Connecting new buyers with builders - starter home market

[David A Lisowski]

Before I invest too much time into this thought, I figured I check and see what kind of interest or marketability there is in this idea. There may already be such a thing in existence, too, so if anyone knows of something similar, please let me know!

Affordable housing is an issue. A major one. One I feel is being ignored and overlooked as if someone will just cone along one day with a magic wand and save us (or everything falls into shambles...) Okay, I'm not really an extremist, but I'm also not naive. If there is ever a problem or issue, the only question I ask myself is, "What are you going to do about it?"

Well, I had a thought about a network or forum (similar to BP or Angie's) where home buyers connect directly with builders and contractors who "specialize" in starter family homes. It would connect agents who "specialize" in land sales. The idea being to keep costs down and build affordable starter homes.

I understand that profitability is a big concern. I know a builder can build a $500,000 home with minimal increase in expenses compared to a $200,000 home so there would need to be an inventive (maybe volume of units) for builders and contractors. Real estate commissions on land sales are also low compared to homes and resales so there would need to be extra incentive for those agents.

Having an easy lead (or even hundreds of easy leads) may not be enough!

However, ultimately, there needs to be a practical, useful solution. Being a developer of starter-home neighborhoods, though valiant, seems like too much of a risk (especially as a starting point!). Upfront costs, carrying costs, etc. would be too much to take on as a first project.

But a program or app or forum or something similar would be as close to direct-to-consumer as we could get while minimizing the risk (i.e. entitely localized to that particular home rather than a whole set of homes)...

More or less just brainstorming at this point so I'll leave it here before I ramble too much. Thanks!

:edit:

I'd also like to add that the idea currently is site-built homes (not prefab). And to differentiate from the tiny home kits that are under $100k, these would be full homes - not 1/1 studio tiny homes. I know that complicates expenses. It might also be something that needs to be adjusted as this moves along.