The Modern Sears Home: Resurrecting the Affordable American Starter Home for a New Generation

Introduction

On July 4th, 1940, the Sears Modern kit home that Joseph Origer and his wife ordered two weeks prior arrived on a boxcar at the local train station. Its destination was the North Judson, Indiana, farm where Joseph had grown up. The Origers had picked out a 1,000-square-foot, five-room bungalow – a model Sears called The Hammond. The Origers paid just $2,700 (about $64,600 today) for their Sears home, including bathroom fixtures, plumbing, wiring, paint, and the labor of a local retired carpenter. They moved in by Christmas and still called it home when the new millennium began 60 years later. Joseph was a second-generation Sears home resident: his father John, a farmer, built his own two-story Sears kit home in 1913.¹

Designed to be affordable without sacrificing quality, aesthetics, or longevity, Sears kit homes gave working families not only a roof over their heads, but a tangible asset they could improve over time and in which they could build equity. A kit home, however modest, was not a lesser version of the American Dream, but rather its very foundation: the first rung of a generational climb toward stability and prosperity.

In the decades since, that promise has collapsed. Fueled by rising land costs, reduced federal investment, restrictive local land use rules, and the profit incentives of corporate developers and financiers that favor high-margin development, the U.S. faces a housing affordability crisis of unprecedented proportions.²

Today, the new median single-family home sells for $403,200, a staggering 22.6% increase since the start of 2020.³ Persistently elevated interest rates have locked families into their current homes – suppressing housing turnover, constricting supply, and inflating prices. As a result, young families today confront a market in which suitable homes are scarce, mobility is costly, and the financial advantages once associated with homeownership are increasingly out of reach. Homeownership rates among young Americans have fallen significantly, dropping from 47% in 2005 to 40% in 2024.⁴ The entry-level market has vanished, leaving no “starter homes” to buy.

The scale of this crisis demands more than marginal fixes. It demands the kind of ambition that once made it possible for a farmer’s son in Indiana to afford a home from a catalog and spend the rest of his life in it. That kind of ambition helped propel Sears to make and sell close to 100,000 affordable homes that have served as starter homes, childhood homes, and forever homes for families over the last century. When Frank W. Kushel, general manager of the Sears Modern Homes department, was asked in 1929 why Sears was in the home-building business, Kushel responded: “Because, it was an obligation that our organization could not overlook. It was – and is – a service that we must perform regardless of whether or not there is any profit in the business.”⁵

The federal government, with the same kind of public-interest ambition, is uniquely positioned to do what Sears once did – but at a larger scale, more quickly, and more equitably than a private business ever could.

To begin to restore the pipeline of entry-level housing at the scale required, this report proposes a Modern Sears Home program. This federal initiative would deliver 500,000 high-quality, factory-built homes to families across the country at affordable prices, creating a new housing supply that is permanently affordable and built to last.⁶ The program harnesses what only the federal government can provide: the ability to operate at scale, make public investments where private markets won’t go, finance big projects at low cost, and stay focused on affordability long after the first sale is made.

Two generations of the Origer family bought their homes from the same catalog twenty-seven years apart because Sears cut out the middlemen, delivering high-quality starter homes straight to families. That system is gone. But the Modern Sears Home program seeks to revive it – delivering the next generation of starter homes for all.

A Home for Delivery: The Case for a Modern Kit Home Program

As families migrated away from America’s large cities throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, housing demand exploded in towns and rural communities that traditional builders and lenders couldn’t sufficiently serve. But the expansion of railroad networks and newly available postal delivery to isolated farm families meant that companies could market and transport mass-produced goods to all corners of the country.⁷ Soon, a variety of American companies began selling “mail-order kit homes” through their catalogs that allowed rural families or those without the means of traditional financing to buy a brand-new home through the mail.

In 1908, Sears began offering complete housing kits for sale in its annual Book of Modern Homes and Building Plans, and would go on to sell between 75,000 and 100,000 houses, shipping them to all 48 states by 1940. The first issue featured more than 40 house packages, each carrying an all-in price from $495 to $4,115.⁸ And while very little design information besides basic floor plans was included in the first issue, the Sears home catalog soon featured full-color layouts and interior views of completed homes for customers to peruse.

Mail-order homes offered families – especially those in sparsely-populated towns in the Midwest and West – something invaluable: modern amenities like electricity and indoor plumbing at a price they could afford, in a home they could often build themselves.⁹ In fact, a Sears kit home was sometimes more modern than the communities in which they were erected.

No matter where a prospective buyer lived, they could choose from up to 100 home designs in the catalog, picking the one that fit their tastes, needs, and budget – with options ranging from Craftsman bungalows, elaborate Queen Annes, classic American Foursquares, timeless Cape Cods, and Midwestern Prairie-style homes.¹⁰ By the late 1910s, each Sears kit home style had a picturesque name – like The Starlight (a Craftsman), The Magnolia (a Colonial Revival), The Aurora (Prairie-style), and The Alhambra (a Mission Revival) – marketing them as the idealized, affordable American Dream homes that families were searching for.¹¹

While homeowners could – and often did – hire local carpenters and laborers, many families chose to assemble their homes themselves, frequently with the help of friends and neighbors. The instruction manual that came with a Sears kit home – which outlined every part of the building process from unloading the materials to laying the foundation and framing the walls to installing windows and doors – was detailed enough to ensure sound construction while remaining straightforward enough for “the average man” to complete in less than 90 days.¹²

To keep costs down and quality consistent, Sears moved to control its own supply chain where it could. The company acquired its own lumber mills and millwork plants in Ohio and Illinois in 1909, and established a standalone Architectural Division in 1919, which bought home designs and hired architects to produce blueprints for mass production.¹³ By absorbing so many of the phases of home design and construction, Sears reduced construction time by 40% and total construction costs 30%.¹⁴ Moreover, in purchasing and building a Sears home, families created an immediate 20-30% equity stake for themselves – a critical financial cushion for both buyer and lender.¹⁵

Kit homes also offered families non-traditional financing options that helped make them affordable beyond the initial purchase price.¹⁶ Indeed, easy financing was a large part of the draw for consumers. In 1911, Sears began offering longer-duration, “easy payment’’ mortgages – much easier than traditional lenders typically offered.¹⁷ A buyer who owned their land outright could even use it as the 25% down payment – significantly less than the 50% down payment required by traditional lenders.¹⁸ As historian and architectural critic John Ely Burchard wrote in 1935, “It is thus difficult to divorce the appeal of the Sears house qua from its appeal of obtaining one under relatively painless financing.”¹⁹

At a time when traditional lenders routinely rejected women, people of color, and immigrants, the Sears mortgage application only asked a handful of questions – none of which were about race, ethnicity, gender, or marital status – paving the way for a more diverse homeownership base than otherwise typical.²⁰ As a result, the Sears kit home opened the door to homeownership to a more economically and ethnically diverse population.

Examples abound: The family of truck driver John Caringello still lives in the Chicago-area Rodessa home that he purchased after he immigrated from Italy in 1913.²¹ The Westly that Bebb Jones, a Black grocer, purchased and financed through Sears for his wife and three daughters in 1920 still stands in Town Creek, Alabama.²² The Sears Puritan that Ruth Sward’s railroad worker father bought after his wife died in the 1918 flu epidemic was the only way he could, in Ruth’s words, “have afforded a home of his own” for his five children.²³ And, after Helen Gott’s mother died in 1972 while still living in the Sears bungalow she purchased herself in 1928, Helen and her husband moved back into the house she grew up in. As Helen recalled in 2000, “This mail order house is now 72 years old and just as sound as the day it was built.”²⁴

At a time when owning a home seems like a distant, unattainable possibility for millions of families, Sears homes have begun to, once again, capture the imagination of today’s urban planners,²⁵ builders,²⁶ and TikTokers²⁷ alike. The discontinued Sears kit home represents something more than nostalgia. It stands as a reminder of a moment when the American Dream was within reach for working families – when you could, quite literally, order a house from a catalog.

