Building a community of small homes in California

[Ashley Moyer]

I am in the planning process of building a small home community (650-950sqft) in the Sacramento area. The zoning will be RD-20 (20 units per acre). The goal is to have an attractive option for single family detached workforce housing- a middle ground between apartment living and single family homes. My goal is to make it a community that fosters connections between residents. I have had meetings with both Sacramento and Placer counties and have talked within the community/some investors and I have a LOT of support. 

In order to make this work financially, I need the homes to be built (vertical construction) for a maximum average of $80,000 per unit (between $100-110 psqft). In California, getting anything built that cheap is near-impossible. I'm looking at prefabricated/modular homes and it seems that I can achieve this going that route. Has anyone been successful with decreasing cost of building using economies of scale in prefab homes? I'd love to hear input/suggestions! If you have used a certain company for prefab that you love, I'd also like to hear about it!

[Josh Cuthbertson]

You are looking at just the hard costs of the home at that price yes? Not any of the site or soft costs? That seems really close. I've seen commercial vertical builds in that area at $135 per sf on modular hotels.

We did an 850sf 3 bedroom home for $79k before 2 hours north of Sac. It can be done.