History of Prefabricated Homes

One of the first companies to sell prefabricated homes was Sears. Buyers would order a house kit from a catalog and within a few weeks it would be shipped to them by train. These kits would include a complete set of plans and all the materials required to construct the house. In the mid 1920's Sears sold more than 200 homes a month, made $10 million a year, and with around 400 different designs the buyer had plenty of choices. In order to expand the scope of buyers Sears offered private financing with monthly payments. During the depression in the 1930's Sears lost $11 million because people couldnt make their payments. Sales never recovered from this and sears sold their last kit home in 1940. In the 32 year period that Sears was selling kit homes they sold 75000 kits.

Alladin Homes was one of the other main kit home sellers in North America dureing the 1900's. Like Sears, Alladin Homes also sold their kits through a catalog. In 1906 they Started out selling summer cottages and outbuildings for farms. After surving the depression Alladin Homes set theirs sights higher and started selling plans and packages to developers in order to create neighborhoods and company towns.

Prices of kit homes varied from $600-$1500 depending of styles and options the buyer included. In the past buyers usualy had the skills required for constructing these kit home... These days only a select amount of the population has theses skills and instead people tend to hire someone else to do the job for them.