mail order home

On Saturday we had our first showing in a month. The good news is that we had a showing; the bad news is that we didn't get an offer. The prospective buyer--a single guy in his mid-thirties--liked the house but thought the asking price was too high. Unfortunately, our market is so over-saturated with people trying to sell their homes that the desperate ones are driving down prices. I guess that's how it works (sigh!), but I don't have to like it.

So today I'm feeling like we really will be stuck here forever. For the past 15 months I've said "The house has to sell. It can't stay on the market forever," but what if it can? A few years ago, when home prices were going nowhere but up and our neighborhood was booming, my husband and I had visions of one day building on to our existing house (or bulldozing it and starting from scratch). I guess the nice thing about not being in a situation where we have to sell our house--other than to maintain our own sanity and keep from living on top of one another--is that we can still start over on this site. Of course, being the unconventional homeowner that I am, I would want to build a box house of my own right here.

Although I may be the only person in this neighborhood who would shirk the bungalow style that is so popularized around here, there are others out there with my design sensibility who want to ignite the modern home movement through prefab construction. But you have to look beyond Charlotte, North Carolina.

Marmol Radziner is an architecture firm based in Los Angeles that has created custom and model prefab green homes that can be shipped anywhere in the United States. Built in a local factory, the homes are shipped complete with interior and exterior finishes, flooring, appliances, etc. Looking at these houses, you would never believe they were factory-built versus custom residential design. I'll take the Long Valley Ranch, please. Images below from Marmol Radziner.

Long Valley Ranch view 1

Long Valley Ranch view 2

Palms exterior

Palms interior

Hidden Valley exterior

Hidden Valley deck

Hidden Valley interior 1

Hidden Valley interior 2

Fairview

Any of these home would cause quite a reaction in Charlotte, but it would be worth the money if I could afford to have a home shipped here from Los Angeles.