The Sim Sages will be so jealous!

Hi Sara, Where in LA County are you building? I am also in L.A. and looking for alternatives to our insanely inflated housing market. I am new to this site and just learning about Modernist housing..so forgive some ignorance on my part..Did you build on a hillside? Was it difficult to get the house to your site? Any info would be greatly appreciated... thanks!

Our house has not yet been set. The set date will be the second week of June. In fact, our foundation has not been started either. I started visiting this site too because I was looking for an affordable way to have a nice home too :o)

We're located just north of Valencia (Magic Mountain) in a little rural town called Val Verde. We're just northwest of the I5/126 intersection. It generally takes 45 minutes to get to downtown if you're wondering about proximity.

The format of the blog listings sometimes isn't conducive for searching an individual blog. Maybe you can find some more information if you look at other entries.

http://www.livemodern.com/Members/SaraSage/blog

I know there is waay too much information about our project but I thought I would post the url just in case.

-Sara

HI I too have a house in the making with Irontown. WE chose the capetown model We lost our house to a fire last summer so we are anxiously waiting and waitng. Its been 4 months already and we are not even to blueprint. Is that your experience too??? I wa excited to hear that you got your Ikea kitchen That is what I want to do too. I would love to talk more about your experience working with Irontown and what to expect???Sonja

Hello Sara, This will be interesting to watch, my wife and I just sent Irontown a check for the initial set of plans for a home we want to put in up here in Santa Cruz.Can you let me know what your impressions of their company are so far? We are going with the Richmond Model from the Douglas Cutler Masterpiece series, and will be the first people to have one of these built by Irontown.

Regards, Nick Ely

Wow,

What a coincidence! For us, building off-site was the only affordable way for us to own a home and I think it's going to be great. How did you guys get hooked up with Irontown? Did you go through a dealer?

I have nothing but good things to say about Irontown. They are a family business and they are extremely fast and efficient. Amanda is especially helpful and knowledgeable. Their son Jason builds the houses and they have another daughter who also works for them.

The only problem with Irontown is that since they are a small factory, they don't have an in-house engineer or draftsman. As a result, the engineering/drafting took a long time. The good news for us was that when we needed revisions during the permitting process, they (CKG) were really quick to make the changes. Even though the engineering took longer than expected, we did find that CKG was very accurate and we had only a few corrections with our building plans.

You can also reference my entire blog with this link:

http://www.livemodern.com/Members/SaraSage/blog

Hope this helps,

Sara

Hi Sara, We were referred to Irontown by a Lender I met on the internet, I had mentioned to him that I had not had any luck finding a true Modular Home builder in our area, only HUD type homes, which we were not interested in purchasing. I was also referred to a dealer in the S.F. Bay area for Irontown, who we are going to have handle the site work and installation, but for the Home itself we are dealing directly with Rich, the owner of Irontown.

I was a bit alarmed to see Sonya mention that she has been in the "planning" stage for over 4 months,I expect to take a couple of months with the initial set of plans figuring out where we want everything, but once that has been decided, I would hope the final sets of plans can be drawn up pretty swiftly. Perhaps Sonya needs to light a fire under someone's rear end to get things moving a bit faster?

-Nick

hi Nick I wish i cold light a fire, I have tried. My choice is to have faith or bow out and star over which I dont want to do. I researched for six months untill we decided to go with Irontown.They seem so nice and the more upset I get the worst it is for me and our relationship . If I want to go all the way to a new home I have to learn to let go. Sonja

Sonya, Can you please explain what the steps are you have done with regards to the plans? Did you make alot of changes after you had supposedly finalized them? I am not clear why you are having to wait such a long time, if this is the norm for their drafting firm then I might very well just have the plans drawn up locally by a company here in Santa Cruz, and then submit those to Irontown when we are sure they are exactly what we want.

-Nick

That's what we did. I think it just takes a bit of time to get a set of plans just right for production. It took us three months and we nagged and nagged them.

Check out these blog entries that relate to our engineering woes:

http://www.livemodern.com/Members/SaraSage/blog/blogentry.2004-12-08.7646820597 http://www.livemodern.com/Members/SaraSage/blog/blogentry.2004-12-28.8369828916 http://www.livemodern.com/Members/SaraSage/blog/blogentry.2005-01-08.8365267083 http://www.livemodern.com/Members/SaraSage/blog/blogentry.2005-01-28.5539975911

The engineering delay was the only problem we ever had. I also remember one night in which my husband was very angry about the delay and was ready to confront them the next morning. Fortunately, when he called the next morning, the expected drawings were ready.

