Latest news with #VikasEnti
Daily Mail
04-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Tiny home builders are targeting fire ravished LA
Modular home builders are targeting Los Angeles fire victims with offers of cheaper and quicker rebuilding options. Large swathes of Los Angeles were destroyed in devastating wildfires earlier this year, which destroyed more than 16,000 structures. Many homeowners who saw their properties burned to the ground were then met with the compounding heartbreak of home insurance payouts that will only cover a fraction of the rebuilding costs. Now businesses such as ICON and Hapi Homes see an opening to mass market their tiny homes, built off-site with the help of 3-D printers and then transported to their final location. Such pre-fabricated homes have long had a reputation for poor quality and unattractive design which the companies hope to dispel. 'Disasters are actually going to be the turning point' for wider adoption of modular housing, Vikas Enti, CEO of Reframe Systems, told the Wall Street Journal. 'That's what we're betting on,' he said of the company's push into disaster zone aftermaths. 'Homeowners in a moment of crisis want to try something different,' Jason Ballard, CEO of ICON, agreed. Ballard told the Journal that his business, which uses technology such as 3-D printers to layer concrete, was inundated with calls following the LA fires. The Texas-based company is now focusing its expansion on areas frequently hit by natural disasters, such as California and Florida. Williams Rebuild, another modular home construction company, is planning to build up to 150 homes a year for fire victims in LA. The Los Angeles Mayor's office is also in discussions with a series of modular builders, the Journal reported. SoLa Impact, an affordable-housing developer based in the city, is supporting proposed legislation in California that would speed up approval for such housing. 'Never let a crisis go to waste,' the company's CEO Martin Muoto told the Journal. Building new homes off-site is often much cheaper because materials can be purchased in bulk and fewer workers are required for less time. For disaster areas, building away from a crowded construction market means businesses can access less busy supply chains. 3-D printers can be used to layer concrete for the house construction After wildfires devastated Maui, Hawaii, in 2023 more than 100 modular companies flooded the building market. Five of those companies were commissioned by the state and nonprofit HomeAid Hawaii to build 450 temporary units for those who had lost their homes. It served as a pivotal moment for the modular housing industry which has struggled to gain such contracts in the past. 'As a public official, I'm now saying, "Hey, we do have alternatives to typical construction,"' Joseph Campos II, deputy director at Hawaii's Department of Human Services said. 'There can be a partnership with traditional construction trades.'
Business Journals
22-04-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
Reframe Systems eyes Los Angeles market after fires
Reframe Systems, an Andover company started by former Amazon Robotics personnel, is entering the Los Angeles market in response to the devastating wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes in January. The Andover-based modular construction startup Reframe Systems is building its first homes in Greater Boston. But some of its next units could go up on the other side of the country. Reframe is entering the Los Angeles market in response to the devastating wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes in January. It's staffing up in California and plans to ship a 400-square-foot showroom unit out west this summer, as a proof of concept for contractors, government officials and residents whose homes were destroyed in the blaze. The company was founded in 2022 by Vikas Enti and two of his former colleagues at Amazon Robotics in North Reading. Enti, Reframe's chief executive, wanted to start a business focused on addressing climate change and decided that putting his robotics and software background to use building energy-efficient homes was the best way to do it. Today, robots named Adam, Jeanie and Carlsbad are busy framing and painting walls in an Andover factory. Reframe has only built a handful of houses so far, including its first last year, a two-story, nearly 1,000-square-foot accessory dwelling unit in Arlington. Vikas and his partners have big ambitions, however, envisioning a nationwide network of micro-factories. They thought they'd enter California in 18 months or so, but they accelerated that timeline literally days after the fires started: Reframe's board decided in mid-January to go to L.A. 'It became pretty clear very quickly that the existing supply and infrastructure in the L.A. market would not be able to keep up with the sudden spike of demand,' Enti said. 'All of the work we've been doing to build homes that are resilient applies really nicely to what the market needs there.' Reframe's emphasis on climate-friendly construction makes particular sense in Los Angeles, he said, given that the city is fast-tracking permitting for homes that are all-electric and more fire-resistant. The company's leaders are taking a two-phase approach. In the first phase, it will build the homes in Massachusetts and ship them to California, where a local general contractor will finish the job. It's already been in talks with GCs, Enti said. It has a design team in northern California and has been interviewing candidates for sales jobs in the L.A. area. Reframe would then open a micro-factory in the Golden State, likely in Los Angeles County itself. That would depend on generating enough business to make the investment worthwhile, Enti said. The company is eyeing at least $10 million in contracts as a starting point. It is not easy for a small Boston-area modular startup to gain a foothold in a real estate market 3,000 miles away, but Enti sees the wildfires as presenting unique circumstances. Generally speaking, shipping a pre-built home across the country would be prohibitively expensive, as contractors often have to pay for escort vehicles and sometimes a police escort to tail the trucks carrying the structures. However, the significantly inflated costs of rebuilding in fire-ravaged places like Altadena and the Palisades changes that math, according to Enti. Labor and other costs are substantial for rebuilding so many properties at once, especially given the construction already set to happen in L.A. for the World Cup in 2026 and the Olympics in 2028. 'It's a market that is four to five times as high in cost compared to what we're seeing in New England,' Enti said. As it is, for duplexes and larger buildings, Reframe has aimed for a price of under $300 per square foot. The company designs modules narrower than 12 feet in order to limit shipping costs, he said. The showcase ADU is meant not only to 'allow us to have a product in the field that customers and regulators can touch and feel,' Enti said, but to help get Reframe's Andover factory certified to produce housing in California. He said earlier this month that the company hopes to start shifting production to an L.A.-area factory in early 2026. Largest Homebuilders in Mass. No. of deed closings Rank Prior Rank Firm/Prior rank (*unranked in 2023)/ 1 1 Pulte Homes 2 2 Toll Brothers 3 3 Stonebridge Homes View this list
