Are Lenders Justified in Being Wary of Modular Construction?

Any developer who has explored building a project modularly instead of on-site has likely run into trouble finding a lender to work with. In general, lenders are far less familiar with modular construction and therefore are hesitant to lend money for such projects despite the major benefits of projects being built faster and for less money. Compared to on-site construction, modular construction requires a lot of capital early on because both site work and modular building are happening simultaneously. Lenders are also wary of the risk involved in transporting the modules from the factory to the final site. For these reasons and more, lenders are not as willing to fund modular projects even though “modular construction could claim $130 billion worth of the combined U.S. and European construction markets by 2030.” Click here to read more about the lending climate for modular construction.

More New Construction Points to a Strong Housing Market

Multiple data indicators support the notion that the housing market is strong in the final quarter of the year. Housing starts increased 3.8%, single family new construction rose for the fifth straight month, and building permits rose another 5% in October. These numbers, along with more data you can find here, all indicate that the housing market is strong and builders are taking advantage of low interest to increase the housing stock.

Spencer Flats Featured in NEREJ

OnPoint Capital’s 8-unit condo project in Chelsea, deemed the “Spencer Flats”, was recently featured in the NEREJ! Click here to read the full article.

Yet Another Benefit of Modular Construction

By now many have heard about the use of modular construction to save time and money on projects such as the new Marriott hotel in New York City and McDonald’s locations in the UK. Beyond saving time and money, there is yet another benefit of modular construction over the typical site build - the use of automation. As the number of skilled laborers is decreasing, modular builders are able to take advantage of technology “to automate a variety of construction tasks including nailing, milling of openings, sheet cutting, gluing, inkjet marking, and sheet addition and handling.” Read more about these great benefits here.

OnPoint Capital Featured in NEREJ

OnPoint Capital’s newest luxury condo project, located at 57 Saratoga Street in East Boston, was recently featured in the NEREJ! Click here to read the full article.

Breaking Ground at 57 Saratoga, East Boston

We recently had a fun week as we broke ground on our latest luxury condo project in East Boston. Over the course of a few days, we demolished the 2 family home and detached garage that sat on our 5,000 sq ft lot. It will be replaced with 9 condo units, each with a private deck and deeded garage parking space. Click here to check out our video showing all the demolition!

ConstructionMax TaylorAugust 27, 2019real estate construction, real estate development, real estate

A Guide to Pre-Fab Building

There is a lot to consider when building a home and one of the first questions you might ask is whether to build directly on-site or pre-fab. Of course there are pros and cons to both options and if you are not in the home building business yourself, it might seem like an even more daunting decision. While a bit lengthy, this article does a great job of going through the decision making process and what to do if you ultimately want to buy a pre-fab home.

A Good Month for Home Building

After a few down months at the start of 2019, the construction of housing finally saw an uptick in April. Housing starts rose 5.7% across the country and “building in the Northeast increased at the fastest pace in nearly two years.” Take a read through this article for more commentary on these statistics.

The Low-Down on Pre-Fab Homes

With escalating costs associated with building on-site, we have decided to work with a modular home builder for our project in Chelsea, MA. But before making this decision, we spent a lot of time researching the pros and cons of shifting from on-site construction to this pre-fab option.

The US is far behind other countries in adopting this way of building, partly due to the stigma associated with “pre-fab” homes. However, the time and cost savings far outweigh this drawback. Take a look at this article to get the low-down on the various types of pre-fab homes and the benefits of each.

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