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Ithaca MLS#/Cortland MLS# *Lic.R.E. Salesperson **Lic. R.E. Broker

Brand NewMLS 317541

** Claudia LagallaCell: 607-342-3749

First Time on the Market MLS 317399

** Edie SpauldingCell: 607-227-3343

Must See!!MLS S1187112* Anita Bryan

Cell: 607-220-4727

ExtraordinaryMLS 317533/S1206275

** Amy CobbCell:607-423-6766

Looking to ExpandMLS S1191060* Anita Bryan

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Exceptional PrivacyMLS 317122

* Jalamang BayoCell: 202-641-5181

Great OpportunityMLS 317482/S1204378

* Anita BryanCell: 607-220-4727

HomesteadMLS 316610

* Francis MartinezCell: 607-279-2654

One of a KindMLS 316871/S1192790

** Jolene Rightmyer-MacoliniCell: 607-339-1559

Memories AwaitMLS 400648

** Jolene Rightmyer-MacoliniCell: 607-339-1559

MLS 400659/S1227845* Panagiota O’Donnell

Cell: 607-280-8054

Location!MLS 400596/S1223224

** Amy CobbCell:607-423-6766

RenovatedMLS 317747

* Panagiota O’DonnellCell: 607-280-8054

Large HomeMLS 316723/S1187456

** Amy CobbCell: 607-423-6766

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2333 N Triphammer Road, Suite 1 Ithaca, NY

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Beautiful HomeMLS 316509

* Charla HayesCell: 607-279-0501

Greek Peak ResortMLS 317664/S1201390

** Jolene Rightmyer-MacoliniCell: 607-339-1559

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WelcomeMLS 317250/S1199246

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EstateCortland StandardReal

Thursday, October 10, 2019

Featured Listings

l Howard Hanna Real Estatel Hage

Real Estatel Heritage

Realtyl Yaman

Real Estate

Featured HomePRIVATE CUSTOM CAPE with spectacular views! This 2008 Cape exudes country charm. The light-�lled main level features an open kitchen with cherry cabinets and island open to the dining and living room, a three season room, quaint pantry and half bath, a main level master suite and office. 2 Large bedrooms with attached full baths and a bonus room are upstairs. Expansive family room, bedroom, kitchen, full bath and workshop downstairs. This home would be ideal for a B&B and Greek Peak is right down the road. Every day is a getaway at this retreat-like property, all about a mile off the road. MLS# 400532. $365,000. Call Howard Hanna Real Estate Services at 607-257-0800. For more listings see our ad below.

– 1458 Route 392, Cortlandville

2A — Cortland Standard, Thursday, October 10, 2019 Real Estate

Corrie OustadAssoc. RE Broker

(c) 607-745-0718

Rosemary TaboneAssoc. RE Brkr., CBR (c) 607-423-1068

David DonlickAssoc. RE Broker

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Diann Potter Assoc. RE Brkr., CBR (c) 607-745-1520

Sally Brown KurtzAssoc. RE Brkr., CBR, GRI(c) 607-345-5353

Marinda MeyersRE Coordinator

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Joanne M. SweeneyAssoc. RE Broker, GRI(c) 607-423-5623

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Jenna GregoryRE Salesperson

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Trevor SydneyRE Salesperson

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Dana DeckerPrincipal Broker, GRI(c) 607-423-4719

Gugulethu PinckneyRE Salesperson

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Marty ShimerRE Salesperson

(c) 607-423-1032

Real Estate CornerCortland CountyBoard of Realtors

By the Cortland County Board of Realtors®

— The Voice of Real Estate

October is Fire Prevention Month: Here are some tips from the Cortland County Board of REALTORS® to keep your family and home safe.

Fires can strike anywhere at any time. Along with installing smoke de-tectors in your home, you should have a fire extinguisher in key areas such as the kitchen, bedrooms, workshop, and garage. Walk your family through a fire drill so everyone knows what to do and where to go in case of fire.

Every room in the house should have at least two escape exits. If one of these is a window from a second story, in-stall ladders that can be dropped from the windows. Make sure children know where the family will reunite if they have to leave the house in case of fire.

