Gen Z Is Walking Into Our Factories—and Challenging Everything We Learned About Work

For the past two or three decades, Generation X and older Millennials have gradually assumed control of America’s offsite construction companies. We are now the owners, general managers, production managers, department heads, and supervisors responsible for getting homes through the factory and onto the jobsite.

Most of us learned management from people who believed personal problems belonged at home, overtime was part of the job, and complaining was something employees did after work. When production fell behind, everyone stayed late. When a department was short-handed, the dependable employees were expected to carry more of the load. If the plant manager lost his temper, people usually avoided him until he calmed down.

It was not always healthy, but it was familiar.

Now Generation Z is entering our factories, and many of these young workers are rejecting that entire understanding of employment. They are not simply asking for higher wages or more vacation time. They are questioning why the workplace operates the way it does, why management communicates so poorly, and why sacrificing mental health should be considered proof of commitment.

That makes many veteran managers uncomfortable.

We see young employees who need more direction, become overwhelmed more easily, question instructions, resist mandatory overtime, and use words such as “toxic,” “burnout,” “boundaries,” and “mental health” far more often than previous generations. Some managers conclude that Gen Z is lazy, fragile or completely unprepared for the realities of factory work.

Enough evidence supports some of that frustration.

There is also enough evidence to suggest that we may be misunderstanding part of what we are seeing.

The central question is not whether Generation Z must adapt to the offsite construction industry. They absolutely must. A production line cannot stop every time an employee feels uncomfortable, a module cannot leave the factory with defective wiring because someone was having a difficult day, and a customer will not accept a missed delivery date because the production team needed better work-life balance.

However, the industry must decide whether every management practice inherited from previous generations is worth defending.

Starting a new offsite construction factory is exciting—maybe too exciting. There is something powerful about standing in an empty building, looking at a set of plans and imagining production lines, finished modules rolling out the door, builders calling for more homes, and a company that finally helps solve the housing problem everyone keeps talking about.

I understand the attraction. You may have identified a genuine need in your market because local builders cannot obtain dependable factory capacity or housing demand is growing faster than conventional builders can respond. Perhaps you have spent years watching existing factories miss deadlines, deliver homes with too many problems, or treat customers as though they should be grateful for whatever they receive.

You may honestly believe you can do it better, and you might be right. Before ordering the equipment, hiring the first production manager, or signing a lease on a building that looks perfect from the interstate, however, you should take enough time to determine whether the opportunity is as strong as it appears.

I am not suggesting that every new factory is headed for trouble. Offsite construction needs new ideas, stronger leadership, better factories, and people willing to take calculated risks. The industry will not grow if everyone remains on the sidelines waiting for someone else to solve its problems.

The danger is that many prospective owners do not fully understand what they are starting. They are not simply creating construction companies; they are creating manufacturing companies that happen to build homes. That distinction has swallowed more good intentions, investor capital, and promising startups than most people in the industry care to admit.

Fresh Eyes on Modular By: Jorie Wisnefski

I learned about Wright’s Law this week from Regan Robertson, and I immediately saw how it applies to modular construction.

Someone else has already tested the idea inside a modular construction factory.

Wright’s Law describes a simple relationship: as cumulative production increases, the resources required to produce each additional unit tend to decrease. People learn. Processes improve. Technology gets refined. Mistakes get eliminated.

Those of us who are parents call it, Learning by Doing.

A 2023 study, Identification of Learning Effects in Modular Construction Manufacturing, analyzed production data from an actual modular factory. Researchers found that production time generally decreased as cumulative production increased. In the factory they studied, production time dropped from more than 190 days to around 120 days during the mass production of 149 modular units.

That's a great example of learning through repetition.

Doing something repeatedly isn't necessarily the same as learning from it.

We learn when something doesn't work.

A delay. A material shortage. A scheduling problem. A workaround everyone has just accepted. A module sitting in a yard because the next step in the process isn't ready.

Those moments create friction.

And we tend to try to eliminate friction.

But we should also see friction as information.

Innovation lives in friction.

However, recognizing a problem doesn't change a single thing. There has to be awareness that a change is needed, a willingness to change it, knowledge of the right innovation, application of that knowledge, and tenacity for the new approach.

Learning doesn't become innovation until it changes what happens.

That's an interesting lesson for modular construction because friction doesn't happen in just one place.

A purchasing decision can create a production problem. A production decision can create a transportation problem. A transportation delay can affect the jobsite. A foundation issue can waylay a finished module.

Everyone may understand their own piece of the process well, but are we capturing what the friction is teaching us about the whole process?