A Modern Sears Home Program

This report outlines a new Modern Sears Home program: a federal initiative to purchase 500,000 high quality, factory-built homes and market them directly to consumers, which would be funded at $44-75 billion over eight years, with much of the cost ultimately being recovered by the federal government.²⁸ By operating at a far larger scale than Sears, the Modern Sears Home program aims to deliver homes to buyers at $170,000 to $215,000 – well below the current national median of roughly $403,000.

First, the Modern Sears Home program harkens back to a time when standardization in single-family home-building did not imply austerity or corner-cutting – but instead, desirable and affordable craftsmanship at scale. Not only did Sears offer kit homes for families to purchase and build, but from 1948 to 1952, Sears sold a line of “prefabricated” homes to help meet the needs of the urgent post-World War II housing boom.²⁹ These long-forgotten Homart Homes arrived as ready-to-join sections that took just three days to erect.³⁰ Though the Homart Home typified the boxy, simple design style of the post-war era, their affordable price point of just $3,000 in 1952 (roughly $38,000 today) made them a godsend for working families.³¹

In the decades that followed the last Sears kit home sale, standardization in the housing sector has come to be associated instead with lesser alternatives: “trailer homes” and Levittowns.³² Trailer homes – later formally termed “mobile homes” and then “manufactured homes” – retain a stigma driven in part by reality: single-section manufactured homes tend to be cramped, lower quality, and concentrated in areas with high levels of poverty.³³ And, although Levittowns connote middle-class living – alongside 1950s soulless conformity – they were infamously denied to Black families, with the backing and encouragement of the federal government.³⁴ By contrast, the process for obtaining a Sears kit home helped democratize the “good life” that homeownership enabled. The Modern Sears Homes program aims to reinvigorate the promise of efficient standardization to promote high quality, widely accessible homes.

Second, this report proposes a direct-to-consumer approach that makes homeownership affordable and accessible to every corner of the nation. The U.S.’s housing affordability crisis is not just a big city problem: Large majorities of Americans – across rural, suburban, and urban communities – say housing affordability is deteriorating.³⁵ Even in places where land is not the major constraint to building, the underlying financing conditions or family incomes may still not make housing profitable for developers. By leveraging the federal government to facilitate the construction and placement of a new generation of Sears-inspired homes, the U.S. can achieve the kind of scale only the federal government can supply.

Much like the Sears kit home of old, the Modern Sears Home program seeks to limit the role of middlemen that drive up prices for families. Instead of individual families dedicating their time and energy to search for designers, builders, contractors, and lenders and then haggle with each, the Modern Sears Home program allows the government to do it for them – dramatically simplifying the construction process without sacrificing quality.

Third, this proposal takes inspiration from a time when both the American government and American industry believed they could build big things quickly. This belief, perhaps best embodied by Sears’ promise that “a man of average abilities” could assemble an entire home within 90 days, helped fuel the rapid expansion and modernization of the American family and home in the first half of the 20th century.³⁶ Much has been written about the challenges – economic, bureaucratic, industrial, and environmental – that our country faces today in developing housing, clean energy, and mass transit, as well as about America’s inability to keep pace with the innovation and manufacturing capacity of countries like China.

The Modern Sears Home program would deliver 500,000 prefabricated single-family homes to families through an adapted community land trust model that pairs permanent affordability with private wealth-building. Resale prices will be indexed to area median income, meaning that owners build equity by paying down their mortgages and capturing local income growth, while ensuring that each home remains affordable for the next buyer.

The Modern Sears Home program fits within a growing consensus that fixing housing means fixing finance.³⁷ Private developers build only when projects pencil, meaning that expected rents, net of construction and financing costs, clear the rate of return their investors demand. This math ties new housing supply to high rents. If rents begin to fall, private capital will walk away. Thus, sustainably lowering housing prices relative to other prices in the economy requires public investment: the government can either build housing itself or finance private construction at below-market returns. It should do both. This proposal combines elements of public finance and true public production, justified by an urgent need for investment at levels that only the federal government can marshal. If public investment is the proposal’s muscle, the adapted community land trust model is its backbone, ensuring that affordability is well-targeted and persists for generations to come.

Factory Built, Market Blocked: Why the Private Sector Can’t Scale Prefabricated Housing Alone

The Modern Sears Home program will massively scale up the production of factory-built – or “prefabricated” – single-family homes, a type of housing which can, for our purposes, be divided into two sub-categories: manufactured and modular.³⁸

By definition, manufactured homes are any built in accordance with “the HUD code,” a set of federal construction and safety standards that preempt state and local building codes for any covered home. Until the recent enactment of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, HUD code required manufactured homes to be built on a permanent steel chassis (underframe) for transportability.³⁹ Modular homes, on the other hand, are built to conform with state and local building codes. Code differences contribute to meaningful differences between  typical manufactured homes and typical modular homes. Modular homes tend to be higher quality and larger, and they are more likely to appear site-built to the untrained eye.

Though there are many successful private companies providing families with affordable and high-quality prefab housing across the country,⁴⁰ prefabrication makes up just 10.5% of current single-family construction overall.⁴¹ There are several mutually-reinforcing barriers that limit consistent cost savings for prefab construction, which in turn hinder the private sector’s ability to scale this housing type at the level the U.S. needs:

• The housing market is highly cyclical. Residential investment is even more volatile than business investment and about five times more volatile than overall GDP growth.⁴² Volatility poses a particular challenge for factories, which are expensive to acquire and maintain, and can hardly afford to sit idle. In contrast, on-site construction companies have low fixed costs and often rely on temporary workers.
• Current financing practices disadvantage prefabricated housing. Where land for single-family construction is readily available, financing conditions and labor shortages may still be challenges. Families in such areas tend to have lower incomes and are less able to invest in new construction themselves, while developers look to earn higher returns in cities with higher rents and home prices.⁴³ As a result, prefabricated construction often requires large upfront capital to cover procurement and materials.⁴⁴ Additionally, lenders may view modular housing as riskier than traditional on-site construction, but it can actually reduce risk by, for example, centralizing construction in indoor, temperature-controlled facilities that reduce the likelihood of weather-related delays.⁴⁵
• Buyers of manufactured homes face unnecessarily high borrowing costs. Many state property titling laws categorize manufactured homes as chattel (personal property) rather than real property (real estate).⁴⁶ This regulatory classification forces buyers into higher-interest consumer loans that cannot be justified by individual credit risk profiles alone.⁴⁷
• State and local building, land use, and permitting laws necessitate customized designs for nearly all modular homes and many manufactured homes.⁴⁸ Many localities effectively circumvent the HUD code’s preemption of building codes by mandating aesthetic and design criteria such as roof pitch minimums, cladding material mandates, and strict perimeter foundation requirements.⁴⁹ Manufacturers face the choice of either tailoring designs or not supplying homes at all to these localities. Unsurprisingly, opportunities for cost savings shrink substantially when factories cannot standardize.

Congress has begun to clear some of the structural hurdles that have long constrained modular production. ROAD will help unlock economies of scale in the offsite construction industry, directing HUD to review the financing barriers modular housing developers face and begin to pursue a standardized federal code for modular homes.⁵⁰ A standardized federal modular code would render the Modern Sears Home program even more potent – allowing manufacturers to produce designs at true national scale, rather than customizing for each state’s particular regulatory regime.

