Manufactured homes go high-tech

One of the little-known facts about manufactured homes (i.e., those built in factories and then assembled on site as opposed to being built from scratch on the lot), is that they're often better built than 'stick-built' homes. Since builders can provide a much more consistent level of quality control in a factory, that certainly makes sense, but of course there's always been the 'trailer park' factor and sketchy financing that's prevented manufactured homes from selling more than 300,000 or 400,000 homes per year.

But in a bid to make such homes more upscale and trendy, builder Clayton Homes -- one of the companies in Warren Buffett's arsenal -- has, in a bid to the iPhone and the iPod, introduced the "iHouse," a souped-up manufactured home with energy efficiency in a decidedly modernistic style. Perhaps now buyers' irrational snobbishness about preferring stick-built homes, no matter the quality, will change, if at least slowly. Clayton even hopes that the new iHouse will make up 10% of their sales within 12-18 months. From an AP story via MSNBC:

From its bamboo floors to its rooftop deck, Clayton Homes' new industrial-chic "i-house" is about as far removed from a mobile home as an iPod from a record player.

Architects at the country's largest manufactured home company embraced the basic rectangular form of what began as housing on wheels and gave it a postmodern turn with a distinctive v-shaped roofline, energy efficiency and luxury appointments...

Clayton's "i-house" was conceived as a moderately priced "plug and play" dwelling for environmentally conscious homebuyers. It went on sale nationwide Saturday with its presentation at the annual shareholders' meeting of investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire-Hathaway Inc. in Omaha, Neb.

"This innovative 'green' home, featuring solar panels and numerous other energy-saving products, is truly a home of the future," Buffett wrote his shareholders. "Estimated costs for electricity and heating total only about $1 per day when the home is sited in an area like Omaha."...

Clayton Homes plans to price the "i-house" at $100 to $130 a square foot, depending on amenities and add-ons, such as additional bedrooms. A stick-built house with similar features could range from $200 to $300 a square foot to start, said Chris Nicely, Clayton marketing vice president.

The key cost difference is from the savings Clayton achieves by building homes in volume in green standardized factories with very little waste. Clayton has four plants in Oregon, Tennessee, California and New Mexico geared up for "i-house" production...

"It does not look like your typical manufactured home," said Thayer Long with the Manufactured Housing Institute, a Washington-based group representing 370 manufactured and modular home-building companies.

And shattering those mobile home stereotypes is a good thing, he said. "I think the 'i-house' is just more proof that the industry is capable of delivering homes that are highly customizable at an affordable price."...