She observes that, compared with other countries, prefabricated homes are curiously rare in the United States. (In Sweden, by contrast, 85 percent of homes are largely prefab, and yes, Ikea offers ...

Though lacking in obvious charm, the prefabricated home was a workhorse of the postwar era. In the years after World War II, first-time homeowners, especially veterans with growing families, turned ...

Almost like flatpack furniture, they were built in factories, before being transported and assembled on site. A staggering 156,623 prefab bungalows were constructed between 1945 and 1949.

7:45 p.m. May 9, 2025: An earlier version of this article misstated the location of Plant Prefab and the title of Chief Executive Steve Glenn. The fundamental way most homes are built in America ...

Yet manufactured homes, they only make up some 9% of annual new home starts. Brancaccio: This was all the rage in, say, the early 1970s. If it's such a good idea, what happened to this trend?

But despite having been around for decades, prefab or modular homes made up just 2 percent of new single-family houses in 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

About 20% of the houses in Germany are prefabricated, just a little under 20% in Japan, and 84% of detached homes in Scandinavian countries. Even in developing countries prefab is being used to ...

This seven-bedroom, nine-bathroom modular home in Bridgehampton, N.Y., sold for $4.695 million in Sept. 2020. It was designed by Joseph Tanney, a founder of Resolution 4 Architecture in New York City.