The following simple precautions will help minimize the risk of a fire in your home:t Assign a special closet for com-

bustible materials and dangerous tools that you don’t want your children to touch. Put a good lock on the door and a heat detector inside to alert you to any fire danger.t Don’t overload electrical circuits

with too many appliances. If your fuses are blowing or your circuit breakers are popping, hire an electrician to look at your system.t Don’t run extension cords under

rugs or carpets. The cords wear easily and may short out, causing a fire.t Nails or staples used to attach

electrical cords to the walls or base-boards can damage the cords and cause fire or shock hazards. Tape cords to walls or floors instead of using nails or staples.t Replace frayed electrical cords

before they burn or cause a fire.t Keep combustibles away from

the furnace, which can emit flames or sparks.t Some fire departments supply

stickers that can be placed in a window to alert firefighters to the presence of a child or an elderly or physically chal-

lenged person. Determine whether such stickers are available in your locality.t An electrical outlet or switch that

is unusually warm or hot to the touch may indicate a potentially dangerous wiring condition. In such a situation unplug cords, avoid using switches, and call an electrician to check the wir-ing.t Ceiling fixtures and recessed

lights trap heat. Since overheating can lead to fire, don’t use a high-wattage bulb in such a fixture. If you don’t know the correct wattage, use a bulb of 60 or fewer watts.t Always extinguish the fire in a

wood stove before leaving the house and before going to bed.t Unplug your hair dryer or any

other small appliance in the bathroom when not in use.t An electric blanket should not be

tucked in at the sides. It may overheat and start a fire.

t Be sure to turn a heating pad off before you go to sleep. It can cause burns even at a relatively low setting.t To make a dry fire extinguisher,

pour 6 pounds of fine sand into a large container and add 2 pounds of baking soda. Stir the mixture thoroughly. Keep the container in your shop, garage, or kitchen. This mixture can be sprinkled directly on small oil, grease, and petro-leum fires.t If you live or work in a high-rise

building, locate the fire exits on your floor. If an alarm sounds, remember that you should always use the fire stairs, not the elevator.

————Fire-Safety Tips BY EDITORS OF

CONSUMER GUIDE————

Don’t forget to visit: www.cortland-mls.com for market reports, other help-ful articles,local listings and REAL-TORS® in our area.

Hage Featured Property

NEW LISTING ~ THESE WALLS HOLD HISTORY! HOMER – CIRCA 1800 ~ You won’t believe the beauty and character in this 4BR/2BA village home. Featuring original woodwork, huge kitchen island, living room and master bedroom �replaces, �rst �oor laundry, office, parlor, and more! Huge detached 2 story garage with room for shop or storage. ~ $189,900 ~ MLS# S1227847. 87 South Main St., Homer. Call Jason Hage, Lic. Assoc. RE Brkr., c. 607-283-6200, Hage Real Estate. For this listing and others visit www.hagerealestate.com or call 607-753-6766.

Focus on fire safety during October

By NaTaliE CampisiBankrate.com (TNs)

As the third quarter of 2019 closed, homebuyers were sail-ing calm waters with lower rates and slowing home price appre-ciation, but without as many port options as they would pre-fer. That is to say, housing in-ventory remains squeezed.

“Our view is that the housing market peaked in 2017, we saw about a 3% drop in sales in 2018. The pace of home price increas-es started to slow in 2018,” says Doug Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae. “Starting at the beginning of 2019 rates started to come down, then we saw this big drop in rates. We didn’t ex-pect such a significant drop-off — it was 30 points more than

we forecasted.”mortgage rates continue to slide amid trade talks

Over the third quarter of 2019, mortgage rates gyrated nearly 50 basis points, rising as high as 4.2% for the 30-year fixed to a low of 3.75 percent, based on Bankrate’s weekly indexes. At the end of Q2, the average interest rate for the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 3.91% compared with 4.06% at the start of the three-month period.

The China-U.S. trade talks have prodded investors toward the shelter of U.S. Treasuries, which has helped flatten inter-est rates. Most experts predict that rates will remain flat, but there’s no promise as things can change overnight.

summer home-selling season outpaced last yearHome sales continued a two-

month growth streak in August, making the homebuying season better than some experts pre-dicted.

Single-family home trans-actions, which include town-homes, condos and co-ops, increased 1.3% from July to August. So far this year, home sales have surpassed last year’s number by 2.6 percent, ringing in at a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.49 million, according to the latest Existing Home Sales report by the National Associa-tion of Realtors, or NAR.

Sales prices jumped 4.7% in August compared with a year earlier, bumping the median ex-

isting home price to $278,200 from last August’s $265,600, the NAR report shows.

