olumetric Building Companies announced this month that they had acquired Katerra’s state of the art manufacturing facility in Tracy, CA and will now begin expansion to the 577,000 sq ft facility. VBC is looking to hit the ground running and plans to begin manufacturing windows, cabinetry, countertops, trusses & panelized building components at the site, in 60 – 90 days. They plan to produce full volumetric modular components by 2022.  

This month we posted an Expert Insight with Paul Barretto, Executive Director at LearnMH and former Director at Fannie Mae and Chris Nicely, President at ManufacturedHomes.com and former marketing executive at Clayton Homes. We discussed how both companies are furthering the adoption of modular and factory built homes and how these homes are well suited to address the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s initiatives around affordable high quality housing.  

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Although modular construction isn’t new, the process is just beginning to play a role in affordable housing production in the US. Cécile Chalifour, West Division manager for JPMorgan Chase’s Community Development Banking, spoke with Commercial Observer about modular housing’s increasing popularity, including:

•  US cities experiencing the most modular and prefab housing activity
•  How lenders like JPMorgan Chase are looking at modular housing
•  What’s next for modular construction in the affordable housing industry

Check out the article here.

Foothold is an exciting, fast growing modular manufacturing startup based in Bozeman, MT. After opening a new modular factory in Butte, Montana, which produces environmentally sustainable and high quality modular housing they implemented Offsight’s software to scale their operations and up their production process for long term success.

Offsight is a critical part of our modular manufacturing startup’s success,” said Hannah Van Wetter, Foothold’s CEO and co-founder.