'Tesla of homes': Can a construction tech company solve the housing shortage by building homes faster?

A two-bedroom, two-bath single-family home built in one month?

It's possible, says Amit Haller.

In a career pivot he now describes as “life-changing,” Haller, who developed a Bluetooth communications chip that was sold to Texas Instruments for $50 million in 1999, decided to go into real estate just as the housing bubble burst in 2008, triggering the Great Recession.

“It was not planned this way, but the timing worked perfectly well to start buying investment properties for redevelopment and to buy land to build from the ground up,” says Haller, 52.

But a decade into the traditional construction business in northern California found him returning to his tech roots.

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In 2019, Haller’s company, San Mateo-based Veev, eliminated lumber from the homes it built, replacing it with steel and slabs made of a mix of acrylic and minerals that bind together. The company says it can build homes at least four times faster than traditional construction at a cheaper price.

U.S. housing, which is facing a shortage of 5.5 million to 6.8 million housing units, according to the National Association of Realtors, is badly in need of innovation, say experts.

California, where Veev operates, ranks 49th among states for the amount of housing available for each resident, and it needs to build 3.5 million homes by 2025 to satisfy the needs of a growing population, according to a 2016 McKinsey & Company report.

Last October, the company partnered with Habitat for Humanity and the City of San Jose to construct 78-unit shelter for homeless residents who needed a safe place to stay during the pandemic. The project was completed in under 90 days.

Veev, which has a factory in Union City, California, designs, manufactures, and assembles every component of its homes. It manufactures steel walls with mechanical, electrical, and plumbing hook-ups already in place that can be transported and assembled onsite faster than traditional construction. The company hopes to cut down on the many layers and stages of construction and the number of parties involved in production and installation.

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Using these methods to build single-family homes, townhomes and condominiums can help shorten the construction timeline, cut project costs and could be more environmentally sustainable with less waste and more efficient production, according to Henry D’Esposito, construction research lead at JLL, the real estate services and investment company.

At a time when the industry faces a severe labor shortage, Veev and other modular construction companies such as Prescient and Bechtel, offer the possibility of building more homes with fewer workers.

'Tesla of homes'

Modular construction has the potential to speed construction by as much as 50% and to cut construction costs by 20%, according to a 2019 McKinsey & Company report.

Is that the answer to the national housing crunch?