“The housing market is sit-ting well,” says Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. “We are sub-4% on mortgage rates and sub-4% on unemploy-ment. This is the first time since World War II era that we have both metrics (under 4 percent). Incomes are rising faster than inflation. This is the reason we’re seeing home sales up.”

inventory is still weak, but housing starts rise

Housing supply remains the weak spot of the market as in-ventory fell to 1.86 million units in August, down 2.6% from the same time last year.

“On the for-sale side, inven-tory remains low and the homes that are being started are priced above what many homebuyers are prepared to pay, so there’s an affordability problem,” says Michael Neal, a senior research associate in the Housing Fi-nance Policy Center at the Ur-ban Institute.

Construction costs and labor shortages continue to plague the entry-level construction market. Costly resources, in-cluding everything from build-ing materials and permit prices to labor, drive up construction costs, which filters through to the price of home. This is one reason folks are staying in their houses longer.

“Purchases of new homes are usually trade-up moves. If I’m a trade-up buyer and housing is

priced at top dollar, I might just choose to improve the house I’m in, which many people are doing,” Neal says.

As today’s homebuyers face a sparser real estate landscape, there’s a bit of good news. In August, housing starts were up to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.36 million, which is 6.6% above the August 2018 rate of 1.27 million, according to the Census Bureau.

“I feel very confident that the second half of this year will be even better than the second half of last year,” says Lawrence Yun, chief economist at NAR. “I do anticipate that builders will steadily ramp up produc-tion as housing starts reached a 12-year high in September.”

Despite rising home prices and limited options, people are optimistic about buying a home now, according to the NAR’s 2019 Q3 Homeownership Op-portunities and Market Experi-ence (HOME) Survey. In Q3, 63% of the survey’s respon-dents said that now is a good time to buy a house. That figure is down a bit from the second quarter though.

Refinancing activity slips as mortgage rates climb

Refinancing activity cooled at the end of September as rates began to rise, a sign that hom-eowners are closely watching interest rates. Between Septem-ber 11 and 25, the number of refinances dropped by 17 per-cent, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association, or MBA.

As millions of homeowners are still refi eligible — meaning they tick all the boxes to qualify for lower rates (they meet un-derwriting criteria and equity requirements) — many might be waiting for better deals before locking in a number. However, experts warn that homeowners could end up losing out if rates get some juice.

“I think it’s overall a positive for consumers to buy houses and refinance at these lower rates,” says Marc Doss, region-al chief investment officer at Wells Fargo. “But there are peo-ple who are trying to perfectly time rates, which is impossible. People have the chance to float down now. Don’t wait too long. Don’t try to get too cute.”

———Visit Bankrate online at www.

bankrate.com.———

(c)2019 Bankrate.comDistributed by Tribune Con-

tent Agency, LLC.

Third-quarter housing, mortgage trends

Cortland Standard

Look forSmart Source

coupons...appearing in the

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Cortland Standard, Thursday, October 10, 2019 — 3AReal Estate

HOURS:MON.-FRI. 8:30AM-5:00PM, SAT. 9AM-1PM,

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LindaMuirheadSalesperson423-4256

SteveCinquantiAssoc.Broker/

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NickiWynn

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Howard Hanna Featured Property

MODERNIZED. Circa 1900 homes are hard to come by. Beautifully renovated 2-story Old Style situated on one of prettiest lots in Freeville. This tastefully up-graded home exudes old world charm w/high-end contemporary touches: Floor-ing: hrdwd, natural stone, bamboo, W2W carpet; newer-metal roof/Munchkin boiler, pellet stove; gourmet kitchen w/brand new stainless appliances/custom Leggari countertops & den w/high ceilings; formal DR; wood deck off the master BR, easy to maintain landscaping; a enclosed workshop off the heated 2.5-car garage. MLS# 400642 $260,000. Call Howard Hanna Real Estate Services at 607-257-0800.

By Natalie CampisiBankrate.com (tNs)

Imagine building a brand-new car in your driveway. Every part would be hauled in to be assem-bled on-site by subcontractors. It might take several weeks of coordinated effort by a variety of experts to execute the final product. If the weather is bad or something is missing, then ex-pect delays.

This kind of white-glove, car-building service would cost a lot more than a factory-built car de-livered to you completed. And, in reality, the factory-built car is probably no less safe or well-built than the car made on-site. The idea of building custom cars in driveways seems absurd, yet this is how we traditionally build homes in the U.S.

