Four parties are in motion simultaneously on a factory-built housing project. The factory is running a production schedule that does not pause for site problems. The general contractor is managing site readiness against a set day that is weeks or months away. The municipality is processing permit applications and inspection requests on its own timeline. The utility company is scheduling service connections according to its own backlog and access requirements.

The UC Berkeley Terner Center published research showing factory-built housing can reduce hard construction costs by 10 to 25% and cut project timelines by 20 to 50% compared to traditional site-built delivery. (Source: "Potential Pathways to Scale Innovative Construction Methods in California," Terner Center, March 2026.) Those numbers are real. They are also frequently absent from final pro formas on projects that used factory-built housing.