Dorchester Times: Modular Homes Are Likely The Future For Most New Home Buyers

Saturday, June 16, 2018

Modular Homes Are Likely The Future For Most New Home Buyers

Home prices are very much overvalued in the Lincoln and Omaha areas, including in areas as close in proximity as Milford and Seward. Most prospective newer home buyers can only laugh and shake their heads, unless they are desperate.

Experts say this is due to numerous factors, including:

Surrounding farm ground prices being pushed to unreasonably inflated values by wealthy and/or well-financed bidders, thereby affecting all real estate prices.

Cheap money caused by artificially low interest rates charged by the Fed for the past decade.

A shortage of available homes due to Baby Boomers staying in their homes longer than previous generations, as well as the increasing average age of American homes.

Fewer new homes being built due to shortage of home builders and contractors.

Home builders choosing to focus on custom-built homes of $500,000 or more, instead of middle-class structures.

Inflated home prices and the shortage of home builders willing to take on middle-class home construction -- not too mention stricter lending rules following the Great Recession -- make it tough for communities like Dorchester to expand their housing stock with new homes.

That's why we wanted to use this post as an opportunity to explore modular home builders and retailers in our area.

Modular homes are not mobile homes, which depreciate in value and do not improve a community. Instead, modular homes are real homes, built section-by-section in a factory setting, indoors, where they are never subjected to adverse weather conditions like a typical stick-built home. The individual sections move through the factory, with the company's quality control department checking them every step. They are placed on a pre-made foundation, professionally joined, and completed by a local builder.

What's more, modular homes can lead to significant cost savings versus traditional stick-built homes. Think of modular manufacturing as a smarter, more efficient way of home building, just as the assembly line was for automobiles beginning over 100 years ago. Best of all, the quality of modular homes has improved exponentially over just the past decade, to the point that one can no longer tell what was stick-built and what was produced off site.

We think modular homes are the future of home building for the middle- and working class, as well as for those who want to avoid a lifetime of mortgage payments. They definitely offer at least a partial solution for smaller communities like Dorchester that are in need of new houses.

In our area, there are several modular home builders to choose from, including:

Heritage Homes -- Wayne, Neb. (Click on the company's name to see websites.)

Vantage Pointe Homes -- Lincoln, Neb.

BonnaVilla Modular Homes -- Aurora, Neb.

Champion Homes -- York, Neb.

Harvest Homes -- Omaha, Neb.

Wardcraft Homes -- Clay Center, Kan.

Sears Manufactured Homes -- Lincoln, Neb.

Iseman Homes -- Kearney, Neb.

Quality Homes - Summerfield, Kan.

3 comments:

AnonymousJune 16, 2018 at 5:11 PM
Take my house.. PLEASE!
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AnonymousJune 24, 2018 at 9:14 AM
We've had our Wardcraft home since May of '79. Love it! Even back then it was built with energy efficiency in mind with it's 6 inch insulated walls. Would highly recommend them.
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UnknownJuly 1, 2018 at 1:25 PM
There's also a Wardcraft dealer in Minden.
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Dorchester: A Good Little Family Town

Dorchester, Nebraska (est. population 630) is located in northern Saline county. Close in proximity to Interstate 80, Dorchester is only 25 minutes from the state capital of Lincoln (est. population 250,000) and about 55 minutes from Omaha (metro population 725,000).

Dorchester's median resident age is 37 years. In 2005, Dorchester had a median family income of approximately $35,600. The median house value was about $63,000. About 95 percent of Dorchester residents commute to work via Interstate and highways.

The village has a quality public school, which received a $4.1 million expansion and modernization in 2008; it offers a small classrooms and individualized attention. Total enrollment of grades K-12 is around 230-250 students.

Ancestries of the Dorchester area are primarily German (42.4%), Czech (24.9%), Irish (12.5%), English (5.4%), and Dutch (4.9%).

Dorchester Historical Facts

* On July 4, 1871, the railroad reached Dorchester.
* Incorporated in 1881, Dorchester's population grew from 200 to 500 by 1882.
* In 1882, Dorchester had 90 buildings, 35 of which were businesses or public facilities. Brick buildings lined both sides of Washington Avenue for two blocks.
* Dorchester's longest-running newspaper was The Dorchester Star, which was published until the late 1940s.
* By 1889, Dorchester's population is said to have reached 800, while the town housed an opera house, a two-story brick schoolhouse with a bell tower, and four churches.
* By the 1910s, Dorchester had electricity, a water tower and a fire department.
* Dorchester's main arteries, Highways 6 and 33, were graveled in the 1940s.
* Dorchester's first irrigation well was drilled on Chris Weber's farm and rural electrification was finished following WWII.

A Village with History

Dorchester is one of the "alphabet towns" on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line built west from Lincoln. The town site was selected for its pleasant location in the northern part of Saline County, about eight miles west of Crete. This situation is an attractive one, being on the level prairie land, midway between the West Blue River and Turkey Creek. The first named stream is three miles north, and the latter about the same distance south from the town. Dorchester was platted in 1870 and incorporated in 1881. The name "Dorchester" came from either for a suburb of Boston by that name or a town in England. No one is sure. Two of the very first settlers were James Seely and Edward McIntyre, who both made Dorchester their permanent home.

Dorchester: In The Beginning

Here is a look at Dorchester around 1890, less than a decade after its official incorporation, as documented by Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska:
* POPULATION: "About 300, and is made up of a substantial and progressive class of citizens, who are moral and industrious. ... The town grew but very little until the year 1879, for the reason that Pleasant Hill, on Turkey Creek, a short distance south, was the county seat and naturally drew a trade for quite a large scope of country."
* BUSINESS: "The business and professional interests of the town are represented by three general merchandise stores, two drug, one grocery, one furniture, two hardware, and two millinery stores, one bank, two restaurants, two hotels, three livery stables, a post office, one newspaper office, two elevators, two lumber yards, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, two lawyers and four physicians."
* SCHOOL: "The schoolhouse is a good one. The schoolhouse was built in 1872, since which time the public schools have been continually kept up. The present schoolhouse is 24' x 40' in size, two stories high. The school is graded and consists of three departments. The house is found too small, and arrangements will soon be made to increase its size."
* CHURCHES: "There are three substantial churches."
* HOMES: "The residence portion of the village is made up of neat houses of different styles of architecture, but none of them very large."
* NEWSPAPER: "The Dorchester Star, which was established August 21, 1881, by H. C. Bittenbender, who edited it until January 19, 1882, when he sold it to Ryerson & Bullock, the present proprietors. The Star is a bright weekly paper, five-column quarto, in size, and is Republican in politics."