John Rebchook is a former Rocky Mountain News reporter with more than 30 years of experience in writing and communications... Here is the irony.
Architect Michelle Kaufmann was getting all of the free-publicity in the world. Media outlets from HGTV, TIME Magazine, and newspapers, including the Denver Post, the late Rocky Mountain News and now – InsideRealEstateNews.com - have featured her.
But she was forced to dissolve her company last May, as she described in this blog entry.
“The thing is, we had plenty of business,” Kaufmann told me last week, at the site of Casa Chiara at the Marycrest Convent campus in northwest Denver, where workers were installing the energy efficient, factory-built homes she designed for Susan Powers, principal of Denver-based Urban Ventures. The community is expected to be ready for occupancy in October.
Kaufmann said the trouble was that in this tough environment, lenders wanted more “predictability,” as far as having a steady number of homes being built in factories. She said lenders did not want to see “holes” in the manufacturing centers.
Factories close
For the same reason, a number of the factories closed, because they could not get financing to keep them going, because of lulls during the construction cycle.
Still, she remains a strong advocate of building homes in factories, as opposed to building them on site. After all, when you order a new car, GM or Toyota doesn’t arrive at your driveway and start putting it together. It’s not only faster, more economical, and creates less waste by building homes in factories and installing them on sites, but it eliminates the danger of weather damaging building materials.
Although shutting down her company was sad, Kaufmann said it also has a bright side.
Re-invents herself
“Like so many other people, it has forced me to re-invent myself,” she told me. “I can now make decisions very quickly and be more nimble.”
She wasn’t kidding when she has lots of work. When she left Denver last week, she was heading back to her home in California. And then she will be off to a project she is designing in the Bahamas.
That is indeed sad and disconcerting, but a message to all who struggle to educate, get their message out, deal with elements beyond one’s contol, and strive to reinvent oneself in this market. It sounds like Michelle is a survivor and that closing her business was a sound, deliberate business decision. Lenders are proving to be the bane of real estate sales in my business. But at least I have a more diverse product to sell (site-built, off-site built, mobile homes, trailers, yurts, tipis, . . . okay, I’m starting to exagerate). Seriously, though, I am a big proponent and fan of the factory/system-built home. There is a lot of ignorance and stigma (carried over by the manufactured home) out there about modulars (aka factory or off-site or system-built homes). I love the analogy of an auto manufacturer being required to assemble the car in your driveway. I will remember that next time I’m trying to educate a buyer, an HOA architectural committee member, an agent, or, gasp!, a lender.
Ninah Hunter
CENTURY 21 Action Realty
Montrose, Colorado