Manufactured Houses

Before there was modern prefab, there were kit homes from lumber companies and catalogs. One of the oldest local examples is a steep-roofed house in Simi Valley that was shipped from Chicago by rail in 1888, a vivid reminder that the real estate market has been shaping Southern California for more than a century.

In a dusty field on the outskirts of China's capital, Fan Zhi has built the American dream. The two-bedroom cottage comes with a front porch. The rocking chair is not included. By capturing the attention of Americans weary of high heating bills and soaring construction costs, Fan hopes to turn this prefab home into the McBungalow of the home-building world.

Architectural writer and music critic Thomas Small, 49, and wife Joanna Brody, 44, a public relations consultant, had outgrown their two-bedroom town house in Santa Monica. So in 2004, they bought a "decrepit" Culver City cottage to remodel.

A massive tractor-trailer whined in first gear Friday as it pulled a 48-ton house off a barge and onto a remote Santa Catalina Island pier, nearly completing a herculean effort by movers who improvised to overcome tidal flows, equipment failures and other unexpected obstacles.

It's an appealing idea: Order a prefabricated steel building, have it shipped to your home, bolt it together with a few buddies over a weekend -- and save over traditional construction. Many people have purchased a garage, barn or workshop from one of the nation's numerous sellers of such buy-and-build products with this scenario in mind. But, says John Knight, founder of Santa Clarita-based Knight Building Systems, some Southlanders end up disappointed.

IF Jennifer Siegal has her way, new homes won't be constructed anymore. They'll be installed. That's the philosophy behind her recently completed Venice SwellHouse, a 3,130-square-foot, two-story residence assembled out of prefabricated structural insulated panels, or SIPs. The panels forming the walls, floors and ceilings were trucked in pre-cut, cored for wiring or plumbing, and numbered -- ready to be snapped together and attached to the steel frame.

If you've been looking for a way to pay for energy improvements to your house, two little-publicized new mortgage programs could provide the cash you need. Both the Federal Housing Administration and mortgage investor Fannie Mae recently have launched options in the energy conservation arena. Here's a quick overview, with some pros and cons: The FHA's PowerSaver program allows eligible owners to borrow up to $25,000 at fixed rates between 5% and 7% for as long as 20 years to finance high-efficiency windows and doors, heating and ventilating systems, solar panels, geothermal systems, insulation and duct sealing, among other retrofits.

NEW YORK -- Stocks are snapping back from Friday's big losses as stronger-than-expected reports on manufacturing and housing ease investors' concerns about how durable the economic recovery will be. Major indexes rose more than 0.5 percent in midday trading Monday, including the Dow Jones industrials, which jumped about 80 points after tumbling 250 points on Friday. Investors also scooped up commodities like oil and gold as they moved out of safe-haven assets like the dollar and Treasurys.

Riverside-based Fleetwood Enterprises has started construction on a $1.9-million, manufactured housing facility on a 22-acre site in Roxboro, N.C. When completed in early 1986, the plant will be the third one established by the California firm in North Carolina within the past three years.