WEBVTT - The Quest for the Factory-Built House 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:23.116 Pushkin. Hey, it's Jacob. Just a quick note that today's 0:00:23.156 --> 0:00:26.516 show is a collaboration with my old friends at Planet Money. 0:00:26.916 --> 0:00:29.276 It's kind of a follow up to last week's episode 0:00:29.276 --> 0:00:32.356 of What's Your Problem. It's about the century long quest 0:00:32.476 --> 0:00:35.076 to mass produce houses in a factory, so it does 0:00:35.196 --> 0:00:38.716 hit on that core What's Your Problem theme using technology 0:00:38.876 --> 0:00:41.516 to try to make things cheaper. I hope you'll like it. 0:00:42.196 --> 0:00:44.796 If you're a new listener who found What's Your Problem 0:00:44.836 --> 0:00:47.876 because of the Planet Money episode, let me say welcome. 0:00:48.236 --> 0:00:50.636 I'm delighted that you're here, and I hope you stick around. 0:00:50.796 --> 0:00:53.436 You can check out our back catalog, which has dozens 0:00:53.436 --> 0:00:55.876 of shows in it, and we'll be back next week 0:00:55.996 --> 0:00:59.156 with a new episode of What's Your Problem. Here's the show. 0:01:00.996 --> 0:01:07.276 This is Planet Money from NPR. Let's talk about houses 0:01:07.596 --> 0:01:10.316 in America. I'm going to go out on a limb 0:01:10.676 --> 0:01:14.556 and I'm going to say houses in America are too expensive. 0:01:14.916 --> 0:01:19.756 Bold words from Jacob Goldstein coming in hot. And there 0:01:19.796 --> 0:01:22.156 are a lot of reasons for this, right, there's the zoning, 0:01:22.516 --> 0:01:26.196 there's land prices. But one reason we do not hear 0:01:26.276 --> 0:01:29.316 much about one of the things driving the cost of housing, 0:01:29.796 --> 0:01:33.796 the process of building houses is just really slow and 0:01:33.916 --> 0:01:35.436 inefficient and expensive. 0:01:35.956 --> 0:01:38.556 There's this thing I heard a while back, years ago 0:01:38.996 --> 0:01:42.716 that really made me realize just how inefficient it is 0:01:42.796 --> 0:01:45.876 to build a house. And it goes like this, Imagine 0:01:45.916 --> 0:01:49.596 we built cars the same way we build houses. You'd 0:01:49.716 --> 0:01:51.716 have a meeting with the car designer where you tell 0:01:51.756 --> 0:01:53.796 them what kind of car you want, and they'd drop 0:01:53.836 --> 0:01:56.316 plans for your special car. Then you'd go to the 0:01:56.396 --> 0:01:59.396 city council, you'd get a permit. Then you'd go around town. 0:01:59.436 --> 0:02:02.436 You'd call different car builders, show them your blueprints, and 0:02:02.476 --> 0:02:04.836 they'd be like, yeah, sure, I can build you your 0:02:04.916 --> 0:02:08.836 special car. It'll cost I don't know, a million dollars 0:02:09.276 --> 0:02:11.156 be ready and say a year and a half. 0:02:11.476 --> 0:02:14.116 I'm sure there are developers who build whatever, like a 0:02:14.236 --> 0:02:17.116 hundred homes at a time, but even building one hundred 0:02:17.156 --> 0:02:21.476 homes at a time is this wildly slow and expensive process. 0:02:21.716 --> 0:02:24.236 It seems like we should be able to do better. 0:02:24.716 --> 0:02:27.116 We know how to make things cheaper. We've been doing 0:02:27.116 --> 0:02:30.356 it for hundreds of years. We make things cheaper by 0:02:30.436 --> 0:02:34.156 mass producing them in factories, just like we do with cars, 0:02:34.236 --> 0:02:36.236 and just like we do with lots of other things. 0:02:36.676 --> 0:02:40.756 So why don't we do that with houses. Hello, and 0:02:40.796 --> 0:02:41.676 welcome to Planet Money. 0:02:41.716 --> 0:02:44.916 I'm Jacob Goldstein's and I'm Nick found Jacob. So good 0:02:44.916 --> 0:02:47.116 to have you back, So good to see you. 0:02:47.316 --> 0:02:49.316 Thanks man, I'm happy to be back at Planet Money. 