An existing type of manufactured home called Crossover Modern Homes or “CrossMods” are manufactured homes built to HUD code with added features like permanent foundations, higher-pitched roofs, and garages. They can unlock standardization, speed, and cost savings at scale and are designed to appreciate in value and finance more like site-built homes.⁵¹ Further, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have each developed programs to “offer CrossMod borrowers underwriting flexibilities not otherwise available to other [manufactured home] borrowers.”⁵²

The state of New York has seized on CrossMod innovation by establishing the MOVE-IN NY program, which specifically caters to families with low to moderate incomes.⁵³ Though still in its infancy, the program has already been a success. Describing the pilot’s purchase and installation of 1,500-square foot homes in Syracuse, Schenectady, and Newcomb, the state’s affordable housing agency recently attested (emphasis theirs):⁵⁴

The CrossMods took just under six months from order to installation completion, and the total cost per home was just over $250,000. This timeline is up to three times faster than what it normally takes to build a traditional home and was completed for nearly 50% of the cost of an average comparable stick-built home.

The Mechanics of Government Delivering Affordable Housing at Scale

The Modern Sears Home program would dramatically scale the prefabricated housing industry and deliver attractive, affordable homes to families across the country. Based on the best available evidence, we expect the Modern Sears Home program to generate construction cost savings of at least 27%.⁵⁵ However, Congress should first authorize a Request for Information to solicit information from manufacturers – covering items like the prices they could deliver at significantly higher production volumes, order commitments, and lead times – the findings of which could be used to inform the program’s advance purchase commitments and provide a more precise estimate of potential cost savings.

A flexible procurement framework for housing manufacturers

To kickstart the program, HUD would offer flexibly designed advance purchase commitments to private manufacturers. HUD should issue a broad, minimally-prescriptive request for proposals, including quantity of homes to be produced, cost, timeline, design features, energy efficiency metrics, and anticipated wage and labor standards.

Such flexible procurement authorities already exist for national defense-related needs. The Defense Production Act (DPA) of 1950 includes provisions allowing the federal government to execute advance purchase commitments, direct loans and loan guarantees, and to directly construct factories or install equipment in existing factories (both privately- or publicly-owned).⁵⁶ Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) has already introduced a bill that would unlock these authorities for housing.⁵⁷

Land acquisition through multiple channels

HUD would manage land acquisition, site preparation, home installation, marketing, and sale (including financing), meaning the manufacturers’ obligations end at site delivery. HUD should have discretion and flexibility to perform functions in-house or by contract.

The Modern Sears Home program’s 500,000 houses would require up to 125,000 acres of land in total (roughly 0.25 acres per lot), which HUD can acquire through several possible channels, prioritizing cost savings, geographic diversity, and markets where housing is unaffordable but denser multi-family development is unlikely.⁵⁸

• Federally-managed land: The Modern Sears Home program could acquire a small subset of federal lands from the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service.⁵⁹ The Wall Street Journal estimates there are currently about 650 million acres of federal land, 47 million acres of which lie within metropolitan areas experiencing housing shortages.⁶⁰ Much of that 47 million acres is unsuitable for housing development, but even a tiny fraction could meaningfully contribute to the Modern Sears Home program’s 125,000-acre need. One analysis has identified 544,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land believed to be suitable for single-family development.⁶¹
• Excess federal properties: HUD can also acquire land that federal agencies no longer need. There is an existing process for disposing of so-called “excess property,” in which the General Services Administration (GSA) prioritizes transferring property to other federal agencies at fair market value before offering it to states, local governments, and nonprofits.^{62, 63}
• State, local, and land bank land: It is likely that states, localities, and land banks – many of which already devote considerable resources to affordable housing development with no commercial profit motive – would willingly offer land at low or no cost in exchange for an influx of high quality, attractive and affordable homes. Moreover, surplus inventory is often a net cost to these entities, as upkeep expenses and lost tax revenue outweigh land value.⁶⁴ The MOVE-IN NY program relies on a similar model: cities, land banks, and nonprofits apply for construction and development funding but provision land themselves.⁶⁵ The Center for Geospatial Solutions has identified roughly 271,000 acres of potentially buildable land in transit-accessible urban areas that is owned by state and local governments.⁶⁶
• Privately-held land: Finally, HUD could purchase finished lots from private landholders, as needed. Legislation could authorize HUD to use this channel where purchased land is particularly useful for diversifying geographic reach; where housing is severely unaffordable but denser multi-family development is unlikely; or to meet residual need after other acquisition pathways are exhausted.⁶⁷ Alternatively, HUD could partner with religious institutions, universities, and other mission-driven landowners to host Modern Sears Homes under the same affordability, financing, and program terms as other pathways. A burgeoning “Yes in God’s Backyard” (YIGBY) movement encourages faith-based institutions to put affordable housing on their underutilized land. The Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley has identified more than 171,000 acres of developable faith-based or nonprofit college-owned land in California alone.The median finished lot value among single-family, detached, for-sale homes started in 2025 was $59,000, with regional medians between $50,000 and $171,000.⁶⁸ Because the Modern Sears Home program will rely primarily on donated, transferred, and low-cost land, we conservatively assume an average land cost of $43,000 per home across the full program.⁶⁹

Permanent affordability through an adapted community land trust model

Modern Sears Homes will be sold through an adapted community land trust (CLT) model that pairs permanent affordability with private wealth-building. In the traditional CLT model, a community-based nonprofit transfers ownership of the housing structure but not the underlying land to the buyer. In doing so, the CLT can attach and enforce a resale formula that ensures the home remains affordable for the next buyer.

HUD will target sales of Modern Sears Homes to households between 60% and 100% of the local area median income (AMI). Remaining inventory can be sold to higher-income households; in many places, even those earning 100 to 150% of AMI are still solidly part of the working class. Modern Sears Homes will be priced so that monthly carrying costs – mortgage, insurance, tax, and utility payments – do not exceed 30% of the target AMI level. To keep the homes affordable for future generations, resale prices will be indexed to local AMI growth or 1.5% – whichever is greater in each year.

This model of shared ownership strikes an ideal balance between long-term affordability and opportunities for wealth-building. It ensures that the benefits of the Modern Sears Home program are felt for generations to come, not captured and cashed out on by a lucky first wave of buyers. Meanwhile, it broadens access to high-quality homeownership for a population that is usually excluded from it.⁷⁰ Families will build wealth as they pay down their mortgages.

Moreover, with the Modern Sears Home program’s shared-equity CLT framework, families will be able to build enough of a financial cushion to weather macroeconomic shocks and build wealth for the future. Research shows that over 90% of lower-income households who purchased shared equity CLT homes remained homeowners five years later.⁷¹ Furthermore, the typical CLT homeowners gain an average 25% return on their initial investment upon resale, even when resale restrictions are in place.⁷² Analysis from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy reveals that in the aftermath of the Great Recession, conventional market mortgages were over eight times more likely to enter foreclosure than CLT loans.⁷³

Recycling capital through Ginnie Mae securitization

HUD would issue 30-year fixed rate mortgages directly to Modern Sears Home buyers. There is precedent for this: the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service offers direct mortgage lending through its Section 502 Direct Loan Program.⁷⁴ The program has helped over 2.1 million families with low and very low incomes become homeowners and build over $40 billion in wealth.⁷⁵ HUD would then package mortgages as Ginnie Mae-guaranteed mortgage-backed securities for sale to investors, allowing it to quickly recover and recycle program funds.

Labor standards, environmental performance, and speed of delivery

The Modern Sears Home program carries several inherent labor and environmental benefits. As Oswaldo Lira, a construction worker with 20 years of experience in on- and off-site construction, explained to the California Assembly Select Committee on Housing Construction Innovation in 2026:⁷⁶

“Factory construction… offers several advantages for workers, including a consistent location to eliminate long travel, reduce fatigue and lower personal expenses, like tolls, gas, car maintenance, etc. Workers benefit from predictable schedules, stronger communication with teams, and improved safety due to familiarity with their environment. Being able to return home daily supports better life balance, allows participation in family responsibilities, and creates greater stability at home.”

