RSSBlu Homes Relaunches Green Homes
Sep 15
real estate home building No Comments
Blu Houses, which bought the house styles and other intellectual property from Michelle Kaufmann Styles final year after that firm ran out of funds, has come out with its first modular houses. The Glidehouse starts at $360,000 (without the real estate) and comes in a selection of configurations: two bedrooms, three bedrooms, fireplace or not, plus a choice of finishes.
The firm will then follow up with the Breezehouse, with a different floor plan, in early 2011. Both homes are based on original styles from Kaufmann.
The households are made with green building materials like bamboo and could be equipped with solar panels. What genuinely makes the households green, nonetheless, is how they’re built and their power efficiency. Instead of construct the dwelling on location on top of a foundation, the residences are constructed in factories. Factory making leads to less waste and lower transportation costs. The properties can also be sealed like a drum with precision construction — the wood isn’t sitting outside where it can warp or gather mold spores — and foam insulation, leading to lower power bills in the future.
Modular households are typically status symbols in countries like South Korea or Japan. See a video here of Panasonic’s model green home. In the U.S., even so, ‘modular’ means ‘mobile home’ to most consumers. That might change. Zeta Communities inside the S.F. Bay Area is creating modular town residences, while Project Frog is erecting modular schools and public buildings. Zeta final year opened a factory capable of producing 300 to 400 properties annually.
Design-wise, these modern properties are pretty snazzy. Here’s a video of Zeta’s beta in Oakland. West Coast Green will showcase many dwelling innovations next month in San Francisco. In terms of cost, the homes also end up being roughly on par with conventional households; Kaufmann went via plenty of the issues in this interview.
Still, most of these companies face an uphill battle. The mortgage debacle has lead to declining real estate prices and a plethora of households waiting for buyers. Modular dwelling builders have also had a challenging time raising money from investors.