0:02:49.356 --> 0:02:51.876 We should say you now have another job. You now 0:02:51.916 --> 0:02:54.636 host this great show called What's Your Problem of a 0:02:54.636 --> 0:02:58.836 big fan. It's about people trying to solve problems out 0:02:58.876 --> 0:03:01.116 in the world, oftentimes with technology. 0:03:01.276 --> 0:03:04.156 Very good. Yes, thank you for listening and for What's 0:03:04.156 --> 0:03:08.636 Your Problem. I recently interviewed a homebuilder who is trying 0:03:08.676 --> 0:03:11.596 to do this thing we're talking about on the show today. 0:03:11.636 --> 0:03:14.476 He's trying to figure out how to build houses in 0:03:14.516 --> 0:03:17.796 a factory. And as I was preparing for that interview, 0:03:17.996 --> 0:03:20.956 I realized that there was actually a much bigger story here. 0:03:20.996 --> 0:03:22.916 It's a story that would be great for a Planet Money. 0:03:23.236 --> 0:03:26.396 It's this one hundred year story of people trying to 0:03:26.556 --> 0:03:28.956 do this thing, trying to figure out how to make 0:03:28.996 --> 0:03:31.156 houses cheaper by building them in factories. 0:03:31.316 --> 0:03:33.876 Today on the show, the story of something that should 0:03:33.916 --> 0:03:37.796 have taken off by now. There'll be some flying saucer houses, 0:03:37.836 --> 0:03:39.836 there'll be some double wides. 0:03:39.636 --> 0:03:41.796 And Nick, you get to do one of your favorite things, 0:03:42.076 --> 0:03:45.156 you get to go to a construction site swinging some hammus. 0:03:53.796 --> 0:03:55.916 Just a quick heads up, there is a mention of 0:03:56.036 --> 0:03:57.476 suicide in today's show. 0:03:58.796 --> 0:04:02.956 This dream of using factories, using mass production to make 0:04:02.996 --> 0:04:06.716 houses cheaper and better goes back about one hundred years now, 0:04:07.076 --> 0:04:10.596 and in those hundred years there have been some spectacular 0:04:10.716 --> 0:04:14.036 failures and at least one surprising boom along the way. 0:04:14.396 --> 0:04:16.756 So what we're gonna do on today's show is talk 0:04:16.796 --> 0:04:21.836 about three key people. There's an impractical genius, a very 0:04:21.956 --> 0:04:26.076 practical small businessman, and someone who is trying again right now, 0:04:26.316 --> 0:04:27.996 to mass produce houses in factories. 0:04:28.476 --> 0:04:31.676 The star of chapter one, that impractical genius is a 0:04:31.676 --> 0:04:35.956 man named Buckminster Fuller Bucky to his friends. Bucky was 0:04:35.996 --> 0:04:39.116 this famous weirdo. He was a designer, he was a futurist. 0:04:39.516 --> 0:04:43.236 He was beloved by Steve Jobs and other hippie adjacent 0:04:43.276 --> 0:04:46.676 tech types. Fortunately for us, someone just published a book 0:04:46.676 --> 0:04:47.156 about him. 0:04:47.276 --> 0:04:50.476 My name is alec Nevilla Lee, and the book is 0:04:50.556 --> 0:04:53.756 Inventor of the Future, The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller. 0:04:53.876 --> 0:04:56.876 And do you, by chance have any close connections to 0:04:57.076 --> 0:04:59.516 any of the current or former staff of Planet Money 0:04:59.596 --> 0:05:00.236 or the Indicator. 0:05:00.796 --> 0:05:02.596 Yes, yes, Well, we should make this very clear that 0:05:02.596 --> 0:05:05.356 this is not a NEPO situation that you were not 0:05:05.396 --> 0:05:08.476 aware that I was married to Indicator reporter and co 0:05:08.556 --> 0:05:11.876 host Whalen until after you began looking into buckminster Fuller. 0:05:11.996 --> 0:05:16.116 It's true. Alex Has Buckminster Fuller's dream of making houses 0:05:16.156 --> 0:05:19.956 and factories starts in nineteen twenty seven. He's not famous yet. 0:05:19.956 --> 0:05:22.356 He's in his early thirties, living with his wife and 0:05:22.436 --> 0:05:25.596 his baby daughter in Chicago, and he's working for this 0:05:25.636 --> 0:05:29.116 company that sells construction materials. But then he gets fired. 