Editor’s note: This article was written before the global coronavirus crisis, but once we’re past it, the underlying shortage of affordable housing, although temporarily off our radar while dealing with said crisis, is likely to persist, as is the overall trajectory of real estate values. This is the first part of a two-part series on modern modular construction providing solutions to housing shortages.

The prevailing narrative would have it that, currently, the United States is enjoying a high point in the long-running, ongoing, post–Great Recession recovery. Unemployment rates have hit an almost 50-year low, and the country has successfully bounced back from the financial crisis of the early aughts.

However, viewed through the lens of the United States’ prolonged housing crisis, a wholly different picture emerges. This alternate reality is one in which the security of homeownership is elusive for many, not despite the return to prosperi