Prefab Homes for Us?

In Sweden 85% of new single family homes and 40% of multifamily homes are partially or completely built in a factory, compared to the US at roughly half that.

Brian Potter wrote a thoughtful essay about prefab homes, it is well worth a read. Why doesn’t the US have more prefab homes? The gist of it is the cost of Swedish homes are 70% more than US homes and they aren’t any faster at building them. When building anything in the US, speed is one of the most important factors. There are a variety of reasons that prefab homes are still a good idea for the Swedes (i.e. reducing time on site, quality control) but he buries the lead.

The cost of building multi family homes was roughly flat from 2017-2023 in Sweden (or decreasing, if you convert it to USD). Even if this isn’t entirely because of prefabrication, it’s a strong hint that construction companies in the US should look to for ideas.