0:05:29.156 --> 0:05:32.356 He's in a really bad place, and in the middle 0:05:32.356 --> 0:05:35.396 of all this, he walks to the edge of Lake 0:05:35.516 --> 0:05:37.916 Michigan and consider suicide. 0:05:38.476 --> 0:05:41.116 He is going through this crisis, and the story is 0:05:41.156 --> 0:05:43.076 that while he's looking out of the water, he starts 0:05:43.116 --> 0:05:45.956 to ask himself a series of questions, starting with, you know, 0:05:46.036 --> 0:05:47.916 is there a God? Does God have a plan for me? 0:05:48.036 --> 0:05:49.876 You know, do I know what this plan is? And 0:05:49.916 --> 0:05:53.156 then he has this kind of blinding worship insight that says, 0:05:53.716 --> 0:05:56.196 you do not belong to yourself, You belong to the universe, 0:05:56.356 --> 0:05:58.236 and you know it is for you to figure out 0:05:58.236 --> 0:06:00.596 how you can be a benefit to all of mankind. 0:06:01.036 --> 0:06:04.276 And you know what Buckminster Fuller, vessel of the universe, 0:06:04.356 --> 0:06:07.316 decides to do to devote himself to the betterment of 0:06:07.356 --> 0:06:11.276 all mankind. It's the mass produced houses in a factory. 0:06:11.516 --> 0:06:13.236 So the next day, you know, he starts to focus 0:06:13.476 --> 0:06:16.556 very seriously on this housing idea. Okay, because that's his background. 0:06:16.556 --> 0:06:19.396 He's someone who has spent years in construction. You know, 0:06:19.676 --> 0:06:22.076 his father in law is a famous architect, and so 0:06:22.196 --> 0:06:23.796 you know, for him to make an impact, the obvious 0:06:23.836 --> 0:06:24.956 places start is housing. 0:06:25.196 --> 0:06:27.756 And it wasn't just his background. Bucky thinks the time 0:06:27.916 --> 0:06:30.836 is right for this idea. It's after World War One. 0:06:31.236 --> 0:06:34.756 Construction costs are really high, and like today, it was 0:06:34.916 --> 0:06:37.636 really hard back then for a working class family to 0:06:37.716 --> 0:06:39.836 buy a house. And this was a. 0:06:39.756 --> 0:06:44.276 Time when people really believed that technological progress could make 0:06:44.356 --> 0:06:47.676 life better. Radio is new. It's the dawn of mass 0:06:47.676 --> 0:06:51.396 consumer goods. People are starting to get things like refrigerators 0:06:51.396 --> 0:06:53.076 and washing machines and cars. 0:06:53.196 --> 0:06:56.476 Right this is about twenty years after Henry Ford had 0:06:56.596 --> 0:06:59.436 rolled out the Model T that was the first car 0:06:59.556 --> 0:07:02.596 that was affordable to the masses, and the reason it 0:07:02.636 --> 0:07:05.956 was affordable was because it was mass produced on the 0:07:05.996 --> 0:07:07.036 assembly line. 0:07:07.116 --> 0:07:10.476 The car was a really important stot for Bucky. That 0:07:10.636 --> 0:07:12.356 thing I did at the top of the show about 0:07:12.396 --> 0:07:14.956 you know, imagine we built cars the way we build houses. 0:07:15.196 --> 0:07:17.276 I got that from him. I got that from Bucky. 0:07:17.436 --> 0:07:20.636 Shout out to Bucky. So Bucky decides, I'm gonna build 0:07:20.676 --> 0:07:23.516 houses the way we build cars. And crucially, this means 0:07:23.516 --> 0:07:26.516 not just building regular style houses in a factory. It 0:07:26.556 --> 0:07:29.796 means rethinking from scratch what it means to build a house. 0:07:30.156 --> 0:07:32.356 So he has this big idea and he goes out 0:07:32.356 --> 0:07:35.996 and he starts pitching it. He calls it the Dimaxian House, 0:07:36.516 --> 0:07:39.916 and he starts to get popular as this sort of visionary, 0:07:39.996 --> 0:07:43.276 big idea guy. He's given lectures. If you were around today, 0:07:43.316 --> 0:07:46.436 he would definitely be big into ted talks. But one 0:07:46.436 --> 0:07:51.196 thing he is not doing building houses because to build 0:07:51.196 --> 0:07:54.676 these factory built houses, he needs a factory and he 0:07:54.716 --> 0:07:55.436 doesn't