Factory floors also offer a venue for union organizing that is hardly ever available to those building single-family homes on-site.⁷⁷ Mr. Lira’s factory is unionized, and he was a card-carrying member before being promoted to supervisor.⁷⁸

The scale of the Modern Sears Home program also facilitates widespread energy efficiency and climate resiliency, as energy-efficient materials and appliances can be purchased at bulk discounts. Additionally, off-site construction significantly reduces carbon emissions – by as much as 25% compared to on-site construction, largely due to reduced need for worker and material transportation.⁷⁹

Additionally, Congress can take several steps to enable speed and efficiency in the Modern Sears Home program. Congress could preempt state and local land use, zoning, and permitting restrictions and establish a federal modular housing code that preempts state and local building codes (as the manufactured housing code does).⁸⁰

Conclusion

When Joseph Origer and his wife watched their Sears kit home arrive on that train in July 1940, they were not simply awaiting lumber and nails. They were investing in their future – a place to raise a family, build wealth, and put down roots for the next sixty years. That working families across the country could order affordable, high-quality homes through the mail was not an accident of history. It was the result of Sears’ deliberate decision to cut out middlemen, standardize production, and finance directly to families.

Sears offered these homes for profit. The federal government – with greater resources, lower borrowing costs, and unmatched power to scale – can do it better.

The housing crisis squeezing American families today did not arrive overnight, and will not be solved by half-measures. It will take the kind of public ambition that once sent 30,000-piece home kits rattling on rail cars across the country to families who otherwise thought homeownership a distant aspiration. It will take a government willing to act not at the margins of the market, but at its center – financing cheaply, building at scale, and remaining committed to affordability long after the deed is signed.

The Modern Sears Home program is that ambition made actionable. By combining large-scale factory production with permanent affordability protections and direct federal financing, it offers a concrete path to 500,000 new homes in eight years – each priced from $170,000 to $215,000, within reach of young families the market has left behind. The technology and policy levers to realize this vision already exist. The question is not whether the federal government can act at this scale – but whether it will.

Authors

Noah Ball-Burack is a former Policy Analyst at Groundwork Collaborative and an incoming first-year student at Yale Law School. While at Groundwork, he also served as an Economic Policy Analyst at Sperling Economic Strategies. Previously, he was a Special Assistant in the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Policy and intern at the White House National Economic Council, HHS Administration for Children and Families, and Office of Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee. Noah holds a B.A. in economics and public policy from Brown University.

Emily DiVito is the Senior Advisor for Economic Policy at Groundwork Collaborative. Prior to Groundwork, she was the Director for Finance, Corporate Regulation, and Consumer Protection at the Roosevelt Institute and a policy advisor at the U.S. Treasury Department. Her research has been featured in the Washington Post, the Guardian, and Bloomberg. Emily has a BA from Wellesley College and an MPA from Columbia University.

Alex Jacquez is the Senior Vice President of Policy, Advocacy, and Research at Groundwork Collaborative. Prior to joining Groundwork, he served as Special Assistant to the President for Economic Development and Industrial Strategy at the White House National Economic Council where he advised the president on issues spanning labor and competition to clean energy and manufacturing. He previously served as a Senior Policy Advisor for labor and economic issues for Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on the Senate Budget Committee and on his 2020 presidential campaign, and has held policy, communications, and engagement positions for Senate Democratic Leadership, the Obama White House, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and federal and state campaigns. Alex graduated from Lehigh University, where he lettered in baseball.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Natalie Forman and Agatha Pinheiro for research assistance, as well as Judith Chabot, Aaron Chilewich, Tania Dissanayake, Mike Fellman, Madeline Fletcher, Daniel Hornung, JW Mason, Owen Minott, Joe Palozzola, Parker Pence, Brian Potter, Bharat Ramamurti, Karis Rasmussen, Chadwick Reed, Kitty Richards, Ashwin Warrior, and Adam Zaranko for generously sharing their expertise in conversation. Jan Boutte provided editorial support. Matt Ingram provided graphic design.

Appendix A: Construction Cost Savings

A 2023 Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) report uses RSMeans, the gold standard database for estimating North American construction costs, to recreate manufactured housing designs as built on-site, holding layout, finishes, and appliances constant. It finds that the average CrossMod home – i.e., a manufactured home built to HUD code with added features like permanent foundations, higher-pitched roofs, and garages – costs 27% less after accounting for building, transportation, site preparation, installation, and administrative costs.⁸¹

Twenty-seven percent is a lower bound. The Modern Sears Home program is designed to overcome the largest barriers to adoption identified in this paper – manufacturer uncertainty, unfavorable financing, and hostile local regulation – unlocking massive opportunities for additional standardization and scale beyond what the JCHS study captures.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which became law in July 2026,⁸² would eliminate the permanent chassis requirement that adds roughly $5,000-$10,000 in cost without purpose.⁸³ Additionally, as Brian Potter has noted, the JCHS report does not account for differences in energy efficiency or wind speed standards, though he concedes these are “likely relatively minor in terms of added cost” and should be minimal for prefab homes built to higher efficiency standards than traditional manufactured homes, like CrossMods.⁸⁴ In our view, any unaccounted-for quality differential is more than offset by the program’s economies of scale and chassis elimination. Lastly, 27% reflects construction costs only. When JCHS adds land, overall savings falls to 20%.⁸⁵ The Modern Sears Home program will use federally-owned or low-cost land to minimize costs.

Appendix B: Sears Home Program Cost Estimate

We estimate that the Modern Sears Home program would cost approximately $32-62 billion over its lifetime, which would require an appropriation of roughly $44-75 billion to cover cumulative costs at their peak before federal loans to manufacturers are fully repaid. To arrive at these ranges, we estimate low-, medium-, and high-cost scenarios. Below, we provide rationales for most of the input values included in our cost estimate. Our estimate is intended only as an illustration of potential costs: It is not intended to prescribe the exact cost of the Sears Modern Home program, nor does it represent exhaustive cost considerations for a program of this size.

In our medium-cost scenario, federal outlays peak in Year 6 at $23.38 billion.⁸⁶ For context, that’s roughly 0.33% of all federal spending in fiscal year 2025 (2.6% of defense spending or 2.4% of nondefense discretionary spending).⁸⁷ In this same scenario, the cumulative program cost over its lifetime is $40.46 billion, which is less than HUD’s budget in a single year.⁸⁸

Summary of Program Costs by Scenario

• Low-cost scenario: $31.70 billion lifetime program cost
  • $223,000 per-home cost
  • $170,000 average sale price per home
• Medium-cost scenario: $40.46 billion lifetime program cost
  • $252,500 per-home cost
  • $192,500 average sale price per home
• High-cost scenario: $61.88 billion lifetime program cost
  • $302,000 per-home cost
  • $215,000 average sale price per home

Endnotes

[1] Rosemary Thornton, The Houses That Sears Built: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sears Catalog Homes (Gentle Beam Publications, 2004). The Origer family story is sourced from Thornton’s research.

[2] Prosperity Now, Nestment, and Next Belt Strategies, Homeownership in America: The Starter Home Is Dead. Now What? (Washington, D.C.: Prosperity Now, 2026), https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/64f22f0478cf70a81b4dc7a9/697bdc315f5c710891c4532d_PN-Homeownership-in-America-2026-report-5.pdf.

[3] U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “Median Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States [MSPUS],” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, FRED Economic Data, updated May 5, 2026, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS. The Q1 2020 median sales price was $329,000; by Q1 2026 it rose to $403,200.

[4] Jung Hyun Choi, Laurie Goodman, and Jun Zhu, “Homeownership Among Young Adults Has Fallen, and It’s Worse Than You Think,” Urban Wire (blog), Urban Institute, May 28, 2026, https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/homeownership-among-young-adults-has-fallen-and-its-worse-you-think.

[5] Thornton, Houses That Sears Built, 66.

[6] See appendices B and C.

[7] United States Postal Service, “Rural Free Delivery,” USPS History, August 2013, https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/rural-free-delivery.htm; Jim Draeger, “Postal Perfect: My Pursuit of Mail-Order Homes in Wisconsin,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 85, no. 1 (Autumn 2001): 24–33, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4636944. Until the Rural Free Delivery Act of 1896, thousands of rural families had to travel to distant post offices to pick up their mail.

