Modular Housing Industry Needs to Get Off Its’ Butt Now

Last week the NAHB released the latest figures on modular housing in the US and it came as a shock to many in the modular housing industry that our market share of new home starts dropped from 3% to 1.5% last year.

All along we have been asking ourselves what we can do to raise our market share to 4 or even 5% and the whole time it was actually, according to the NAHB, falling to half what it was.

I’ve been looking around and can’t quite put my finger on it. I’ve reached out to some of the modular home industry’s most knowledgeable people and they were just as mystified as me. Nobody has seen such a reversal of fortune for our industry.

Last year I wrote an article entitled Modular Housing’s Fallen Flags featuring all the factories that had closed after the 2008 housing crisis. Many well-known companies fell by the side of the road. 

Today I see modular factories shuttered and several running well below the capacity needed to break even.

That would explain the 1.5% but it doesn’t explain the reason we have dropped to almost becoming a non-player in the new home market.

Have we become an industry losing its way? We have no regional or national marketing presence. 

We have no industry promotions enticing site builders to become modular builders. We have no industry training for new sales reps, set crews and code enforcement people. We do seem to have a lot of excuses though.

I could go on and on but you get the picture. We are neither planning nor preparing for the future and that is all of our faults.

Excuses range from lack of interest to lack of anyone leading the effort to a lack of marketing expertise to what we point to first, a lack of money.

None of these are correct. We have the people, we have the knowledge and we have a source of money. What we don’t have is the heart to fight.

The Modular Home Builder Association, MHBA, is ready, willing and able to champion our cause but it needs more factory, builder and especially associate members to join its ranks.

Modcoach holds Builder Breakfasts and Boot Camps and many more are being planned for next year in New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Indiana. But I need more participation to continue them.

Here is an example of the apathy within our industry. The October 21st Builder Breakfast will feature the State Modular Housing Directors from MA and PA along with Stan Weaver. They will speak and answer your questions about code, set crews and just about anything else you want to know. You would think that factory people and builders would jump at this opportunity to meet them one on one and participate in an Open Forum but that is not happening. Only a few factories have signed up and just 2 builders.

Click Here to learn more about the October Builder Breakfast and make your reservation.

You want to know why our industry is losing ground to site builders. The answer is simple. We don’t do anything to help ourselves. Factories sit around like its 2008 trying to figure out how to squeeze more homes out of their builders while those same builders are worrying more about how to pay their bills than actually working together to grow our industry.

Tom Hardiman, Excutive Director of the MHBA, and I, Modcoach, are willing to lead the charge but every time we look back to see where the troops are we see the same faces while others are sitting on the sidelines cheering us on but won’t take the time or effort to join the battle.

1.5% should be tattooed on everyone’s forehead that doesn’t answer the call to arms.