have one. 0:07:55.516 --> 0:07:59.276 And then finally, fifteen years after he first comes up 0:07:59.316 --> 0:08:02.396 with the idea, he gets his big chance. It's nineteen 0:08:02.476 --> 0:08:05.796 forty four. US factories have been churning out planes and 0:08:05.796 --> 0:08:08.876 ships and jeeps to fight World War Two, but now 0:08:09.196 --> 0:08:11.556 the war is starting to wind down. 0:08:11.676 --> 0:08:14.636 And one of the questions as the war starts to 0:08:14.676 --> 0:08:16.596 wind down, is what are we going to do with 0:08:16.636 --> 0:08:19.916 all of this industrial capacity that we've built up. And Fuller, 0:08:19.956 --> 0:08:22.116 who's kind of in the right place at the right time, says, well, 0:08:22.156 --> 0:08:25.236 you know, I have this idea for industrialized housing, and 0:08:25.316 --> 0:08:26.876 it makes a lot of sense for us just to 0:08:26.876 --> 0:08:30.716 convert to these aircraft plans to building houses because it 0:08:30.756 --> 0:08:33.876 will keep the plants operational, people will keep their jobs, 0:08:33.956 --> 0:08:35.956 and in theory, we're going to have a huge demand 0:08:36.076 --> 0:08:38.916 for post war housing after all these veterans come home. 0:08:39.156 --> 0:08:42.916 So Bucky convinces this airplane company in Kansas to let 0:08:42.996 --> 0:08:45.996 him use their factory to build a prototype of the 0:08:46.036 --> 0:08:49.036 house he's been dreaming of for years, And an airplane 0:08:49.036 --> 0:08:51.756 factory was actually a pretty good place to do it 0:08:51.796 --> 0:08:56.836 because his factory optimized house was nothing like a regular house. 0:08:57.116 --> 0:08:59.316 So it looks like a flying saucer, all right, it's 0:08:59.356 --> 0:09:01.876 kind of the best way to describe it. It's, you know, 0:09:01.956 --> 0:09:07.356 bare aluminum, so it's this shiny metal house and there's 0:09:07.356 --> 0:09:09.276 a ring of glass windows. 0:09:09.316 --> 0:09:11.676 To be clear, this is a round house. 0:09:12.116 --> 0:09:15.236 And you go inside and the floor is very springy 0:09:15.876 --> 0:09:18.516 because of the way the house is engineered. All these 0:09:18.596 --> 0:09:21.516 rooms are kind of like wedge shaped, and you know, 0:09:21.556 --> 0:09:24.276 he has these what he calls evolving shelves, which are 0:09:24.276 --> 0:09:26.716 shelves that are built into the walls that rotate the 0:09:26.756 --> 0:09:27.196 touch of. 0:09:27.076 --> 0:09:28.956 Buttons, basically the Jetson's house. 0:09:29.356 --> 0:09:29.556 Yeah. 0:09:29.636 --> 0:09:31.716 Yeah, I mean it's funny because it was always like 0:09:31.756 --> 0:09:33.636 the House of the future, right, Like, even from early on, 0:09:33.676 --> 0:09:35.636 people are saying, oh, you know, Fuller is designing the 0:09:35.676 --> 0:09:37.516 House of the future, which I think kind of annoyed 0:09:37.596 --> 0:09:39.516 him at first because he was trying to do it 0:09:39.556 --> 0:09:39.956 for real. 0:09:40.116 --> 0:09:43.436 In the present, Bucky finally has a factory. He makes 0:09:43.476 --> 0:09:46.476 these prototypes. World War Two is over, the gis are 0:09:46.516 --> 0:09:48.716 coming home. So what happens next? 0:09:49.196 --> 0:09:52.356 So nothing ever happens, right, The company does not go 0:09:52.396 --> 0:09:53.156 into mass production. 0:09:53.396 --> 0:09:56.396 Yeah, Bucky's dream, the dream of the mass produced factory 0:09:56.436 --> 0:09:59.716 house does not come true. And Alex says there are 0:09:59.756 --> 0:10:02.756 a few reasons for this. For one, Bucky was just 0:10:02.956 --> 0:10:04.996 kind of a pain to work with, not a great 0:10:05.036 --> 0:10:06.516 guy to run a big company. 0:10:06.676 --> 0:10:10.036 Another reason, Bucky came up with this idea back in 0:10:10.076 --> 0:10:13.556 the nineteen twenties. But now it's the mid nineteen forties, 0:10:13.756 --> 0:10:17.236 and unusually in American history, This is a time when 0:10:17.316 --> 0:10:20.716 a lot of working class people actually could afford houses. 