A Nevada company hopes to solve a nationwide housing crisis by producing modular homes in an assembly-line style — just like the production lines of the automotive industry.
“We have very high ceilings, big windows. We don’t really build a product that looks affordable,” said Martin Costas, chief financial officer of BOXABL, which has 400,000 square feet of space across three buildings in North Las Vegas. “I hate the word affordable. I like the wording cost-effective, because unfortunately, what is happening in the market is when you talk about affordable housing, they look bad. They look cheap. They are built cheaply.”
There’s a shortage of over 4.7 million homes in the United States, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. That number doubles when taking into consideration the shortage of affordable leasing units, Costas said.
“So people are suffering,” he said. “And I truly believe it’s because housing is broken.”
He pointed to the time-consuming demand of acquiring building permits as a primary factor. The best case scenario for housing approval is three months, Costas said.
“It’s super, super important to work with the government,” he said. “I think we’re attacking it (at) different levels — federal, states, cities. And I think most of them, they really understand the need, and they are coming with the right lens.”
A house can also take nearly two years to build, with trucks coming and going to the construction site, while a BOXABL can be manufactured in hours, he said.
“We want to build houses as you build a car with a production line,” he said. “And we believe that this (hasn’t happened) yet, because houses are super difficult to ship.”
BOXABL’s solution to the latter issue is a house that can fold so that two of BOXABL’s studio-style homes, or “Casitas,” can fit in one truck, making it cost-effective and ready to be delivered to places like Hawaii and Cuba, as it has already, Costas said.
“When you have a house, you’re buying empty space,” Costas said. “Let’s fold it.”
The 361-square-foot Casitas studio was BOXABL’s flagship product and what made the company “famous,” Costas said. It’s approved in Nevada, South Carolina, New Mexico and other states.
“Our mission is to really fix the housing situation with a housing solution,” Costas said.
The Casita One and Two Bedrooms have since been introduced and are approved in California, Costas said. The three available units range in cost from $150,000 to $205,000, considering shipping installation, land preparation for utilities and the foundation, and more.
BOXABL is selling a lot of its products as Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), said Costas, like you would put in your backyard for your parents, or to lease.
“The same unit that we sell in (the) ADU market in California, in a very expensive ZIP code, is the same unit that we’re putting in an affordable housing community,” he said. “So we build the standard units. We like to build the same unit over and over … We are super careful about the quality and the dignity of the people living in the house.”
BOXABL is based in Las Vegas, where Costas noted that backyard space can be sparse. The company knew when it settled in Nevada, however, that the product for it would not be the ADU, he said. Here would be more about small developments.
Now, the company is moving to offer single-family houses, townhomes and more, Costas said. BOXABL is in talks with developers in Nevada about providing Casitas for affordable leasing, Costas said.
“We’re now creating bigger units, and we’re starting to go more into single-family houses and townhouses,” he said. “And we want to explore more the capacity to attract more developers (so) that they will have more orders.”
BOXABL has a few existing projects in Las Vegas, including in RV parks, and is exploring opportunities to build affordable leasing communities that Costas said he expects will have “a serious impact.”
In Oklahoma City, Okla., it already has.
Zach Punnett of Punnett Construction in Oklahoma in October completed development of transitional housing for Catholic Charities, stacking two BOXABL units on top of each other six times to create six vertical duplexes and 12 individual units.
He chose to stack them on the site to fit more units on a smaller piece of land, Punnett said. The development took about three years to reach the finish line.
“I still think it takes the developer's mind, the builder's eye to make these things work,” he said.
Punnett said BOXABL piqued his interest because he anticipates a lack of skilled workforce in the future will lead to construction going modular, especially within affordable housing. BOXABL differed from other modular housing Punnett has seen because it is completely finished upon delivery, he said.
“I just think the factory concept makes a lot of sense,” he said, pointing out BOXABL’s designs being stackable and resistant to wind, water, mold, fire and insects.
Punnett is now in the process of developing 12 single-story BOXABL units as an Airbnb park outside of Stillwater, Okla.
Eventually, if BOXABL is producing enough units, it will be able to negotiate good deals and help drive costs down, Punnett predicted.
“I think the most valuable thing that BOXABL has is their long-term vision,” he said. “If they can really get to a point where they can start getting a set of plans, having their computer generate several BOXABLs that would come together to make one larger house — I think that would be fantastic. I think that’s the end game for them.”
The assembly line relies on unskilled labor, meaning it gives people who may not otherwise have one a unique training and career opportunity, Costas said.
There’s also constant research and development of new products, he said. BOXABL is working toward having technology embedded in the house to enhance its functionality and consumers’ living experience.
BOXABL is focused on ramping up operations, sales, product offerings and technology, Costas said. Another goal is to work with the government to streamline permitting and allow more competitors to crop up and increase housing volume.
“We need to catch up (on) years of lack of building,” he said. “We need to catch up (on) years of trying to fix affordable housing in the wrong way. And what I mean is, people think it’s about giving a loan or assistance, or the interest rate. The reality is every single time that you put more money in the potential buyer, the price goes up. There is no more supply.”