Modular has an enormous opportunity right there.

If we're going to scale the industry, we shouldn't just focus on building more. We should be getting better at turning experience into knowledge and, therein, knowledge into better processes.

What we’re learning from those problems is part of the thinking behind the conversation Gary Fleisher and I are putting together for our October summit in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. We’re bringing together people who understand different points across the process—from ERP and purchasing through manufacturing, transportation, foundations and the jobsite—to talk honestly about what drives them crazy in their own part of the process, how they’ve worked around it, and where they’re still looking for better answers.

The idea isn’t that no one has the definitive solution. It’s that someone else in the room may have seen the problem from a different angle, tried something that could help, or have an idea worth exploring. We’re hoping to create a space where people can troubleshoot and think through the problems together.

The goal isn't to talk about innovation in the abstract.

It's to look at the friction, understand what the fire is telling us, and see what we can learn from it.

Because if Wright's Law is right, experience should make us better.

And we have to make sure we're really learning from it.

Jorie Wisnefski

** Repetition can make us better, but only if we learn from the problems we encounter. In modular construction, friction between different parts of the process can reveal opportunities to improve. Gary Fleisher and Jorie Wisnefski’s October summit will bring modular construction people together to share those problems, compare what they've tried, and brainstorm better solutions.

Can Bioplastics Move Beyond Packaging and Into Construction? with Video

Plastic has become one of construction’s most useful—and troublesome—materials.

It appears in insulation, vapor barriers, plumbing, flooring, roofing membranes, window components, sealants, siding, packaging, and countless other products. Its durability makes it valuable inside a building, but that same durability becomes a problem when the material is discarded and remains in the environment for decades or centuries.

Bioplastics are often presented as the greener answer. They can be produced partly or entirely from renewable materials, and some are designed to biodegrade or be composted under specific conditions.

That sounds promising. It also requires more explanation than the word “bioplastic” usually receives.

Not every bioplastic is biodegradable. Not every biodegradable plastic is plant-based. Even compostable materials may require an industrial facility and carefully controlled conditions before they break down.

As construction searches for lower-impact materials, bioplastics deserve serious attention—but preferably without pretending they are all the same or ready to replace conventional building plastics everywhere.

Most companies judge their websites by appearance. They ask whether the design looks modern, the photographs are attractive, and the pages display properly on a phone.

Those things matter, but they do not answer the most important question:

Is the website actually doing its job?

That is why I developed the Website Effectiveness Index—or WEI—an extensive, independent website evaluation, report, and numerical rating system created specifically for companies serving the construction and real-estate industries.

WEI is available for:

Offsite factories
Traditional builders and contractors
Building-product and equipment manufacturers
Construction professional services
Construction and real-estate software companies

Each evaluation examines how effectively the website explains the company, builds credibility, reaches its intended audiences, and turns visitors into qualified prospects.

More Than a Quick Website Review

WEI is not a brief checklist or automated website scan. It is an extensive examination of the entire website from the perspective of the people the company wants to reach.

Depending on the business, that could include homebuyers, builders, developers, architects, engineers, contractors, dealers, distributors, investors or potential employees.

The evaluation considers areas such as:

Brand clarity and professionalism
Products and services
Customer and project focus
Industry credibility
Photographs, videos and project portfolios
Technical and educational information
Calls to action
Lead-generation opportunities
Recruiting visibility
B2B and B2C effectiveness

The company receives a detailed written report, strategic observations, and specific opportunities for improvement. The goal is not simply to identify weaknesses. It provides practical, actionable information the company can use.

A Confidential Numerical Rating

Every WEI evaluation also includes a numerical rating showing how effectively the website performs and where it ranks compared with other websites in its industry category.

The rating provides a measurable benchmark—not simply one person’s general opinion. It helps a company understand whether its website is leading the market, performing competitively, or falling behind in important areas.

Individual company reports and ratings are strictly confidential. A company receives its own results and comparative position, but WEI never discloses the names, reports, or ratings of other companies.

Completely Independent

WEI is not affiliated with a website designer, marketing agency, SEO consultant or website-development service.

That independence matters.

An evaluation should not be a sales proposal disguised as an objective review. I don't evaluate a website and then try to sell the company a replacement website or a package of marketing services.

The company can take the findings to its current website creator, internal marketing team, or any professional it chooses. The company makes the final decisions—and any resulting work remains entirely with it.

What Industry Leaders Are Saying

Craig Landri of Signature Building Systems called his evaluation “thorough, objective, and most importantly, actionable.” He added that it introduced ideas with real merit and identified specific opportunities for improvement.