As labor shortages and tariffs continue to drive up the cost of single-family home produc-tion and the lack of affordable housing makes headlines, some folks are turning to factory-built homes. Cheaper, faster to build and more environmentally pro-gressive, modular and manufac-tured homes can make housing affordable for folks across the country. And now financing them is easier than ever before.

Here, we look at three types of popular factory-built homes: modular, container and manu-factured homes.

What’s the difference between modular and

manufactured housing?These non-traditional homes

fall under the category of pre-fabricated homes, simply known as “prefab.”

There are important differenc-es within this category, but the terms are sometimes used inter-changeably. Modular homes are made in a factory, assembled on-site in large sections and then af-fixed permanently to a concrete foundation. A container home is a type of modular home that is made from a steel shipping con-tainer and is permanently affixed to a foundation.

Manufactured homes are also factory-built, steel-framed homes but, unlike modular homes, they include a permanent chassis and axles so that wheels can be attached. Manufactured homes are also known as mobile homes and trailer homes.

These homes are also built to different codes. Manufactured homes must follow the U.S. De-partment of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, code while modular homes follow the same building codes as stick-built homes, which are designat-ed by their city, county or state.

Manufactured homes have gotten a bad rap because of their association with run-down trail-er parks and media portrayals, says David Battany, EVP of cap-ital markets at Guild Mortgage.

But — like container homes and modular homes — their role in solving the affordable hous-ing problem (while minimizing waste) shouldn’t be overlooked.

“A huge part of this is aware-ness,” Battany says. “If you took the average homebuyer, they don’t realize the high quality of manufactured homes. Even people in the mortgage indus-try are thinking of poor-quality construction on leased land. It’s totally different today. It’s very well constructed, the homes are made out of drywall. And people own the land in many cases. I used to work in construction. I could not tell the difference be-tween a manufactured home and a stick-built home.”

modular homes offer cost- and time-saving alternativeAlong with being cost- and

time-efficient and less wasteful, modular homes are also a big deal among design aficionados.

Despite the words “contain-er” and “factory” (which sound more like descriptors for pro-cessed soup than living spaces) these homes often appear on the covers of magazines like Archi-tectural Digest and are admired for their use of clean mid-cen-tury modern lines and utilitarian sensibility.

It’s this kind of coverage (and following) that drives business for modular home manufacturer Gordon Stott, founder of Con-nect Homes based in Los Ange-les.

“We haven’t spent time mar-keting our homes. Ultimately, it’s people responding to what they saw in magazines or in per-son. Our first house made the cover of Dwell, so that helped,” Stott says. “It’s a design-centric community that knows about

modular homes. They like the look of them and understand the benefits.”

Among those benefits is the ability to slash housing costs in high-priced areas like Silicon Valley. In August, the median price of a single-family home, per square foot, was $710 in Santa Clara County (home to San Jose), according to data from the California Association of Realtors. A Connect Homes modular home costs $280 per square foot, delivered and in-stalled. The price includes all the foundation work, too. In 2017, the average price for land in Santa Clara County was $120 per square foot, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agen-cy. This data is based on land under current existing struc-tures; vacant land might be even cheaper because it hasn’t been developed.

In other words, a modular home and the land costs about $400 per square foot, signifi-cantly less than the median per-square-foot price of a stick-built, single-family home in that area.

advantages in California market

Along with being affordable, modular homes require a frac-tion of the time stick-built homes take to finish. Because nearly all of the work is done in a factory, there are no weather delays, ma-terial issues or problems with subcontractors.

The homes are built to code and inspected by a third-party in the factory, then they’re inspect-ed by a local building inspector once they’re on site. According to the National Association of Home Builders, prefab homes “often exceed all requirements of locally adopted building and

fire codes.”The build speed has made

these homes popular among California wildfire victims, who face high construction costs and slow build times. Many of the homeowners want to rebuild, but there’s just not enough construc-tion manpower, which means building costs can be exorbitant. On top of that, they’re facing a three- to five-year build time, which means they have to pay rent while they wait, Stott says.

“This summer, we delivered 16 houses in Sonoma. We have one Malibu house in the permit-ting stage, but we expect more to come. We can offer a very pre-dictable price and timeline. Our houses are move-in ready in as few as nine months,” Stott says.

