Imagine if we built cars the same way we build houses. First, a typical buyer would meet with the car designer, and tell them what kind of car they want. Then the designer would draw up plans for the car. The buyer would call different car builders in their town and show them the blueprints. And the builders might say, "Yeah, I can build you that car based on this blueprint. It will cost $1 million and it will be ready in a year and a half." There are lots of reasons why homes are so expensive in the U.S., zoning and land prices among them. But also, the way we build houses is very slow and very inefficient. So, why don't we build homes the way we build so many other things, by mass producing them in a factory? In this episode, the century-old dream of the factory-built house, and the possibility of a prefab future. This episode was produced by Emma Peaslee. Molly Messick edited the show, and it was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Brian Jarboe mastered the episode. Jess Jiang is our acting Executive Producer. Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
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Let's talk about houses in America.
I'm gonna go out on a limb, and I'm gonna say houses in America are too expensive.
Bold words from Jacob Goldstein coming in hot.
And there are a lot of reasons for this, right?
There's the zoning.
There's land prices.
But one reason we do not hear much about one of the things driving the cost of housing, the process of building houses is just really slow and inefficient and expensive.
There's this thing I heard a while back, years ago, that really made me realize just how inefficient it is to build a house.
And it goes like this.
Imagine we built cars the same way we build houses.
You'd have a meeting with the car designer where you tell them what kind of car you want, and they'd drop plans for your special car.
Then you'd go to the city council, you'd get a permit.
Then you'd go around town, you'd call different car builders, show em your blueprints, and they'd be like, yeah, sure, I can build you your special car.
It'll cost, I don't know, a million dollars.
It'll be ready in, say, a year and a half.
And sure, there are developers who build whatever, like, 100 homes at a time, but even building 100 homes at a time is this wildly slow and expensive process.
It seems like we should be able to do better.
We know how to make things cheaper.
We've been doing it for hundreds of years.