John Colucci of Westchester Modular Homes described his evaluation in just three words:

“Extensive and WOW.”

Those comments capture exactly what WEI is intended to deliver: an honest, comprehensive assessment that goes far beyond whether a website simply looks good.

A company’s website may be the first salesperson, showroom, recruiting office and source of credibility a prospective customer encounters. It works around the clock, but that does not necessarily mean it is working effectively.

WEI provides an independent answer, a confidential industry benchmark and a practical path forward.

Learn more about the Website Effectiveness Index:

Click here: Inquiry

Solving What We Can’t Solve Alone

Fresh Eyes on Modular By Jorie Wisnefski

After my weekly call with Gary Fleisher, I couldn’t stop thinking about throughput.

Not production speed or how the factory works, but throughput.

Let me explain the difference as I see it.

We can make a factory faster at cutting, assembling, or finishing modules and still fail to move more product through the system.

Where ERP Fits In

A factory doesn’t operate in isolation. Think about the journey…order → planning → ERP → purchasing → inventory → production → quality control → staging → transportation → foundation at the jobsite.

Every handoff is an opportunity for the system to slow down.

If the ERP doesn’t accurately communicate what needs to be built, the factory starts with bad information. If inventory isn’t synchronized with production, an efficient production line can sit waiting for material. If production gets ahead of staging or transportation, we may have simply moved the bottleneck somewhere else, as I’ve written about before.

Transportation is particularly interesting in modular. The finished product itself creates constraints that don’t exist in conventional manufacturing. A module can be completed, inspected, and ready to go, but if it’s sitting in a yard waiting for a truck, it isn’t fully through the system.

The construction industry says it needs approximately 349,000 additional workers in 2026 just to meet current demand. In 2027, that number is projected to jump to about 456,000 as spending on infrastructure and manufacturing begins growing again.

Those are not small numbers. They are large enough to delay projects, raise construction costs, and make an already serious housing shortage even more difficult to solve.

The usual explanation is that America has run out of people willing or able to work in the skilled trades. I became curious about that explanation because the country also has millions of unemployed people.

How can we have a shortage of hundreds of thousands of workers while millions of working-age Americans are unemployed?

Maybe the problem is not simply a shortage of people. Maybe it is a shortage of training, access, and coordination.

A modular factory can estimate every stud, sheet of drywall, length of wire, and hour of labor required to build a project. It can add overhead, include a reasonable profit, and produce what everyone believes is an accurate quote.

Then the project begins—and the profit starts disappearing.

That does not necessarily mean the estimator made a mistake. The problem is that a factory quote reflects what everyone knows when it is prepared. The project may not enter production for several months, and plenty can change between those two dates.

Transportation costs increase. Permits take longer than expected. The site is not ready. An inspector wants something different. The builder changes a specification. A supplier cannot deliver the material originally quoted.

Individually, these changes may not appear serious. Together, they can turn a profitable project into one the factory is simply trying to finish without losing too much money.

Inspiration – Preparation – Perspiration – Dedication – Celebration

I was thinking recently about the words we use to describe starting a business. We talk about vision, innovation, disruption and all the other things that sound impressive in a presentation. But when I tried to reduce the journey to words that actually describe what a startup owner must go through, I came up with five: inspiration, preparation, perspiration, dedication and celebration.

They sound pretty good together. You could put them on the wall of a new factory, print them in an investor presentation or use them as the theme of a grand opening speech. However, the words only mean something if you are willing to do the work between them.

For someone starting an offsite construction business, that work begins long before the first module or panel leaves the building.

Fresh Eyes on Modular By Jorie Wisnefski

Now that the cat’s out of the bag, I can talk more about why I’m excited for the Offsite Factory Roundtable that Gary Fleisher and I are putting together.

Gary recently wrote about the challenge of moving innovation from a great idea into an actual working factory. His article made me reflect on my own experiences with innovation—and, more importantly, about what I’ve learned from watching people react to change.

At Urban Machine, I experienced this shift firsthand.

We were working on a robot designed to remove metal fasteners from construction wood waste so that the lumber could be reclaimed and reused rather than ground up and buried in a landfill.

The idea is pretty straightforward.

But then came the questions.

“How do you use the wood with holes in it?”

“Why should we slow down our quick process of just getting rid of old wood?”

And, ultimately, “Is changing the process worth it?”

Another modular home manufacturer has closed its doors, but the unfinished buildings left behind may be easier to identify than the financial and contractual obligations now to be untangled.

