And some pre-fabricated home can be quite luxurious, modern and roomy and ingeniously designed. Some pre-fabricated home are “stick” built and rather traditionally built and designed and some built with even more sturdy metal framing, but since the manufacturing or building of the sections take place in a climate controlled factory, in some factories with precision automation and with many the basic module components the same or very similar for many of the finished end designs, they can be built more quickly and more efficiently and without bad weather delays and at a lower overall per sq. ft. cost.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze9cSRznI4Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inyjfMkq_VA
FWIW, many, many years ago my uncle purchased a lot two blocks off the beach in the Surf City area of Long Beach Island New Jersey when land was still pretty cheap. In the late 1970’s (1979 IIRC) he decided to finally build on the lot, a vacation home and a home for his my aunt’s later retirement years. He decided to go with a pre-fabricated home as conventional construction costs on the island were quite high even back then. He had the home delivered on several tractor trailers and the modules erected on pilings as to protect it from flooding and at least moderate storm surges and secured together. My father who was a master carpenter came down for a week after the pre-fabricated home was delivered, placed on the pilings and the modules secured in order to finish some of the interior work like installing the interior moldings, hanging some interior doors, and a very minimal amount of drywall left, and some interior painting, and overseeing the final electrical and plumbing connections, etc. but the home was basically complete on delivery.
I spent many weekends during the summer over the years at that home and if I didn’t know better, I would have never guessed it was a factory built home.
When my uncle finally did retire and sold his house in NY, while he wanted to retire to the beach house, his wife, my aunt balked because the house, while a nice size – three bedroom and a large open living, dining and kitchen area, it wouldn’t fit all the furniture she had collected over the years, mostly her big dining room and bedroom set from their main house and he sold it and they purchased a small home but one bigger than the beach house in a retirement community (something he later told me he regretted doing). And when he sold it back around 2000, he sold it for about 9 times the cost of the original land purchase plus the original cost of the home.
And when my niece last visited LBI, not long after Hurricane Sandy, that house was still standing and with no visible damage. The new owner had closed in part of the lower level (under the pilings) to make a garage and an enclosed entrance area, but otherwise the pictures she sent me the house looked just the same as I remembered.
That’s what a lot of people on the Gulf Coast do.