KELLY T. OF SCRANTON, PA, ASKS: Is building a modular home less expensive than building a stick-built home?

The short answer is – sometimes.

A better answer would be that modular construction is more affordable than stick-built construction most of the time, but as with any answer to a construction question, it really depends on many different factors. Generally speaking (and assuming we’re comparing similar designs), modular homes may actually cost up to 20 percent less than comparable stick-built homes. As previously reported here on Modular Musings, the reasons for those savings are varied:

• All Excel modular homes are built with a process that allows us to save money by purchasing materials like wood and drywall in bulk and passing this savings on to the home buyer.
• The factory assembly line allows us to create an extremely efficient process, with significantly less material waste than a standard home building site.
• The factory setting also means no weather delays, which means no extra labor costs and no extra costs to repair weather damaged materials.
• In areas with high construction labor costs (like many parts of the Northeast), building a home in modules in a factory can result in significant savings in labor and time.
• Finally, the shorter construction times of modular homes often mean more money saved on insurance during the construction process.

A 20 percent savings on a $250,000 home is $50,000, and that’s on the high end of the potential savings scale, but even if you’re able to save five percent by going modular, that shaves $12,500 off your budget. Over the course of a mortgage, that could mean a savings of more than $20,000. Last time we checked, that was the going rate for a very nice bass fishing boat or even a generous-sized in-ground pool.