I was watching Fox News this morning and saw this clip on modular home construction:

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/06/16/modular-success-home-building/

I have a couple of friends who have either built or are going to build homes based upon this concept here in Texas.  From what I can tell they are a good alternative in many cases to stick built.  This is especially true for the people I know considering them where they wish to build in a very rural setting where it is costly and difficult to find quality contractors.  I do not agree completely with the builder interviewed when he states the stick construction can be a higher quality product.  While this may the case for a true custom construction we see very little of that.  The majority of the market is not true custom and it should be possible to build these homes with a much higher quality.

It will be very interesting to see where this trend goes.  I think we will see it grow as energy efficiency and costs of construction continue to be growing concerns.