0:10:21.076 --> 0:10:25.716 Congress subsidized mortgages for returning troops, and developers were starting 0:10:25.716 --> 0:10:27.796 to build these cheap housing developments. 0:10:28.156 --> 0:10:31.356 And the last reason Bucky's factory built homes went nowhere 0:10:31.756 --> 0:10:35.636 maybe the most obvious, but it's worth pointing out. People 0:10:35.796 --> 0:10:38.476 do not want to live in a spaceship. These were 0:10:38.636 --> 0:10:40.556 weird ass round metal houses. 0:10:40.756 --> 0:10:43.476 This is kind of the tickaway here. It's like Fuller 0:10:43.596 --> 0:10:45.996 really said, you know, people will like what I tell 0:10:46.036 --> 0:10:48.756 them to like. He expects people to kind of change 0:10:48.796 --> 0:10:52.756 their lifestyle to fit this idealized house design that he 0:10:52.796 --> 0:10:53.396 has come up. 0:10:53.276 --> 0:10:55.436 With, and people didn't want to do that. 0:10:55.956 --> 0:10:58.716 Side note, we actually haven't mentioned the thing that Bucky 0:10:58.916 --> 0:11:03.076 is best known for today, the geodesic dome like Spaceship 0:11:03.116 --> 0:11:06.276 Earth at Epcot at disney World, and also the dome 0:11:06.316 --> 0:11:08.316 house that my hippie friends in the Santa Cruz Mountains 0:11:08.396 --> 0:11:08.876 used to live in. 0:11:09.316 --> 0:11:11.756 Everybody has hippie friends who live in a domehouse in 0:11:11.796 --> 0:11:15.636 the Santa Cruz Mountains. Anyway, you didn't need a factory 0:11:15.716 --> 0:11:17.356 to make one of these domes. It was a really 0:11:17.396 --> 0:11:21.596 simple design, very DIY friendly, but it didn't work that well. 0:11:21.756 --> 0:11:24.036 So Fill actually lived in a dome house and it 0:11:24.076 --> 0:11:26.436 was so leaky that apparently, you know, people would see 0:11:26.476 --> 0:11:30.276 him at home like reading the newspaper with an umbrella 0:11:30.356 --> 0:11:33.596 over his head and like a flashlight clutch between his teeth. 0:11:35.436 --> 0:11:38.156 You know, the you know, there's a reason why we 0:11:38.156 --> 0:11:39.716 don't mostly live in domes today. 0:11:39.956 --> 0:11:43.796 Final recap from Bucky timing is everything. Don't launch your 0:11:43.836 --> 0:11:46.796 factory built house at the one moment when working class 0:11:46.836 --> 0:11:50.836 people can afford traditional houses. And if you're gonna build 0:11:50.876 --> 0:11:53.996 houses in a factory, don't make them too weird. Make 0:11:54.036 --> 0:11:56.356 them like normal houses that people want to live in. 0:11:56.676 --> 0:11:58.316 Which brings us to chapter two. 0:11:58.476 --> 0:12:00.756 Okay, for the title of this chapter, I'm going to 0:12:00.836 --> 0:12:02.836 count to three, and we're both going to say our 0:12:02.836 --> 0:12:07.996 favorite name for the chapter one two three Stuck inside 0:12:07.996 --> 0:12:11.516 a mobile home field advantage with the zoning blues again 0:12:12.196 --> 0:12:14.476 is a Dylan reference this section. Yes, the section is 0:12:14.516 --> 0:12:17.796 about mobile homes and the mobile homes story, which is 0:12:17.836 --> 0:12:21.236 the next big moment for factory built homes. It doesn't 0:12:21.316 --> 0:12:26.076 happen through some grandiose, weirdo vision like the one Bucky had. 0:12:26.196 --> 0:12:28.356 It builds gradually and it comes sort of from the 0:12:28.396 --> 0:12:28.996 bottom up. 0:12:29.156 --> 0:12:32.316 Yeah. Our guide to this chapter is Brian Potter. He 0:12:32.396 --> 0:12:35.716 actually worked for a factory built construction company that had 0:12:35.756 --> 0:12:36.756 its own boom and bust. 0:12:37.076 --> 0:12:39.676 They raised several billion dollars in venture capital and then 0:12:39.716 --> 0:12:40.516 went bankrupt. 