Perth-based Bella Modular has notified customers that significant financial difficulties have made it impossible to complete their projects. The company has vacated its manufacturing premises in Hopeland, on Perth's southern fringe, Western Australia.

Bella Modular told customers that it had arranged for an independent modular builder to take over the management and construction of their homes. However, the notice did not identify the replacement builder, and customers were told they would receive additional information within 14 days.

That announcement may offer some hope, but it leaves several urgent questions unanswered.

Who is the new builder? Has it formally agreed to accept every project? Does it have the factory capacity, workforce and working capital required to complete them? What will happen to the deposits already paid to Bella Modular? Will customers be required to contribute more money before construction can resume?

Until those questions are answered, this is not yet a completed rescue plan. It is a proposed transfer involving customers who have already waited, paid substantial sums and, in some cases, lost confidence in the process.

If you step back from the noise surrounding modular housing, robotics, artificial intelligence and highly automated factories, you may notice something important happening quietly beneath the surface.

The most practical momentum in offsite construction may not be coming from volumetric modules rolling down highways. It may be coming from advanced and emerging panelized systems: wall panels, floor and roof cassettes, structural insulated panels, mass timber assemblies and composite systems that move some of construction’s most labor-intensive and error-prone work into controlled factory environments.

Panelized construction has always been part of the backbone of offsite construction. Roof trusses demonstrated decades ago that a factory-built component could dominate an entire trade when its value was obvious to builders. Floor trusses and cassettes followed, reducing on-site labor while improving speed, safety, and coordination.

Wall panels—open, closed and structural—gained acceptance more gradually. Builders began using them because they offered labor relief without requiring the cultural, logistical and regulatory changes associated with volumetric modular construction.

What is happening now, however, is different.

Advanced panelized systems are no longer being promoted solely as a faster way to frame a building. They are becoming tools to improve performance, predictability, sustainability, resilience, and integration.

They are changing what it means to build offsite, and they may ultimately determine whether industrialized construction moves beyond its current limited share of the overall construction market.

Something has been bothering me lately about the offsite construction industry.

We are seeing more innovative ideas reach the market than at almost any other time I can remember. New products, services, software platforms, building systems, automation tools and manufacturing processes seem to appear every week.

Each one arrives with an impressive collection of promises.

The innovation will save the factory money. It will increase production, reduce waste, solve labor problems, attract new customers and improve profitability. Some claim it will even let a factory produce more homes with fewer workers.

Then the marketing machine takes over.

Industry “experts” begin talking about the innovation on LinkedIn and other social media platforms. The founders appear on podcasts and participate in video interviews. They present at conferences and seminars. Professionally designed websites explain what the product does, who should use it, and when companies should begin thinking about adopting it.

Those presentations usually answer many of the who, what, and when questions.

What they often fail to explain are the two questions that matter most: Why should this work in my factory, and how are my people supposed to make it work?

Almost every story about disruption includes a moment when intelligent, experienced people dismiss an idea that later appears obvious.

Their skepticism is not necessarily caused by a lack of intelligence or imagination. Experienced people have learned how their industry works, what customers accept, what regulators approve, and which investments are likely to produce a return. When someone introduces a subtle change that does not fit those established patterns, the safest response is often to explain why it will not work.

The offsite construction industry has produced more than its share of these moments.

Factory-built housing itself was once treated as a questionable alternative to conventional construction. Panelization was considered too restrictive. Computer-controlled equipment seemed too expensive for factories accustomed to saws, tape measures and handwritten cut lists. Many viewed Building Information Modeling as an elaborate drafting system. Robots were expected to replace every worker—or prove useless because houses were too complicated to automate.

Artificial intelligence is now receiving much the same treatment.

Integrated carrier and structural framing systems are being met with familiar questions about engineering, codes, transportation, and factory disruption. Those questions are legitimate, but they can also keep us from recognizing when an apparently small change can alter an entire production system.

Before the Road to Housing Act was passed, several of the nation’s largest manufactured home companies were already exploring a significant change beneath their homes.

They were looking at whether the permanent steel chassis traditionally required under a HUD-code manufactured home could be removed and replaced with wood rim joists. If approved, the change would allow manufactured homes to use essentially the same type of perimeter floor system commonly found in modular homes built to state and local building codes.

That possibility could reduce material costs, eliminate some of the visual and structural distinctions between manufactured and modular construction, and give HUD-code producers greater flexibility when designing homes for subdivisions and residential developments.

Then another question began to emerge.

Instead of removing steel from HUD-code homes so they can resemble modular homes, what if both HUD-code and modular factories could use a better steel perimeter frame that becomes a permanent part of the home?

