CINCINNATI — Could Greater Cincinnati ease its housing shortage by building homes in a factory instead of entirely on site? A new partnership of housing and real estate leaders intends to find out.
The Housing Innovation Lab, led by the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, the University of Cincinnati Real Estate Center and LISC Greater Cincinnati, has launched as a testing ground for ideas that could make housing more affordable across the region. Its first assignment is a study of whether the area could support its own modular housing plant, producing prefabricated homes and building parts for local builders.
The study will look at regional demand for factory-built housing, what a production facility would cost to build, and who might operate it. The concept builds on a plan developed by Habitat for Humanity of Greater Cincinnati, whose president and CEO, Joe Hansbauer, argues that the cost of constructing a home is a central reason families are being priced out of ownership. His organization completed a pilot modular project this spring in Latonia Lakes, Kentucky.
Supporters say modular construction can cut building timelines substantially because site work, such as running utilities, can happen while the house itself is being manufactured indoors, where weather delays are less of a factor. The national market for modular homes reached an estimated $20.5 billion in 2025, according to the Modular Building Institute.
The idea is not entirely new locally. A townhome development in Evanston used modular methods, and two homes on Pleasant Street in Covington were built at a modular plant near Dayton and shipped in for assembly — the first in a planned series for Covington’s Eastside neighborhood. The lab’s backers say the evidence from its study will decide whether a Cincinnati-area plant is the region’s next step.