Part of the process includes putting a concrete foundation customized to your house and then attaching the steel frame to that. To make the process as smooth and quick as possible, homeowners can choose from a set of pre-designed and state-approved floor plans that range from 640 square feet to more than 3,200 square feet.

Container living in the Catskills

Less dire circumstances drew Stephen Murray to non-traditional housing, in the form of a shipping container. Look-ing for a respite from city life, Murray began a house hunt in the Catskills, a bucolic area in southeastern New York known for its rolling hills and placid lakes, straight out of a Thomas Cole painting.

What he found was weath-ered farmhouses, some over 100 years old, with low ceilings that

New financing options for affordable and attractive factory-built homes

Allison Long/Kansas City Star/TNSAn unusual house made out of five shipping containers from China was built by toy designer Debbie Glassberg in Kansas City, Missouri, seen here in April 2009. As labor shortages and tariffs continue to drive up the cost of single-family home production and the lack of afford-able housing makes headlines, some folks are turning to factory-built homes.

see HOmes, page 4a

By KatHeriNe KHasHimOva lONgthe seattle times (tNs)

SEATTLE — The loggers who Seattle a center of the national timber industry are long gone. And only a few wooden landmarks of the timber heyday, mostly churches, still exist on the low-slung skyline of Ballard, the neighborhood once known as Shingleton.

But as concerns over climate change give new life to wooden building design, that could change.

In the coming years, Ballard will be home to Seattle’s first tall building built almost entirely from wood. Rising eight stories from the current Ballard Blossom florist on Market Street will be a hotel built principally from cross-laminated timber, or CLT — durable panels made from binding layers of wooden planks with adhesive.

The architects behind the hotel say its wooden structure “responds to the historical influence that timber has played” in Ballard.

More importantly, cross-laminated timber is touted as an envi-ronmentally sustainable alternative to concrete and steel, which generate large quantities of greenhouse gases in their production. Loggers and environmentalists alike say that building with cross-laminated timber needs to be one part of the response to climate change.

For those who remember the fiery 1990s protests over logging in the spotted owl’s Olympic Peninsula habitat, building with wood seems counterintuitive.

Mark Wishnie, the director of global forestry at The Nature Conservancy, said he understands the whiplash that some feel about the environmental movement’s about-face on timber. One of the biggest challenges to increasing demand for CLT construc-tion, he said, is the “scars in people’s memories” — the perception that logging equals deforestation.

For many, the old Shingletown symbolized just that kind of environmental catastrophe: mass deforestation, including the log-ging of old-growth forests.

That doesn’t have to be the case, Wishnie said, if logging is managed well. But he emphasized that cross-laminated timber only makes sense if the wood comes from a forest that’s managed responsibly.

Since an April code change made it easier for cross-laminated timber buildings to win city approval, developers have applied for permits for three such towers, including the Ballard hotel — and Seattle architects say plenty more are on their way.

The code change was “sort of like the dam breaking,” said archi-tect Jack Chaffin, who is designing one of the new cross-laminated timber buildings. He said he previously tried to build cross-lami-nated timber apartments, but always scrapped the designs because it would have added nearly a year to the permitting process.

Now, anticipating stepped-up demand from Seattle and else-where, two cross-laminated timber factories — Vaagen Timbers in Colville, Stevens County, and Katerra in Spokane — opened this summer, almost doubling the number of local cross-laminated timber producers.

Cross-laminated timber is a subset of mass timber — ultra-dense blocks of planks bound together with glue or nails. Mass timber is far from new: In 1982, the Tacoma Dome was framed

Tall buildings out of timber?

see tall, page 4a

4A — Cortland Standard, Thursday, October 10, 2019 Real Estate

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Call John c. 607-745-8748

CORTLAND

8 OTTER CREEK PLACE3 Bedrooms/1.5 Baths1st of 4 historical sister homes

HW �oors, LR �replace, Spacious fenced yard, covered porch & more!