[8] Samuel Dodd, “The Sears Modern Home” (Academia.edu, February 19, 2019), https://www.academia.edu/94632825/The_Sears_Modern_Home. When the Modern Homes Division closed in 1940, Sears staffers discarded all records, making it impossible to establish precise sales numbers, home locations, or definitive design attributions.

[9] Thornton, Houses That Sears Built, 5. Well into the 1920s, indoor bathrooms were optional in many Sears kit home models, and buyers had the option to purchase a $30 outhouse instead.

[10] Thornton, Houses That Sears Built, 9. Between 1908 and 1940, Sears offered customers over 370 designs.

[11] Meg Greene Malvasi, The Kit House in Southeastern Virginia: Architectural Documentation of Kit Houses Manufactured by Sears, Roebuck and Company Located within the Cities of Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, and Virginia Beach, Virginia, WMCAR Project No. 05-35 (Williamsburg, VA: William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research, 2006), https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/pdf_files/SpecialCollections/VA-68_Sears_Kit_Houses_2006_Report.pdf.

[12] Thornton, Houses That Sears Built, 22.

[13] Dodd, “The Sears Modern Home.”

[14] U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “Kit Homes in America: Ordered by Mail, Delivered by Rail,” PD&R Edge, July 24, 2025, https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr-edge-housingat250-article-072425.html.

[15] Jon Gorey, “When Sears Sold the American Dream,” Boston Globe, July 27, 2017, https://www.boston.com/real-estate/real-estate-news/2017/07/27/when-sears-sold-the-american-dream/.

[16] Donna K. Keesling, “Sears Kit Houses: Affordable Housing in the Early 20th Century,” The Pursuit of History, January 15, 2024, https://thepursuitofhistory.org/2024/01/15/sears-kit-houses-affordable-housing-in-the-early-20th-century/. Sears was badly hit by the Depression; by 1934 it had been forced to liquidate millions in mortgages, and the Modern Homes program folded entirely by 1940 due to loan defaults and material shortages.

[17] Keesling, “Sears Kit Houses.”

[18] Gorey, “When Sears Sold the American Dream.”

[19] John Ely Burchard, “Prefabricated Housing and Its Marketing Problems,” American Marketing Journal 2, no. 3 (July 1935): 150–156, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4291460.

[20] Gorey, “When Sears Sold the American Dream.”; Romero, “The House Is in the Mail.”

[21] Lara Solonickne, “Two Italian Families and Their Neighboring Sears Houses,” Sears Homes of Chicagoland (blog), February 17, 2015, https://www.sears-homes.com/2015/02/two-italian-families-and-their.html.

[22] Lara Solonickne, “There’s a First Time for Everything,” Sears Homes of Chicagoland (blog), May 16, 2017, https://www.sears-homes.com/2017/05/theres-first-time-for-everything.html; Lara Solonickne, “A Sears Westly in an African-American Neighborhood… in Lake Forest,” Sears Homes of Chicagoland (blog), October 13, 2020, https://www.sears-homes.com/2020/10/a-sears-westly-in-african-american.html. Though there are surviving records of Black families purchasing a Sears kit home, Black homebuyers were able to take advantage of other mail-order kit homes, including Joe Lyde of Evanston, Illinois, who purchased an Aladdin kit home in 1924 and lived there with his wife and two sons.

[23] Thornton, Houses That Sears Built, 124-5.

[24] Thornton, Houses That Sears Built, 125-6.

[25] Maria Piqueras Blasco and Ivan Cabrera i Fausto, “Prefabricated Housing Construction Throughout History,” archiDOCT 12, no. 2 (2024): 33–41, https://riunet.upv.es/server/api/core/bitstreams/15ba65e5-aa78-4845-bd85-afb623a9e02b/content; see section 4.4.

[26] Brent Hull, “Sears Kit Houses and a Solution for Building,” YouTube, June 7, 2025, 10:58, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efpgJXGwBIg.

[27] @americanproblems, “Sears Modern Home,” TikTok, July 11, 2023, video, https://www.tiktok.com/@americanproblems/video/7254631580105297194.

[28] See Appendix C for additional cost estimate details.

[29] Thornton, Houses That Sears Built, 80-82.

[30] Thornton, Houses That Sears Built, 81.

[31] Thornton, Houses That Sears Built, 81.

[32] Amanda Marquit, From Sears & Roebuck to Skyscrapers: A History of Prefabricated and Modular Housing, staff report, New York City Department of Buildings, December 1, 2013, https://a860-gpp.nyc.gov/concern/nyc_government_publications/6q182k37c?locale=en.

[33] Brian Potter, “The Rise and Fall of the Mobile Home,” Construction Physics (blog), July 15, 2022, https://www.construction-physics.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-mobile-home; Tyler Williams, “Manufactured Housing: An Affordable Alternative?,” HousingWire, January 19, 2026, https://www.housingwire.com/articles/manufactured-housing-affordable-alternative/https://www.housingwire.com/articles/manufactured-housing-affordable-alternative/.

[34] La-Brina Almeida, “A History of Racist Federal Housing Policies,” Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, August 6, 2021, https://massbudget.org/2021/08/06/a-history-of-racist-federal-housing-policies/.

[35] Radosevich and Turner, “Americans Recognize Housing Affordability Crisis.”

[36] Rosemary Thornton, “September 25th + Richmond + Sears Homes + Rose = A LOT OF FUN!,” Sears Homes (blog), September 15, 2014, https://searshomes.org/index.php/2014/09/15/september-25th-richmond-sears-homes-rose-a-lot-of-fun/.

[37] Mike Fellman and J. W. Mason, “Fixing Housing Means Fixing Finance: Why We Can’t Deregulate Our Way to Affordability,” Groundwork Collaborative, March 25, 2026, https://groundworkcollaborative.org/work/fixing-housing-means-fixing-finance-why-we-cant-deregulate-our-way-to-affordability/; Ezra Klein, “What We Got Right — and Wrong — in ‘Abundance’,” The Ezra Klein Show, New York Times, April 28, 2026, podcast, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/28/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-thompson-dunkelman.html.

[38] Prefabrication is generally understood to encompass all forms of off-site construction, including component and panelized methods. However, since this paper envisions offtake agreements for what are substantially complete homes, it focuses only on manufactured and modular housing.

[39] The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act proposes to eliminate the mandatory steel chassis requirement, which would lower manufacturing costs and create greater architectural flexibility for manufactured homes. Arica Young and Bennie Chang, “Removing the Permanent Chassis Requirement for Manufactured Homes,” Land Wise (blog), Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, March 25, 2026, https://www.lincolninst.edu/land-wise/removing-permanent-chassis-requirement-manufactured-homes/; Emma Waters and Rebecca Orbach, “What’s in the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act?” (explainer), Bipartisan Policy Center, March 10, 2026, https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/whats-in-the-21st-century-road-to-housing-act/.

[40] For instance, companies like Fading West and Liv-Connected have built and placed hundreds of homes for communities recovering from natural disasters and destruction of property. Russell, James S. “In Lahaina, ‘Dignified’ Havens for Wildfire Survivors.” New York Times, August 15, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/15/arts/design/lahaina-hawaii-fema-housing-dxa-studios.html.

[41] Patrick Revere, “Manufactured Housing Industry Trends & Statistics,” MHInsider, May 22, 2026, https://mhinsider.com/manufactured-housing-industry-trends-statistics/. 102,738 manufactured homes were produced in 2025, rounded to ~103,000 above; U.S. Census Bureau, “Characteristics of New Housing: Construction Method, Single-Family Completed,” Annual Data, 2025, https://www.census.gov/construction/chars/current.html. Other single-family homes derived as total single-family completions minus modular (1,005,000 – 14,000 = 991,000).  The ~10.5% prefab share is calculated as (102,738 + 14,000) ÷ (1,005,000 + 102,738) = 116,738 ÷ 1,107,738 = .10538 = ~10.5%. The denominator adds manufactured homes to the Census total because Census excludes them from its single-family count.