0:12:40.956 --> 0:12:43.236 Now he writes a newsletter that we love. It's called 0:12:43.396 --> 0:12:46.356 Construction Physics, and it's all about this thing that we're 0:12:46.396 --> 0:12:49.676 talking about in the show today. It's about productivity and construction. 0:12:50.036 --> 0:12:52.676 Brian has spent a long time looking back at the 0:12:52.716 --> 0:12:55.356 history of factory built homes, and he told us about 0:12:55.356 --> 0:12:59.476 this guy, Elmer Frye, kind of the anti Bucky, not 0:12:59.516 --> 0:13:02.956 a visionary, not touring the country giving lectures. He had 0:13:02.996 --> 0:13:05.516 a company that made camping trailers. There were a bunch 0:13:05.556 --> 0:13:08.076 of companies that made these, and some people did live 0:13:08.116 --> 0:13:10.836 in them, but mostly they were for towing around. And 0:13:10.876 --> 0:13:14.276 then one day, in the early nineteen fifties, Elmer heard 0:13:14.276 --> 0:13:15.396 from one of his customers. 0:13:15.596 --> 0:13:18.116 One day he got a request from somebody who wanted 0:13:18.156 --> 0:13:21.076 a ten foot wide trailer, and fry said, well, that's 0:13:21.076 --> 0:13:23.516 two wide to legally go on the roads. And the 0:13:23.556 --> 0:13:25.436 guy said, oh, that's okay, I'm not going to move 0:13:25.436 --> 0:13:27.316 it once I have it. I'll just call it a 0:13:27.516 --> 0:13:30.436 construction trailer and permit it like that, and Fry said okay, 0:13:30.476 --> 0:13:32.516 and then built it for him, and then he started 0:13:32.556 --> 0:13:34.676 building more of them, and they just turned out to 0:13:34.716 --> 0:13:36.556 be incredibly popular. 0:13:36.116 --> 0:13:37.556 And then the rest was history. 0:13:37.636 --> 0:13:39.836 The rest was history. The increase in width and mobile 0:13:39.836 --> 0:13:40.836 homes went on from there. 0:13:41.156 --> 0:13:45.036 People loved it. Pretty Soon everybody was ordering these extra 0:13:45.076 --> 0:13:48.276 wide trailers a few feet at a time. Those trailers 0:13:48.316 --> 0:13:51.756 people towed behind their car were becoming the mobile homes 0:13:51.796 --> 0:13:52.636 that we know today. 0:13:52.796 --> 0:13:55.276 Pretty soon, after the ten wide, you have the twelve wide, 0:13:55.316 --> 0:13:58.236 and then the fourteen wide, and then yeah, the double wide, 0:13:58.236 --> 0:14:00.476 which is two modules that get stuck together. 0:14:00.556 --> 0:14:00.756 Yeah. 0:14:00.756 --> 0:14:02.756 So right in the fifties, that's pretty much when that 0:14:02.876 --> 0:14:03.836 shift started. 0:14:04.156 --> 0:14:06.916 They were not building weird round spaceship houses of the 0:14:06.916 --> 0:14:12.476 future with push buttonshelves. They were building rectangular, cheap houses. Also, 0:14:12.996 --> 0:14:15.756 the timing was better that post World War two moment 0:14:15.796 --> 0:14:19.716 when so many ordinary people could afford traditional houses. That 0:14:19.796 --> 0:14:23.516 moment passed, so lots of people started buying these new, 0:14:23.836 --> 0:14:27.316 cheaper mobile homes. There was a mobile home boom. 0:14:27.476 --> 0:14:31.956 And companies also started building bigger, full sized houses and factories. 0:14:32.156 --> 0:14:35.036 By nineteen seventy mobile homes and those other factory built 0:14:35.076 --> 0:14:38.076 homes made up roughly half of newly built single family 0:14:38.076 --> 0:14:38.836 homes in America. 0:14:39.316 --> 0:14:41.756 Found and I'm going to say that again because it 0:14:41.836 --> 0:14:43.996 was so surprising to me when I learned it. It 0:14:44.036 --> 0:14:46.396 was why I wanted to do this whole chapter. In 0:14:46.476 --> 0:14:50.836 nineteen seventy one in two newly built single family homes 0:14:50.836 --> 0:14:53.116 in America was built in a factory. 