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Posted by on Oct 13, 2016 in Blog |

Hotel Developers Turn to Prefab Construction to Meet Demand

Hotels in the U.S. surpassed five million available rooms for the first time last year. But supply, which is expected to grow by only 1.6% in 2016, at that rate would continue to lag demand, according to forecasts by STR, the research and benchmarking service provider. This dilemma may account for the increased interest in prefab construction among developers and property managers. The Modular Building Institute, in its “Permanent Modular Construction 2015 Annual Report,” based on data from 73 North American modular manufacturers, estimates that prefab hotel construction in the U.S. increased by 31% and 25.7%, respectively, in the last two years, with the Southeast and South Central parts of the country seeing the most activity in that sector. “Hotel brands and developers are finding compelling advantages to using the latest forms of prefab construction for new projects, whether it’s implementing just bathroom ‘pods’ or pre-fabricating the entire guestroom,” stated a posting last May on Hotel News Now’s website. That post noted that, by way of example, Hilton Worldwide...

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Posted by on Sep 22, 2016 in Blog |

Modular Home Construction Opening the Door for Small Builders

Several years of production deficits during the housing downturn resulted in a limited supply of both rental and new homes in the country. At present, a shortage of buildable lots, skilled labor and available capital for smaller builders are limiting home production, thereby lowering the inventory of homes, both new and existing. New homes inventory for sale was 210,000 units at the end of February. This is just 4.7-month of new home supply, down from the January levels and also the lowest level since June 2013. The supply of existing homes is also tight, with an available supply of just 4.6 months. Analysts expect prices to flare up if the supply picture does not improve. Labor, Land and Material Costs are at the heart of the problem.  Rising building materials and labor costs are threatening margins as they limit homebuilders’ pricing power. Both labor and construction material costs are rising proportionally with increasing housing starts, and there could be significant inflation going forward. This could eat into site builder’s...

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Posted by on Jun 17, 2016 in Blog |

Prefab Construction Industry Definitions

Prefab Construction Industry Definitions

How many times a week do you hear the words ‘modular’, ‘mobile home’, ‘prefab’ and ‘manufactured’ used to describe what the modular construction industry builds? I see it just about every day and if you are a modular home builder you also hear it a lot. So what are the differences? Mobile Home, Double Wide, HUD and Manufactured homes are usually defined as a home regulated by federal law (Code of Federal Regulations, 24 CFR 3280): “Manufactured homes are built as dwelling units of at least 320 square feet (30 m2) in size with a permanent chassis to assure the initial and continued transportability of the home.”, the requirement to have a wheeled chassis permanently attached. They are built to the HUD, not IRC, building specifications and are the second largest type of homes built after site built homes. Prefabricated, Prefab, SIP and Panelized homes refers to any part of a building that has been assembled offsite in a factory or manufacturing facility and transported in complete or sub-assemblies...

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