Walking down the assembly line as the bell dings, marking a lunch break, Ken Semler points to a man carefully sealing the frame of a house with foam as evidence that this factory can build houses faster, cheaper, and better than traditional homebuilders.“The old way is just getting too hard.” The term “factory-built housing” might conjure the image of the small, boxy trailer-like home that sprung up to help address the housing crisis after World War II.Companies build modular in styles like ranch, colonial, and chalet—Semler is building himself a 4,500 square foot modular home in Virginia in what he calls “Southern Living” style architecture.In January 2020, PulteGroup acquired Innovation Construction Group, a Florida-based company that builds house wall panels, roof trusses, and floor systems in a factory.“If [modular construction] takes hold, it could give the industry a huge productivity boost, help solve housing crisis in many markets, and significantly reshape the way we build today,” a group of McKinsey partners wrote in the 2019 report, which also estimated that switching to modular could slash the time it takes to complete construction projects by 20% to 50%."