Prefab Report: A Trend That’s Here to Stay

Creating the Report

Gathering the Data

Our team used a media monitoring and social listening platform to analyze aggregated online media conversations. The sample size is 500K+, with English-language media mentions worldwide and all major online media sources.

The data was gathered by entering search queries containing keywords and instructions for relationships and exclusions with related keywords. For example, you might want to include mentions of "prefab" alongside "house" "home" or "housing" and exclude references to "gaming" or "PC." The platform provided many pre-made analyses, while others were done manually.

Organizing the Data

One of our burning questions was to uncover which aspects of prefab homes appeal most to consumers. We chose four features and created lengthy queries of related terms. In short, some of these associated keywords were:

• Durability: high-performance, long-lasting, resiliency
• Affordability: low budget, tight budget, cheaper, affordable
• Build time: faster build, shorter time, reduced time
• Sustainability: climate change, emissions, embodied energy

With the data in hand, we were then able to compare, contrast, and extract the stories and trends that were the most interesting to Rise and our friends in the home building industry.

The Results of the Rise Prefab Home Report

We highly recommend you read the full report for all of the results, but we can't help but share our favorite insights here.

The Online Conversation About Prefab Homes

When we queried the web for terms related to "prefab homes," "modular homes," "off-site built," etc. we got over 500,000 results over the past year (July 10, 2019 - July 10, 2020). What's even more interesting is that it's up over 50% from the previous period.

Prefab is more than just a trend here in North America - it might just be the new norm. This way of building is not a new development, and some nations have already widely adopted it. In Norway, Sweden, and Finland, 45% of current housing is built modularly.

What is driving this trend? According to McKinsey, this shift is driven by technological improvements, economic demands, and a change in the way we think. Widespread adoption of prefab home building practices can give the building industry a massive productivity boost. It can address our housing crisis through scalability and cost savings.

What's Next For Prefab Homes

Now that we understand what homebuyers have on their mind, how should the industry respond? "This data confirms what we have been experiencing for the last two years from an anecdotal perspective," says Dave Cooper. We looked to the experts in the industry to identify the next steps the industry should take.

Meet the Demand for Prefab Homes

Anyone in the off-site residential home building industry will tell you there is enough business to go around. Reduced build time of prefab and modular building already puts these builders ahead of their traditional-building counterparts, but improvements can be made.

Ivan Rupnik of MOD X argues that a lack of data and standardization is holding back the prefab homes industry. He looked at the housing shift in Japan and Sweden and noted that standardization (not customization) allowed them to be competitive and to scale to meet demand quickly. North America has a love affair with customization. Still, fewer options allow for a more industrialized approach that produces predictable, high-quality results.

Rupnik also suggested developing standards for designs and processes of homes, modules, and panels. Standards and best practices can be achieved through the sharing and collection of manufacturing data. This data collection will require extensive collaboration and trust amid builders in the off-site built homes industry. The result could be a robust data set that would help builders across the industry optimize their processes for wider margins.