The Big question in my mind is will this be another big "R" as in Recession or a Big "D" Essentially by becoming liquid, renting for a while, being patient and buying on the Market DIP you are able to again RIDE the wave up when the market rebounds which it will in the SF Bay area again in the next UP cycle. 

(squeeze pages, marketing, buyer's and seller's lists, repair estimates, a CRM, and all that other stuff you can't live without)... which by the way also interacts seamlessly, I have used Greg Clement's product, Realeflow, for years...

I earned a bachelor's degree in construction management, and currently work in that position for a production home builder.

I heard Bill Murray's group is building a development near downtown Charleston using containers, a high rent area, which may be the sweet spot for this product, vs the country where folks can buy a brick ranch home for $50,000.One advantage I see is stack-ability: if you can get around 3-5 units high, that could offer nice benefits on tough/tight sites.  

A good team will help you be more productive.  

See what products and requirements they have to get an idea of your options.

Yet essentially home sales in the US has remained steady at 5 million transactions a year.

My guess, some will, some won't at which time you can give the poor payers the 30 days notices (essentially giving them a probationary period with the month to month and new rules to see which tenants can handle the new format and which can't ). 

Insurance companies each have a formula they use to find the depreciated value of something based on age, product, how long that product is expected to last etc.

So you are right, and I'll correct my previous mention, the end product is convenient but not competitive.