That is the idea behind Uni-Frame.

Most offsite factory owners, upper management teams, and boards do not lose momentum because business suddenly turns bad. In many cases, they begin losing momentum while the company still appears healthy.

The phones are ringing, homes are shipping, margins are acceptable, and the backlog looks reasonably strong. Nobody calls a special meeting to announce that the company has stopped building for the future. It simply happens, one comfortable decision at a time, as leadership gradually shifts from improving the business to protecting what already exists.

Fresh Eyes for Offsite by Jorie Wisnefski

Watch a modular construction facility in motion, and sustainability seems almost obvious.
Materials are stored in a controlled environment. Cuts can be planned and repeated. Workers aren't building in the mud, cold, or rain. Materials aren't sitting outside exposed to the elements. Waste is collected in one place instead of scattered across dozens of jobsites.
And when the building leaves the factory, a significant portion of the work is already done.
It's efficient.
But is it really more sustainable?
That’s a more complicated question—and one the modular industry could ask more often.

I am tired of hearing modular construction compared to automobile manufacturing. I am even more tired of consultants, automation salespeople, and self-appointed experts telling factory owners that our industry needs to become more like the auto industry.

They usually point to the assembly line, robotics, automation, standardized parts, computerized production, and cars moving smoothly from one station to the next. Then they look at a modular factory and wonder why we cannot build houses the same way Ford, General Motors, Toyota, or Honda build automobiles.

If the auto industry is so damned efficient and should be our model, let me tell you what I see when I look at it.

For more than three decades, I have listened to people in the offsite construction industry debate why modular construction hasn't grown faster. Some believe we have never developed a strong enough message. Others say the public still confuses modular homes with manufactured housing. Some people still assume anything built in a factory must be cheaply made, while others expect modular construction to cost substantially less simply because it happens indoors.

Now I am hearing renewed talk that what the industry really needs is a catchy motto and a powerful 30-second commercial. If we could just find the right words, show a few modules being lifted by a crane and add some inspiring music, perhaps buyers and developers would finally understand what we have been trying to tell them.

I wish it were that simple.

A clever slogan might generate attention, and a polished commercial could spark curiosity, but neither addresses the real obstacles holding modular construction back. After watching this industry for more than 30 years, I believe we are still trying to solve operational and credibility problems with marketing.

Successful Factories Are Already Telling Us Something

Some modular factories are doing quite well. Their production schedules are full, their customers return with additional projects, and they have developed reputations for delivering what they promise. Other factories continue to flounder, struggle to produce acceptable profits, and wait for the market to discover them.

BOXABL recently announced that it is open to mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, land contributions, talent additions, and technology partnerships across the housing industry.

On the surface, this sounds like an ambitious expansion strategy. It may also signal that BOXABL wants to evolve beyond manufacturing its Casita product and become a broader housing platform.

The company completed its merger with FG Merger II Corp. in July and now trades publicly on Nasdaq under the symbol BXBL. Having publicly traded stock potentially gives BOXABL another way to structure acquisitions and partnerships without relying entirely on cash.

Buying What Takes Years to Build

A carefully selected acquisition could give BOXABL capabilities that normally take years to develop. Those might include experienced factory leadership, established sales channels, approved building systems, entitled land, installation operations, or an existing workforce.

The challenge will be execution. Housing companies are difficult to combine because every factory has its own products, approvals, production methods, customers, and culture. Acquiring those capabilities is only the beginning; successfully integrating them is where the real work starts.

BOXABL’s public filings also show why discipline will be essential. For the first quarter of 2026, the company reported approximately $1.56 million in revenue, a $3.35 million gross loss, and a $7.6 million net loss. Those figures do not prevent BOXABL from pursuing transactions, but they make the terms, financing, and quality of any potential deal especially important.

Strategy or New Narrative?

This announcement could represent a legitimate strategic shift. BOXABL may believe it can combine its brand recognition, public-market access, patents, and promotional reach with established housing companies that already possess manufacturing experience and market presence.

The industry should watch what happens next. One well-chosen acquisition could considerably strengthen BOXABL. A collection of unrelated factories, technologies, and land deals could create greater complexity without solving its central challenge of achieving profitable production at scale.

Gary’s Observation

BOXABL has attracted attention more successfully than almost any housing startup in recent memory. Its next chapter, however, will not be judged by the number of partnership announcements it makes.

It will be judged by whether those partnerships produce homes, sustainable margins, satisfied customers, and a business capable of supporting its ambitions. Opening the door is easy. Choosing who walks through it—and successfully building something together—will be the real test.