In a sense Sears was the Amazon of 100 years ago. They started life in the 1800's as a mail-order catalog, when the communication and distribution technology of the time had just become advanced enough to make mail-order a possibility. Like Amazon, they only opened physical stores decades after they started as a company.
It's pretty hard to ride all the business trends correctly for over 100 years so I forgive Sears for missing out on the internet.
It still blows my mind that you could buy an entire house from Sears through their catalog, and many people did. And not just a mobile home or shed either – we're talking full-on bungalows and multi-story residences.
Kit homes are still around. I think they are not so common in the US because the big builders have streamlined home construction so much that there's no savings in pre-fab.
The Sears homes are pretty neat though. I live in a region where they were very popular.
I keep seeing pre-fab articles pop up on HN, but I think it's having difficulty gaining traction because construction requires a different process--design, sourcing, code approval, labor. Supposedly it can be substantially cheaper, both single family homes and apartment buildings.
My uninformed guess is that it won't be widely adopted until the various pre-fab companies with competing strategies and designs work toward some sort of standardization such that knowledge and skills can readily transfer. I bet it's also a patent minefield, precluding standardization and commoditization.
Perhaps some large homebuilder will acquire one of the pre-fab companies and then we'll start to see some volume. Maybe San Francisco should acquire one and just begin building a ton of cheap apartment buildings....
Did you see the link that just went up on HN a couple of days ago about land use regulations in San Francisco? I chuckle to think of the prospects of a pre-fab developer making headway against all of the forces SF has arrayed against them...
In particular, the article mentions Richmond Specials, which are "generic boxy buildings" that are designed to "maximize the size limits on each lot." Sounds kind of like what pre-fabbed apartments might turn out like, right? Unfortunately, they appear to be widely loathed.
I think the so-called Richmond Specials (there are at least 2 on my block--I didn't know the name until reading that article but recognize them everywhere) have aged enough that they've become part of the accepted architectural landscape.
Anything new will be hated by people. But why spend a fortune to be hated when you could spend much less and be hated all the same. San Francisco requires almost every building to prominently incorporate bay windows as part of the facade. (Richmond Specials lack this, which is why they stand out.) Every era of housing does this differently. As long as the pre-fab does it at least as well (very low bar), they'd fit right in. Plus, stucco is an extremely common street-facing exterior finish, and all the pre-fab stuff seems to have similarly textured exteriors.
I'm no architect, but I think if you can mimic the Edwardian or Spanish Revival styles (which are already quite simplified and boxy) which dominate much of the city you can grease the wheels. I don't understand why architects expend so much effort trying to do anything else; all it does is invite more attention.
My brother manages a Menards (midwest variant of Home Depot/Lowes) and they sell a surprising number of kit homes (~5/month in a marked of ~1/4million).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the main market seems to be immigrants, poor credit history makes a traditional mortgage unattainable.
There was a season of This Old House from a couple years ago where they were putting together a kind of pre-fab house. It was somewhat custom, but all the walls and floors and things were made into panels, and assembled in a factory, indoors. They could also set up the wiring and plumbing in the wall panels while at the factory, instead of having to drill into things afterwards in the field. They then just shipped the panels to the site, and basically snapped them together. it was crazy how fast they came together once the panels and stuff were on site.
Indeed it's hard to stay on top, but missing the internet killed them, so i wouldn't go so far as forgiving them.
They had the better part of 20 years to adjust to the new reality but just kept plugging along with dirty, inefficient retail stores poorly stocked and staffed.
How could the same company that sold mail order houses a 100 years ago look at selling over the internet in the late 1990's and say "nah, it will never work - it's just too crazy"?
It's pretty hard to ride all the business trends correctly for over 100 years so I forgive Sears for missing out on the internet.