0:14:53.316 --> 0:14:57.076 The industry is so large and expanding so rapidly that 0:14:57.116 --> 0:14:59.676 at one point in the late sixties or early seventies, 0:14:59.716 --> 0:15:02.196 I think you know, three of the top ten most 0:15:02.276 --> 0:15:06.156 profitable companies in the US were mobile home companies. Uh, 0:15:06.796 --> 0:15:10.356 the largest home builder in the US is a mobile 0:15:10.356 --> 0:15:11.356 home company. 0:15:12.196 --> 0:15:12.436 Yeah. 0:15:12.476 --> 0:15:16.116 It becomes just an enormous industry relatively quickly. 0:15:16.436 --> 0:15:18.996 This was it. This was the moment when lots of 0:15:19.036 --> 0:15:21.436 affordable homes were made in factories. 0:15:22.036 --> 0:15:24.876 But it didn't last. There was a recession that started 0:15:24.876 --> 0:15:27.116 in nineteen seventy three, and a bunch of the mobile 0:15:27.116 --> 0:15:30.756 home manufacturers went out of business. After that, the industry 0:15:30.796 --> 0:15:32.756 never really got back to where it had been in 0:15:32.756 --> 0:15:36.356 the early seventies. Today, only around ten percent of new 0:15:36.396 --> 0:15:38.476 single family homes are made in factories. 0:15:38.756 --> 0:15:42.796 So the question is why what happened? Brian points to 0:15:42.796 --> 0:15:45.916 a few things. For one, middle class homeowners, the classic 0:15:46.156 --> 0:15:49.556 villains of affordable housing stories didn't want mobile homes in 0:15:49.556 --> 0:15:53.116 their neighborhoods. Mobile homes were targeted at low income people. 0:15:53.316 --> 0:15:55.876 There was a stigma attached to the way mobile homes looked, 0:15:56.436 --> 0:15:58.956 and so as a result, there was this wave of 0:15:59.116 --> 0:16:02.156 zoning rules that forced mobile homes out of town and 0:16:02.316 --> 0:16:03.476 into mobile home parks. 0:16:03.796 --> 0:16:06.116 But it wasn't just zoning, and in fact, Brian thinks 0:16:06.196 --> 0:16:08.516 there was a deeper problem, a problem that goes to 0:16:08.556 --> 0:16:11.356 the big law, long term question, why don't we build 0:16:11.476 --> 0:16:15.516 more houses and factories? Brian says, building houses in factories 0:16:15.636 --> 0:16:19.676 is just a fundamentally hard business. For one thing, home 0:16:19.716 --> 0:16:24.276 construction is very cyclical, and traditional contractors can deal with 0:16:24.356 --> 0:16:28.596 cyclical downturns by laying off workers, riding things out, and 0:16:28.636 --> 0:16:31.196 then hiring people back and starting to build again when 0:16:31.196 --> 0:16:32.356 the economy comes back. 0:16:32.916 --> 0:16:36.916 But companies building homes and factories they have this big 0:16:37.236 --> 0:16:40.716 fixed cost. They have the factory where they build the homes, 0:16:40.996 --> 0:16:43.276 and they have to pay for those factories. Whether the 0:16:43.316 --> 0:16:46.036 housing market is booming or crashing. 0:16:45.956 --> 0:16:48.316 So factory built housing tends to have a tough time 0:16:48.596 --> 0:16:51.516 in downturns. You see a lot of these operations just 0:16:51.636 --> 0:16:52.436 go out of business. 0:16:52.716 --> 0:16:54.636 This makes sense as far as it goes. But when 0:16:54.636 --> 0:16:57.796 Brian told us this, I asked him, what about all 0:16:57.836 --> 0:17:00.916 the other industries that have to keep factories open and downturns. 0:17:00.996 --> 0:17:04.196 It's not like, say, car companies go bankrupt every time 0:17:04.236 --> 0:17:05.036 there's a recession. 0:17:05.236 --> 0:17:07.836 Yeah, Brian said, In the car business, doing mass production 0:17:07.956 --> 0:17:10.836 in a factory is it's just so much more efficient 0:17:10.876 --> 0:17:14.196 than the alternative. Think of Henry Ford's assembly line. It 0:17:14.316 --> 0:17:17.556 was so much better than building bespoke cars one by 0:17:17.556 --> 0:17:18.676 one in some workshop. 