[42] Emanuel Kohlscheen, Aaron Mehrotra, and Dubravko Mihaljek, “Residential Investment and Economic Activity: Evidence from the Past Five Decades,” BIS Working Papers no. 726, Bank for International Settlements, June 2018, https://www.bis.org/publ/work726.pdf.

[43] U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research, Displacement of Lower-Income Families in Urban Areas Report, May 2018, https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/displacementreport.pdf.

[44] Michela Zonta, “Increasing Affordable Housing Stock Through Modular Building,” Center for American Progress, February 6, 2024, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/increasing-affordable-housing-stock-through-modular-building/. Unlike on-site construction, where lenders tend to disperse funds through incremental completion benchmarks.

[45] Makenna Ryan and Cait Bladt, “Prefab Construction: The Risks and Rewards of Prefabrication,” Construction Library, Procore, last updated August 13, 2024, https://www.procore.com/library/prefabricated-construction.

[46] Fannie Mae, “B5-2-05: Manufactured Housing Legal Considerations,” Selling Guide, December 10, 2025, https://selling-guide.fanniemae.com/sel/b5-2-05/manufactured-housing-legal-considerations. Some allow for conversion to real property if the resident proves that they own the underlying land and have affixed the home to a permanent foundation. See conditional requirements.

[47] Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Manufactured-Housing Finance: New Insights from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Data, May 2021, https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_manufactured-housing-finance-new-insights-hmda_report_2021-05.pdf, see Table 6. In 2019, roughly 56% of home-purchase manufactured home borrowers had homes titled as real property, yet faced a median interest rate 0.8 percentage points higher than site-built home borrowers. The remaining 44% whose homes were titled as chattel faced an interest rate penalty an additional 3.7 percentage points above their real property counterparts. Suggestive evidence indicates much of this premium cannot be explained by differences in credit scores.

[48] See “Guidelines, Standards & Codes for the Residential Modular Industry,” Modular Home Builders Association, July 18, 2022, https://www.modularhome.org/2022/07/18/guidelines-standards-codes-for-the-residential-modular-industry/; and Manufactured Housing Institute, Impact of Zoning by State on Manufactured Housing, https://www.manufacturedhousing.org/industry-resources/mhi-research/impact-of-zoning-by-state-on-manufactured-housing/.

[49] Christopher Herbert, Alexander Hermann, Daniel McCue, and Chadwick Reed, “A Review of Barriers to Greater Use of Manufactured Housing for Entry-Level Homeownership,” Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard University, January 2024, https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/research/files/harvard_jchs_barriers_manufactured_housing_2024.pdf.

[50] Emma Waters. “Inside the Deal: What’s in the Final 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.” Bipartisan Policy Center, June 23, 2026. https://bipartisanpolicy.org/issue-brief/inside-the-deal-whats-in-the-final-21st-century-road-to-housing-act/.

[51] Manufactured Housing Institute, “CrossMod® Homes,” under “Increase Property Value,” accessed June 23, 2026, https://www.manufacturedhousing.org/about-manufactured-homes/crossmod/; see also Laurie Goodman and Karan Kaul, “How Can Manufactured Housing Address the Affordable Housing Crisis?,” Housing Matters (Urban Institute), January 31, 2018, https://archive-housingmatters.urban.org/articles/how-can-manufactured-housing-address-affordable-housing-crisis/. CrossMods are affixed to permanent foundations and can generally be titled as real property. Note that this analysis is not limited to CrossMods; it is limited to real property manufactured homes.

[52] Federal Housing Finance Agency, “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Support Manufactured Housing,” FHFA Blog, August 30, 2018, https://www.fhfa.gov/blog/statistics/fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac-support-manufactured-housing. See discussion of the MH Advantage and CHOICEHome programs.

[53] New York State Homes and Community Renewal, “MOVE-IN NY,” accessed June 23, 2026, https://hcr.ny.gov/MoveInNY.

[54] New York State Homes and Community Renewal, MOVE-IN NY Participant Request for Applications (RFA), September 2025, https://hcr.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2025/09/move-in-ny-participant-rfa-final_1.pdf. New York State’s fiscal year 2025–2026 budget appropriated $50 million for the program, and Governor Hochul has proposed an additional $100 million for 2027; see New York State Division of the Budget, “Governor Hochul Unveils Highlights of the Fiscal Year 2027 Executive Budget,” January 20, 2026, https://www.budget.ny.gov/pubs/press/2026/fy27-executive-budget.html.

[55] See Appendix B.

[56] See Defense Production Act of 1950, §§ 301–303, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-8323/pdf/COMPS-8323.pdf.

[57] National Housing Emergency Act of 2026, S. 3600, 119th Cong. (2026), https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/3600/text.

[58] This estimate conservatively assumes HUD can build up to four homes per acre. This would mean that each Sears Home – averaging perhaps 1,500 square feet – requires 10,890 square feet of total land, on average. The median lot size of new detached single-family homes sold in the U.S. in 2024 was 8,506 square feet. U.S. Census Bureau, “Characteristics of New Housing,” last revised 2025, https://www.census.gov/construction/chars/current.html.

[59] For more on federal land conveyance authorities, see Congressional Research Service, “Potential Conveyance of Federal Land for Housing Development,” CRS In Focus IF13080, August 7, 2025, https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF13080.

[60] Rebecca Picciotto and Drew An-Pham, “Trump Wants to Build Homes on Federal Land. Here’s What That Would Look Like,” Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2025, https://www.wsj.com/economy/housing/trump-wants-to-build-homes-on-federal-land-heres-what-that-would-look-like-6b8fb82e.

[61] Edward J. Pinto, “Homesteading 2.0: Making Housing Affordable Again, Especially With the Construction of Starter Homes,” American Enterprise Institute, March 28, 2025, https://www.aei.org/articles/homesteading-2-0-making-housing-affordable-again-especially-with-the-construction-of-starter-homes/.

[62] 41 C.F.R. § 102-75.205 (2025), https://www.ecfr.gov/on/2025-12-15/title-41/section-102-75.205. Federal agencies are generally expected to reimburse the fair market value of transferred land unless a waiver is approved jointly by GSA and the Office of Management and Budget. Ideally, Congress would exempt HUD from this reimbursement requirement for the purposes of the Modern Sears Home program.

[63] U.S. General Services Administration, “Real Property Disposition,” accessed June 23, 2026, https://disposal.gsa.gov/s/whatwedo.

[64] Center for Community Progress, “How Vacant and Abandoned Buildings Affect Communities,” April 28, 2026, https://communityprogress.org/blog/how-vacant-abandoned-buildings-affect-community/. Municipal data illustrates the costly expenditures associated with vacant and abandoned property; for instance, Toledo, Ohio spent $3.8 million in a single year on maintenance, abatement, and emergency dispatches to empty parcels, while simultaneously allowing parcels to sit idle devalues surrounding land, costing Atlanta, Georgia $1 million and $2.7 million annually in lost property tax revenue.

[65] Office of Governor Kathy Hochul, “Governor Hochul Announces More Than $21 Million to Make the Dream of Homeownership a Reality for More Than 70 Families,” April 21, 2026, https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-more-21-million-make-dream-homeownership-reality-more-70-families; Office of Governor Kathy Hochul, “Governor Hochul Announces More Than $19 Million to Make the Dream of Homeownership a Reality for More Than 50 Families,” May 13, 2026, https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-more-19-million-make-dream-homeownership-reality-more-50-families. In response to its first request for applications, MOVE-IN NY has already announced awards for six applicants to build 128 new homes.