$114,500MLS# S1193243

Call Jason c. 607-283-6200

CORTLAND

4568 MAYBURY RD.3 Bedrooms/2.5 Baths

Beautiful Ranch on 5 acresLuxurious Master Suite

Huge eat-in kitchen, �replace, and more!$145,000

MLS# S1228142Call Jerry c. 607-423-4278

SOLON

87 SOUTH MAIN ST.4 Bedrooms/2 Baths

Rich History - Character galore!Parlor, Office, 1st �. Laundry

Living room & Master Bedroom FP$189,900

MLS# S1227847Call Jason c. 607-283-6200

HOMER

1875 LORING XINGStrong Business Opportunity!2000 sq. ft. Offices – 2000 sq. ft. Garage

Solar Panels & Natural Gas UtilitiesPlenty of parking$199,000

MLS# S1223802Call Marie c. 607-423-0888

CORTLANDVILLE

TEAM HAGE...Top Agents – Top Service

We Sell Results –Not Promises!

For Full Details ofHomes For Sale, Visit

www.hagerealestate.com

HAGEREAL ESTATE

SOLD on Cortland County!

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JoAnn ZechLic. Assoc. RE Broker

Mary Lee FaucherLic. RE Slsp.

CONGRATULATIONSTo The Top Agents for September,

Jerry and Sean!

3718 ROUTE 414 Bedrooms/2 Baths

Gentleman’s Farmhouse on 2 AcresHW �oors, big rooms, 1st �. laundry

Huge kitchen, Screened-in Porch, fruit trees & more!$139,900

MLS# S1228152Call Jerry c. 607-423-4278

SOLON

201 DEWEY AVE.3 Bedrooms/1.5 Baths

Dreamy Modern Kitchen1st �. laundry, huge LR,

Screened-in porch, gorgeous yard$149,900

MLS# S1223313Call Jason c. 607-283-6200

GROTON

23 PENDLETON ST.3 Bedrooms/2 Baths

Completely Remodeled! 1st �. laundry, ceramic tile, big front porch2-tiered deck, oversized garage & more!

$109,900MLS# S1229801

Call Jason c. 607-283-6200

CORTLAND

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6001 ROUTE 2813 Bedrooms/1.5 Baths

Tons of interior improvementGreat kitchen

Easy commute to Cortland & Syracuse$109,900

MLS# S1229015Call Sean c. 607-745-0200

LITTLE YORK

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Yaman Featured Property

NEW LISTING 8 Broadway Ave., Cortland. WOW, here is a well maintained city 2-story home awaiting its new owner. Nestled off the street, this home features beautiful natural woodwork through-out and many updates including kitchen, siding, windows and so much more. There is a wonderful enclosed 3-season porch for an added quiet place to enjoy. All this and walk to SUNY, Main Street, Dunkin for morning coffee, and easy access to the South Cort-land stores or off to Ithaca for work or play. Make sure to call for your appointment to see this city home today. MLS# S1225943. $127,900. Call Tim Alger, Lic. Assoc. RE Brkr., (607) 423-6174.

Heritage Featured Property

Parker Rd., Freetown $139,900. Come take a look at this beautiful land! Mostly wooded with 6 acres of open meadow, 75 wooded, this property is a perfect recreational getaway. Pond and trout stream on the property, trails throughout, secluded at the end of a dead-end road, a nature lover’s paradise. Only 6 miles to interstate access with easy commute to Syracuse, Ithaca or Binghamton. MLS# S1182794. Call Corrie Oustad, Lic. Assoc. RE Brkr., (c) 607-745-0718, at Heritage Realty. For this listing and more visit www.hometoheritage.com. Heritage Realty, 607-428-0708 office.

required him to hunch his 6-foot-2-inch frame. On the other end of the spectrum were suburban homes he found unappealing.

When he saw his first Catskills container home, by designer Tim Steele in collaboration with ar-chitecture firm Big Prototype, he was struck by their silhouette against the landscape. But what sold him was how little waste they produced. The 9-foot ceil-ings didn’t hurt either.

“You’re upcycling so you’re using existing material,” Murray says. “It spoke to me in terms of eco-friendliness.”

Steele, a longtime designer of container homes and founder of Steele House, believes that the age of McMansions is over. He’s passionate about showing would-be homebuyers that there are affordable ways to achieve the American dream, while mini-mizing their impact on the envi-ronment.

“Along with the green aspect, they check a lot of other boxes, too,” Steele says. “They’re very strong — as strong as a brick home.

We can also raise them off the ground, which is great if you live in a flood zone. Plus, when you see them there’s just something about them. They have a provenance that other homes just don’t have.”

Container homes are cost-efficient because the structure is already there. A used container might cost $2,500 while a new one is about $5,000, says ar-chitect and container enthusiast Mishou Sanchez. But Sanchez warns that building a container home can get expensive if you compromise the structure.