0:17:19.156 --> 0:17:23.076 On the other hand, building mobile homes in factories, yeah 0:17:23.116 --> 0:17:25.916 it was more efficient than building houses on site. But 0:17:25.996 --> 0:17:29.756 it wasn't that much more efficient. It wasn't enough more 0:17:29.796 --> 0:17:34.356 efficient to ride out the inevitable downturns in housing. Brian says, 0:17:34.596 --> 0:17:36.956 once you paid to attach the mobile home to the 0:17:36.996 --> 0:17:38.996 back of a truck and haul it down the highway 0:17:38.996 --> 0:17:40.996 to wherever it was going and got it all set up, 0:17:41.396 --> 0:17:43.996 you lost a lot of the gains you got from 0:17:44.036 --> 0:17:46.116 building it in the factory in the first place. 0:17:46.516 --> 0:17:48.996 This is a really hard problem that in the end, 0:17:49.036 --> 0:17:53.116 mobile homes couldn't entirely solve. And for that matter, no 0:17:53.156 --> 0:17:55.956 one in this whole history of factory built housing has 0:17:55.996 --> 0:17:56.796 been able to crack. 0:17:57.316 --> 0:18:00.676 It is very, very hard to be the Henry Ford 0:18:00.756 --> 0:18:03.116 of housing, to be able to produce things in a 0:18:03.156 --> 0:18:05.796 factory that's so much cheaper that it just completely changes 0:18:05.836 --> 0:18:07.916 the way we build it and the way. You can't 0:18:07.916 --> 0:18:10.676 go back to the previous way. That is very hard 0:18:10.676 --> 0:18:12.516 to do, and nobody has managed to do it yet. 0:18:14.356 --> 0:18:17.956 Nobody has managed to do it yet yet. Yes, they 0:18:17.956 --> 0:18:20.596 are still trying, and we'll hear about that after the break. 0:18:31.316 --> 0:18:33.996 I grew up spending a lot of time on construction sites. 0:18:34.156 --> 0:18:37.396 My dad was a contractor, mostly remodeling kitchens and bathrooms. 0:18:37.716 --> 0:18:39.676 I used to work at a cabinet factory. It helped 0:18:39.676 --> 0:18:42.396 with a lot of kitchen installs. I am the reigning 0:18:42.716 --> 0:18:46.276 world champion of Belt Sander Racing Modified Division. Don't try 0:18:46.276 --> 0:18:49.396 this at home, it's pretty dangerous. And so it was 0:18:49.436 --> 0:18:51.516 a great delight that for this story I got to 0:18:51.556 --> 0:18:53.836 do something that's very familiar to me that I love. 0:18:54.116 --> 0:18:56.436 I got to go visit a job site and put 0:18:56.476 --> 0:18:58.756 my microphone very close to power Tools. 0:19:00.196 --> 0:19:04.236 Final chapter, Chapter three, working title, The work goes on, 0:19:04.556 --> 0:19:07.876 the cause endurers, the hope still lives, and the dream 0:19:07.996 --> 0:19:09.236 shall never die. 0:19:09.916 --> 0:19:11.996 So there are a few companies out there right now 0:19:12.156 --> 0:19:15.556 trying new ways to solve the factory built house problem. 0:19:15.756 --> 0:19:18.676 One of them is called Cover. I interviewed the founder, 0:19:18.756 --> 0:19:21.796 Alexis Revas, for this podcast I host What's Your Problem? 0:19:22.116 --> 0:19:23.996 And Nick, you got to go meet him at a 0:19:24.076 --> 0:19:26.476 job site in La where they were putting together one 0:19:26.516 --> 0:19:27.316 of these houses. 0:19:27.916 --> 0:19:31.116 Hey, guys, how's it good? Alexis niet. 0:19:31.396 --> 0:19:33.516 Alexis is trying to figure out how to have the 0:19:33.596 --> 0:19:36.196 kind of success that the mobile home companies had back 0:19:36.236 --> 0:19:39.356 in the early seventies, but without running into the same problems. 0:19:39.516 --> 0:19:42.396 And there are some big differences between what he's doing 0:19:42.436 --> 0:19:44.916 and what the mobile home companies were doing. For one, 0:19:45.036 --> 0:19:47.596 he is not building cheap homes, not at all. They're 0:19:47.676 --> 0:19:49.516 really expensive, at least for now. 0:19:49.996 --> 0:19:52.316 All right, So what are we looking at here? So 0:19:52.316 --> 0:19:55.396 this is a living area, kitchen area, a nice open 0:19:55.716 --> 0:19:57.716 kitchen area, kitchen. 0:19:57.436 --> 0:20:03.276 With a wide Florida ceiling window sliding. 0:20:03.516 --> 0:20:06.636