For a more luxury home, what is the price per square foot?
How much are local contractors involved? What attracted us to a prefab, was the fact that things are built in a factory and limited contractors, but after some research it sounds like there is a hefty chunk of time required with local contractors. How much time?
Looking to build a 3,200 or under square foot house.
Is it worth the time and the effort and what the real gain comparing to a full physical build (which we will not do, due to ridiculous contractors/skill shortage in the Bay Area and time length).
If they aren’t cheap why buy one. Affordablilty is supposed to their forte. In reality they are expensive. If you can’t afford stick built buy an existing home. Prefab makes some sense on flat lots with no power lines, conditions that don’t exist in Burlingame and Hillsborough.
If prefabs were so desirable, how come the big builders like Toll brothers don’t build them?
It’s all about a specific use case. Bay Area is limited in skilled contractors. Building a pre-fab eliminates a large part of working with a contractor other than preparing the house. Many luxury prefabs are higher quality than regular home, especially the cheaply built one around here. Last, but not least, when a home is built over two years it sits in the rain resulting in mold at the get go. When it is built in a factory, the foundation is protected. As for Toll brothers, I think they are working with different budgets and workforce than a consumer, but also don’t build much in either Burlingame or Hillsborough.
There is a reason why there are so few prefabs. You are obviously an industry insider. Give us the name of the company you represent. Get rid of building departments and zoning rules and your job will get easier. Don’t forget the costs of foundations, garages driveways, site work, offsite work, landscaping, utilities, permits …
Consumers are gullible. They have no idea all the extra costs besides the factory cost. Big builders do, that why they stick build and don’t factory build. Their factory is the job site.
I am a consumer who is in the process of researching. I am not promoting or saying pre-fabs will cost less (although, based on my research, they often do). My key point is that building in places like Hillsborough or Burlingame is a 3-year process beginning to end. It is often time prohibitive and combined with a shortage of contractors it is frequently a poor user experience. Pre-fab is an option to get some flexibility around this building “mafia”. As for the factory being a job site, you are right. It is. The key for us, is that it is an indoor job site vs. a weather-exposed one. Unless you have specific cost numbers comparing a consumer local build to a consumer prefab build, you are comparing apples and oranges when talking about mega builds by Toll Brothers. I am not building a complex as toll brothers would, so their cost or process is not relevant to me. I also don’t see them building individual homes anywhere in the neighbourhoods mentioned. I do see 3-4 stories multi-unit buildings sprouting in san carlos that are pre-fabs. So it is coming… just not from the big builders…
I am a builder, engineer and long time forum member. There are hundreds of threads on this subject. Prefab looks good from far but is far from good. If you want to save money buy existing. Building is for pros. Talk to Cloud on this forum. He is currently building $4m houses. He can explain the whole process.
