The American housing crisis continues to exclude younger generations from homeownership, with over half of millennials and Gen Z believing that owning a home is currently unattainable. While many factors contribute to this situation, Jack Truong advocates for a solution that has proven successful in other developed nations: prefabricated housing.
“We need to inject new homes built in America, at a much faster rate and at a lower cost. And there’s a way to do that: We have to make sure that it’s the building methods that we change,” Truong explains. With estimates suggesting the U.S. faces a shortage of 5-7 million homes, traditional construction methods simply cannot meet demand.
Prefabricated homes – industrially manufactured for off-site assembly – address several critical issues plaguing the housing market. They can be built up to 25% cheaper than traditional homes, reduce construction time from 7-14 months to as little as 6-8 months, and produce 45% less embodied emissions.
Truong points to successful models in countries like Sweden, where nearly 85% of homes have some element of prefabrication. After World War II, Sweden embraced prefabricated construction elements through its government-led Million Programme to overcome a severe housing crisis – a situation with parallels to today’s American housing market.
“For a starter home and a move-up home, for most people, prefab is their sweet spot for good quality, very good price, and most importantly, throughput. You can construct a lot more homes [with prefab] than the traditional method today,” notes Truong.
With 68% of millennials reporting they would consider purchasing a manufactured home, Truong believes the market is ready for this shift. However, he acknowledges that government support through zoning reforms, increased factory capacity, and financial incentives will be necessary to drive adoption at scale.
As a former CEO of James Hardie Industries, a leading building materials company, Jack Truong brings valuable industry perspective to this discussion. His vision for revolutionizing American housing construction offers a practical solution to the housing crisis while potentially creating manufacturing jobs and building more sustainable communities – addressing multiple economic challenges simultaneously.
