Marketing Manufactured To The Professional Class

Much of the manufactured housing industry promotes itself by way of the affordability factor, by appealing to the fact that manufactured, on a per sq ft basis, runs about half the cost of conventional site built. This is perfectly true and makes perfect sense insofar as offering the solution to the affordable housing crisis is concerned. The problem is we live in largely senseless world - or at any rate in one where it is often forces other than common sense which drive much of what happens. More to the point, the problem with the appeal to affordability is that affordable housing generally means housing for the working class: People don't so much object to manufactured housing as to the working class who wind up in them. The bourgeoise simply don't want the working class around. Already by the late 19th century Oscar Wilde could give us his sharp epigram, '..work is the curse of the drinking classes...'. This is of course a reworking of the bourgeoise lament, '....drink is the curse of the working classes...'. The bourgeoise largely hold the working class in contempt and do what they can to keep them away. While this may be a rather ugly sentiment to harbor toward one's fellow man - it is nevertheless one which must be faced head on in if manufactured housing is to gain ground.

Now as the US economy finds itself in ever more dire circumstances it is my opinion that the day will soon come when it is not just the working class who find themselves priced out of the conventional housing market. Much of the professional class are about to be priced out as well. And so it is to this class which manufactured housing should try to appeal. Now with the site built house, the problem is that below a certain size it ceases to be profitable. Today's site built home is packaged with all manner of bonus rooms, extra living and dining rooms, outsized walk in closets, lofts and so on in order to drive the size up to the point where site built construction methods turn a profit. Such housing considerations have given rise to the 'McMansion'. From a marketing perspective such homes are promoted on the basis of 'conspicuous consumption', an appeal is made to the stature owning such a home supposedly confers to the purchaser. Now manufactured faces no such size constraints. It can be made as small as one likes and remain profitable. The manufactured house, thoughtfully designed, is able to duplicate the Usonian strategy developed by Frank Lloyd Wright where a house, while physically small, engendered a feeling of being just the right size. As well today's professional class tends to be quite 'Green' minded. The much smaller inventory of materials needed for the manufactured house along with much reduced waste translates into a much smaller 'carbon footprint'. And so manufactured must be consciously marketed to the professional class as the 'Green' housing solution. At the same time the professional class is the leisure class, the class concerned with fitness, health, the great outdoors, and is in general more susceptible to marketing in terms of 'conspicuous leisure' than by way of 'conspicuous consumption'. And so the unconscious marketing strategy must be executed as an appeal to conspicuous leisure.

This means that, unlike in the case of working class housing, the house cannot simply be plunked down on lots devoid of a private pleasant outdoor space. To the contrary care must be taken to fashion a pleasant cloistered outdoor space conducive to the pursuit of cultivated leisure. As for the interior, the open plan living and dining should be emphasized and in my opinion, its focal point made the very large format projection TV.

Here are a couple of case studies. The first is a courtyard style singlewide duplex, the second a courtyard style singlewide. Attention is paid to curb appeal where leafy streets, attractive spacious carports, hedges, and a rose trellis lend a cosmopolitan vibe.

Above is shown a 2 bed, 1 bath singlewide duplex, each unit around 600 sq ft. The homes are set on lots approximately 40 ft x 125 ft or 2,500 sq ft per unit.

Above is shown a 3 bed, 2 bath singlewide of around 1,200 sq ft. The homes are set on diagonal lots approximately 40 ft x 125 ft or 5,000 sq ft per home.