[66] “How Much New Housing Could Government-Owned Land Provide?,” ArcGIS Experience, accessed June 23, 2026, https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/305f2764a5d8419faaf457009273eec5/; see U.S. Census Bureau, “QuickFacts: Cuyahoga County, Ohio,” accessed June 23, 2026, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/cuyahogacountyohio/POP060210; U.S. Census Bureau, “QuickFacts: El Paso County, Texas,” accessed June 23, 2026, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/elpasocountytexas/PST040224; U.S. Census Bureau, “Burdened Households (5-year estimate) in Cuyahoga County, OH [DP04ACS039035],” FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, accessed June 23, 2026, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DP04ACS039035; U.S. Census Bureau, “Burdened Households (5-year estimate) in El Paso County, TX [DP04ACS048141],” FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, accessed June 23, 2026, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DP04ACS048141. This large public inventory intersects with affordable housing needs across diverse regional profiles: post-industrial Cuyahoga County, Ohio and sunbelt El Paso County, Texas together contain more than 4,500 acres of buildable state- and locally-owned land. In both counties, median household incomes fall below $70,000 and more than one-third of households are housing cost-burdened.

[67] Given recent state and local legislation in places like California and Massachusetts easing permitting of accessory dwelling units (ADUs), the federal government should also explore how to ensure that factory-built housing can be utilized as accessory ADUs, where appropriate. See Jenny Schuetz and Eve Devens, “ADUs Could Expand the Affordable Housing Toolkit—If Local Governments Can Work Through Some Growing Pains,” Brookings, April 29, 2024, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/adus-could-expand-the-affordable-housing-toolkit-if-local-governments-can-work-through-some-growing-pains/.; Emily Hamilton and Kol Peterson, “Taxonomy of State Accessory Dwelling Unit Laws: 2025,” Mercatus Center at George Mason University, accessed July 13, 2026, https://www.mercatus.org/research/policy-briefs/taxonomy-state-accessory-dwelling-unit-laws-2025.

[68] Natalia Siniavskaia, “Median Lot Value Stabilizes as Regional Trends Diverge,” Eye on Housing (blog), National Association of Home Builders, July 28, 2026, https://eyeonhousing.org/2026/07/lot-values-slip-for-the-first-time-since-2019/.

[69] See Appendix C.

[70] Na Zhao, “Nearly 75% of U.S. Households Cannot Afford a Median-Priced New Home in 2025,” Special Study for Housing Economics, National Association of Home Builders, February 2025, https://www.nahb.org/-/media/NAHB/news-and-economics/docs/housing-economics-plus/special-studies/2025/special-study-households-priced-out-of-the-housing-market-march-2025.pdf.

[71] Partnership for Strong Communities, “Community Land Trusts 101,” February 2024, https://pschousing.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Community_Land_Trusts_101.pdf.

[72] Arthur Acolin, Alex Ramiller, Rebecca J. Walter, Samantha Thompson, and Ruoniu Wang, “Transitioning to Homeownership: Asset Building for Low- and Moderate-Income Households,” Housing Policy Debate 32, no. 1 (2022): 1–20, https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2021.1949372.

[73] Emily Thaden and Greg Rosenberg, “Outperforming the Market: Delinquency and Foreclosure Rates in Community Land Trusts,” Land Lines, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, October 1, 2010, https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/articles/outperforming-market/. At the end of the fourth quarter of 2009, only 0.56% of CLT mortgages were in foreclosure, compared to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s overall foreclosure rate of 4.58%.

[74] Emily DiVito and Bharat Ramamurti, “Unraveling the Mortgage Maze: How Government Can Make Homeownership More Affordable for American Families,” Groundwork Collaborative, December 17, 2025, https://groundworkcollaborative.org/work/unraveling-the-mortgage-maze/.

[75] Local Initiatives Support Corporation, “Section 502: Single Family Direct Loans at Work in Rural Communities,” LISC Policy Briefs, 2025, https://www.lisc.org/media/filer_public/eb/3b/eb3bf6c0-2980-49a6-ac14-863b8a1ec823/101625_042423_section_502_brief_2025.pdf.

[76] California State Assembly, Select Committee on Housing Construction Innovation, Hearing 2, transcript, Sacramento, CA, January 14, 2026, https://committees.assembly.ca.gov/system/files/transcipt-select-committee-on-housing-construction-innovation-hearing-2-january-14-2026.pdf (lightly edited for clarity). A similar quote appears in Stephanie Hawke, Julie Aguilar, and Tyler Pullen, Potential Pathways to Scale Innovative Construction Methods in California (Terner Center for Housing Innovation, UC Berkeley, March 2026), https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/PathwaystoScaleInnovativeConstruction2026.pdf.

[77] Russell Ormiston, Union Membership in the Skilled Construction Trades, 2013-22 (Institute for Construction Employment Research, January 2024), https://iceres.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ICERES-Report-on-Construction-Union-Membership-FINAL.pdf. The exact unionization rate for on-site single-family residential construction is not known; ICERES models the rate for the entire residential construction sector at 1-5%. Sean McGarvey, President of North America’s Building Trades Unions, has stated: “The Building Trades for probably 40 or onto 50 years now hasn’t really played a part in single-family housing… We were driven out of that marketplace by competition and low cost. Multifamily housing we are very involved in and play an important role.” Sean McGarvey, remarks at “Home Economics: Lowering Housing Costs for All,” Center for American Progress, January 15, 2026, video, 1:29:14, https://www.youtube.com/live/oWiThjTvdf0?t=5354s.

[78] Harbinger Homes, “Housing Production Revolutionized,” accessed June 23, 2026, https://harbinger.homes/; California State Assembly, Select Committee on Housing Construction Innovation, Hearing 2, transcript, Sacramento, CA, January 14, 2026, https://committees.assembly.ca.gov/system/files/transcipt-select-committee-on-housing-construction-innovation-hearing-2-january-14-2026.pdf.

[79] Dragana Thibault, Tasneem Osman, Abigail Brown, and John Gossman, “Benefits and Opportunities of Off-Site Construction: Analysis of Indiana and Pennsylvania,” paper presented at the ACEEE Summer Study on Buildings, 2024, https://www.aceee.org/sites/default/files/proceedings/ssb24/assets/attachments/20240722160748328_a069946d-27fe-460e-8328-87b14558435f.pdf.

[80] In June 2026, HUD proposed a rule to allow manufactured homes to be manufactured and constructed without a permanent chassis. KTBS 3 News, “HUD Proposes Rule to Allow Multi-Story Manufactured Homes Without Permanent Chassis,” KTBS, June 12, 2026, https://www.ktbs.com/news/hud-proposes-rule-to-allow-multi-story-manufactured-homes-without-permanent-chassis/article_de13b76d-e195-4456-b9b5-fbc8a696ce38.html.

[81] Christopher Herbert, Chadwick Reed, and James Shen, “Comparison of the Costs of Manufactured and Site-Built Housing,” Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard University, July 2023, table 2, https://www.pew.org/-/media/assets/2024/10/comparison-of-the-costs-of-manufactured-and-site-built-housing.pdf.

[82] Stephan Bisaha, “Largest Housing Affordability Bill in Decades Becomes Law without Trump’s Signature,” NPR, July 10, 2026, updated July 11, 2026, https://www.npr.org/2026/07/10/nx-s1-5885027/housing-bill-without-trump-signature.

[83] Stephan Bisaha, “Congress Passes the Largest Housing Affordability Bill in Decades — and Trump Cancels the Signing,” NPR, June 23, 2026, https://www.npr.org/2026/06/23/nx-s1-5867575/congress-passes-housing-affordability-bill.

[84] Brian Potter, “The Elusive Cost Savings of the Prefabricated Home,” Construction Physics (blog), March 12, 2026, https://www.construction-physics.com/p/the-elusive-cost-savings-of-the-prefabricated.

[85] Herbert, Reed, and Shen, “Comparison of the Costs of Manufactured and Site-Built Housing,” table 4.