“You have to be smart when designing with containers,” she says. “Cutting into them too much defeats the purpose of building with them. Clever insu-lation is needed because it starts to limit the interior dimensions. People should get a feel for the size of an actual container before committing.”

A ‘viable solution’ to a growing problem

A long-standing argument against manufactured homes is that they lose their value, mak-ing them a poor bet for people

who want to build equity. But an Urban Institute report shows that the opposite is true, as long as homeowners own the land their home is on. The home price index for manufactured homes (also known as mobile homes) fea-tured an average annual growth rate of 3.4 percent, versus 3.8% for traditional, site-built homes, the study shows.

“In recent years, home prices have actually risen at a faster clip for manufactured, or mobile homes, than they have for tradi-tional properties,” according to the report.

Manufactured housing is one viable solution for the affordable housing shortage, says Edward Golding, nonresident fellow in the Housing Finance Policy Cen-ter at the Urban Institute.

“We’re not going to solve af-fordable housing with one solu-tion,” Golding says. “It might not work in downtown San Fran-cisco, but in rural areas where wages are low and builders don’t want to build just a handful of houses, this is a great start. If we got 50,000 manufactured homes

each year, over time that’s a cou-ple million. You start with the numbers; it’s much more afford-able for a number of reasons.”

How Fannie Mae is changing the game

A new mortgage option in-troduced by Fannie Mae ear-lier this year, MH Advantage, is helping to make it easier for homebuyers to finance manufac-tured homes. Guild Mortgage is one such lender that offers the loan program. The purpose is to “help ease the nation’s afford-able housing shortage, address borrowers’ evolving needs and provide a growing business op-portunity for lenders and the in-dustry,” according to a statement on its website.

MH Advantage homes must meet certain requirements to be eligible for the loan program. These requirements are designed to make eligible homes fit in seamlessly with their stick-built

counterparts in neighborhoods. MH Advantage requirements in-clude:n The eaves must be 6 inches

or greater.n Energy-efficient features,

including Energy-Star approved products.n Drywall throughout the

home.n Solid wood or veneer kitch-

en and bathroom cabinets.n The exterior siding must be

fiber cement board, stucco, hard-wood siding, masonry, stone or engineered wood siding.

The program is helpful be-cause lenders can use comps of site-built homes, making it easier to qualify for a loan in a neigh-borhood of all or mostly site-built homes. The MH Advantage program allows borrowers to make a minimum 3% down pay-ment, further easing the path to homeownership.

How to pay for your non-tradi-

tional homeAlong with MH Advantage,

there are other financing options available, but it might take some research and sitting down with a lender to find one that’s right for you. Some options include con-struction loans; these include con-struction-to-permanent loans and stand-alone construction loans.

Some folks might choose to use the equity in their home to build a second home. Murray took out a home equity loan on his New York City apartment to finance his Catskills dream home, for example.

Personal loans might be anoth-er option for some borrowers.

There are also government-insured loans for manufactured homes offered by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and the Rural Hous-ing Services (RHS) under the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

HOMEScontinued from page 6A

with thousands of glue-laminated beams, a form of mass timber.

But until recently, architects weren’t able to envision building hundred-foot-plus towers entirely of wood, because fire codes in cities such as Seattle wouldn’t allow it.

Enter cross-laminated timber: Fire-resistant wood panels capa-ble of replacing concrete in floors, walls and ceilings. It’s produced in 12-foot by 60-foot panels and cut by computer into prefabricat-ed patterns, ensuring a minimum of construction waste.

As the Seattle area continues to grow — by close to 600,000 people in the next 20 years, the state estimates — the city will need to balance the need to build new housing stock with the need to eliminate waste and carbon emissions from construction, en-vironmentalists say.

The huge environmental ben-efits of cross-laminated timber are its biggest draw: Construc-tion on a cross-laminated timber high-rise emits roughly 25% less carbon dioxide than if the high-rise were concrete, according to a University of Washington study.

Timber buildings also store at-mospheric carbon locked in the trees used to build them. And greenhouse gases are sequestered even further as forestry land is re-placed and new trees absorb car-bon dioxide.

“When we take the wood out of the forest, we are planting new forest and sequestering new carbon,” said Indroneil Ganguly, associate professor at the UW’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences and one of the au-thors of the study. Building with timber, he said, is “almost like multiplying the acres of forest.”

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