[86] We assume that federal assets are deployed and loans to manufacturers are disbursed over the first two years of the program and that loans are repaid over the subsequent 10 years. We also assume that it takes six months to install and sell homes following delivery; funds are recovered via Ginnie Mae securitization within three months of mortgage loan closing; and the pace of home deliveries ramps up in Years 1-3, plateaus in Years 4-7, and ends abruptly halfway through Year 8.

[87] Congressional Budget Office, The Federal Budget in Fiscal Year 2025: An Infographic, March 30, 2026, https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61950.

[88] Alyse N. Minter, “Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): FY2026 Budget Request Fact Sheet,” R48567, Congressional Research Service, June 12, 2025, https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48567.

[89] Christopher Herbert, Chadwick Reed, and James Shen, “Comparison of the Costs of Manufactured and Site-Built Housing,” Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard University, July 2023, Appendix Table 1, https://www.pew.org/-/media/assets/2024/10/comparison-of-the-costs-of-manufactured-and-site-built-housing.pdf.

[90] U.S. Census Bureau, “Average Sales Price of New Manufactured Homes by Size,” Manufactured Housing Survey, Annual Data, 2025, https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/mhs/data/annual-data.html.

[91] Siniavskaia, “Median Lot Value Stabilizes as Regional Trends Diverge.”

[92] For example, in 2025 the Bureau of Land Management established a nominal land disposal price of $100 per acre for land in Nevada that was nominated for affordable housing development. Bureau of Land Management, “Direct Sale of Public Land for Affordable Housing Purposes in the City of Henderson, Nevada,” Notice of Realty Action, 91 FR 14036, March 24, 2026, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/03/24/2026-05669/direct-sale-of-public-land-for-affordable-housing-purposes-in-the-city-of-henderson-nevada.

[93] Herbert, Reed, and Shen, “Comparison of the Costs of Manufactured and Site-Built Housing,” Appendix Table 1.

[94] Jenny Masoud and Marina Walsh, “MBA Chart of the Week: IMB Total Production Expense,” MBA NewsLink, Mortgage Bankers Association, April 27, 2026, https://newslink.mba.org/mba-newslinks/2026/april/mba-newslink-tuesday-april-28-2026/mba-chart-of-the-week-imb-total-production-expense/. Data from MBA’s Annual Mortgage Bankers Performance Report.

[95] According to CBO, total credit obligations for all federal direct loan programs was roughly $476 billion for FY19-21. Correcting for a reporting error on total credit obligations for USDA’s Multifamily Housing Revitalization Seconds program, we calculate a 2.4% average administrative cost subsidy across all direct loan programs. Congressional Budget Office, Administrative Costs of Federal Credit Programs, December 2023, Appendix Table B-1, https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59815.

[96] Eric Lynch, “Cost of Constructing a Home – 2024,” Special Study, National Association of Home Builders, January 20, 2025, https://www.nahb.org/-/media/NAHB/news-and-economics/docs/housing-economics-plus/special-studies/2025/special-study-cost-of-constructing-a-home-2024-january-2025.pdf.

[97] U.S. Census Bureau, “Median Family Income in the United States [MEFAINUSA646N],” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, FRED Economic Data, last updated September 9, 2025, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEFAINUSA646N. We scale the 2024 value – $105,800 – up by 9.69% – the average 2-year growth rate over the preceding 10 years – to project a 2026 national median family income of approximately $116,050.

[98] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Composition of Consumer Unit,” Consumer Expenditure Surveys Tables, 2024, https://www.bls.gov/cex/tables.htm#topline.

[99] Sarah Schlichter, “The Average Home Insurance Cost in the U.S. for 2026,” NerdWallet, updated May 6, 2026, https://www.nerdwallet.com/insurance/homeowners/learn/average-homeowners-insurance-cost.

[100] ATTOM, “Average Single-Family Home Property Tax Bill Rose 3 Percent in 2025,” April 9, 2026, https://www.attomdata.com/news/market-trends/home-sales-prices/2025-annual-tax-report/.

[101] Freddie Mac, “30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Average in the United States [MORTGAGE30US],” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, FRED Economic Data, last updated June 4, 2026, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MORTGAGE30US.

[102] For a 30-year fixed rate mortgage: principal loan amount = annual payment amount / 12 × [(1 + (annual interest rate / 12))360 – 1] / [annual interest rate / 12 × (1 + (annual interest rate / 12))360]. Given an annual mortgage rate of 4.77%, the monthly rate (r) is calculated as 4.77% ÷ 12 = 0.3975%, or 0.003975. Applying this rate to the bracketed term – [(1 + r)360 − 1] ÷ [r × (1 +  r)360] – evaluates to approximately 191.26. Dividing the annual mortgage payment amounts calculated above ($20,441 and $13,478) by 12 yields monthly payments of $1,703.42 and $1,123.17, respectively. Multiplying each monthly payment by 191.26 yields the implied loan principal – which also represents the approximate sales price – for each scenario: $1,703.42 × 191.26 ≈ $325,792 for the low-cost scenario, and $1,123.17 × 191.26 ≈ $214,815 for the high-cost scenario.

[103] Champion Homes, Inc., Annual Report, Fiscal Year 2025, filed June 12, 2025, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/90896/000119312525139543/d947925dars.pdf.

[104] Michelle Jarboe, “Cleveland Taps Modular Housing Manufacturer to Remake Historic Factory, Aiming for 150 Jobs,” News 5 Cleveland (WEWS), June 30, 2026, https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/cleveland-taps-modular-housing-manufacturer-to-remake-historic-factory-aiming-for-150-jobs.

[105] Clayton Home Building Group, “Clayton Home Building Group Celebrates Grand Opening of New Home Building Facility in Conway, Arkansas,” press release, March 5, 2026, https://www.claytonhomes.com/newsroom/press-releases/Clayton-Celebrates-Grand-Opening-New-Facility-Conway-Arkansas.

[106] Clayton Home Building Group, “Clayton Home Building Group Celebrates Grand Opening of New Home Building Facility in Conway, Arkansas”; Clayton Homes, “FAQ: How Long Does the Home Buying Process Take?” accessed July 2026, https://www.claytonhomes.com/faq/how-long-is-clayton-home-buying-process.

[107] Wilary Winn, “Insights From the SBA 7(a) Loan Program,” white paper, April 2024, https://wilwinn.com/resources/insights-from-the-sba-7a-loan-program-white-paper/.

[108] U.S. Department of Energy, Loan Programs Office, Annual Portfolio Status Report, Fiscal Year 2022, April 2023, https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2023-04/LPO-APSR-FY-2022.pdf.

[109] IT Data Consulting, LLC (ITDC), Annual Actuarial Review of the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund: Forward Loans, Fiscal Year 2025, submitted to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, December 11, 2025, Appendix G, p. 6, https://www.hud.gov/sites/default/files/SFH/documents/ITDC-FY2025-Actuarial-Review-SF-Forward-Final-Report-Appendix-F-Included.pdf.

[110] Emily Thaden, “Stable Home Ownership in a Turbulent Economy: Delinquencies and Foreclosures Remain Low in Community Land Trusts,” working paper, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, July 2011, https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/working-papers/stable-home-ownership-turbulent-economy/.

[111] Ibid.

[112] Congressional Budget Office, The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2026 to 2036, February 2026, Table 2-1, https://www.cbo.gov/publication/62105.

[113] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Producer Price Index by Commodity: Miscellaneous Products: Manufactured Homes (Mobile Homes), All Sizes (Including Multisection) [WPU1553],” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, FRED Economic Data, last updated June 11, 2026, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU1553.

[114] U.S. Census Bureau, “Constant Quality (Laspeyres) Price Index of New Single-Family Houses Under Construction,” New Residential Sales, annual and monthly data, accessed July 2026, https://www.census.gov/construction/nrs/pdf/price_uc.pdf.

[115] U.S. Census Bureau, “Median Family Income in the United States [MEFAINUSA646N],” FRED.