If it's any comfort to you, my parents are building a kit home and it's taken them over 5 months and the engineers are not done yet. They've been working with an out-sourced engineering firm through the kit manufacturer

I know Irontown used to have a large production schedule but they slimmed down in order to do custom homes. That meant they let go of the in-house engineer, inspector and draftsman.

In our case, things started to fly once all the legal/technical hoops were cleared. All the work before the building was the most lengthy. It's a difficult process because the first step is getting a permit set of drawings, and getting to that point is tedious and frustrating with little physical result. Also, in our case, our first experiences with Irontown were actually with their outsourced engineers who aren't as fast as Irontown. We had to put out faith in them before we really knew what their capabilities were.

Maybe Irontown needs to know that the engineers aren't working as fast as their clients would like. We sure complained a lot during the engineering stage!

Thanks Sara, it is very helpfull to be able to receive advice directly from someone going thru the process. I will be discussing this very subject with Rich at Irontown, and making sure we are both very clear as to the time frame expectations for both of us for ALL the phases of this project.

We are figuring to end up spending well over $500k on this project and expect to have things handled smoothly and professionally by all parties involved. We feel fine about Irontown, so if their Draftspeople turn out to be any type of hinderance, we will certainly let them know it :-O

-Nick

well . there are now more dealys due to uncertanties about our foundation and setbacks that we are clearing up right now. . we were told that we have another 7-8 months to go. very disheartening. but I know Irontown is concerned for us too, so we don,t run into problems down the road. Its maybe a little different for us as we didnt choose to rebuild. our house burned down last summer and so after dealing with the chock, i threw myself into lots of research trying to find a way to rebuild. We had a custome house designed for us by an architect but couldnt afford to build it with our insurandce money.then we decided that manufactured house would be the easiest and fastest way to go . But It just didnt feel right. my girls vetoed that. then we found the house we wanted and irontown who could build it, and a local projectmanager and it all fell into place We were told that it would take 6 months if we didnt make a lot of changes and depending on how busy they were at Irontown. but I didnt take into consideration that my nerves couldnt handle setbacks., and all the changes that had to be made to fit the architects plan into this cape cod style plan created more delays. so realistically. plan for longer time frame and and strong stamina keep posting your experiences. it really helps me understand and i feel less crazed. sonja

Hoopa Modular www.hoopamodular.com is a brand new factory in northern California. We are a lender who specializes in factory-built housing (www.factorybuiltlending.com), we have several of our clients strongly consdiering them because of the lower costs, transportation costs and a shorter construction time.

Right now they have a lot of plans in engineering but nothing under construction. BTW, they don't deal with consumers direct - you will need to go through a modular retailer.

Hope this information will help.

Chris - Sunset Mortgage

Hi, we are an authorized builder developer of Hoopa Modular Building Enterprise throughout the state of California. We provide turn-key project services including feasability study for modular, construction planning, permitting, site preparation, and set-up and finishing work.

Hoopa has a lot of floor-plans to choose from, and they are the only factory building for the California market that is set-up like an east-coast style "True Modular" builder. They don't build production manufactured homes at their plant, but they are large enough so that the homes are more affordable if you can't spend $140-160 a square foot. Also, unlike some other production modular manufacturers, they can do some customization to your plans and have higher end specs if you want them.

Hoopa really makes sense. If you want to see what floor-plans they have available, visit http://www.hoopamodular.com/NewGeneration.htm

for more information about our company, visit http://www.cuttingedgehomes.net or call 877 280 6496

Hoopa has a new design collection that they are working on for 2006 that will have more California style plans. For now, they have great plans at a fair price, and we can do any exterior look that you would like to finish the homes in a California style.

Thank you.

Isaac Cutting Edge Homes Inc.

here are the hotlinks: http://www.hoopamodular.com/NewGeneration.htm

for more information about our company, visit http://www.cuttingedgehomes.net or call 877 280 6496

Thank you.

Isaac Cutting Edge Homes Inc.

You are an inspiration to me and I want to thank you for sharing all your hard work and your road to getting to the point of having your home . I have been stuck in time pressure beeing upset about the wait. We are still waiting for the draftman to get to our plans. Now I understand why.to anyone starting ,my advise to you is dont make too many changes. It puts your projectlast in the pile."first come first served". \ I am letting go of trying to push it, cannot have more sleepless nights. I wanted to get into our house when our lease is up.My goal was 6 months. I guess it will all work out in the end. I have read all your bloggs and your confidence has rubbed off on me. you have resurrected my faith in Irontown . I wonder whats ahead for us and what obstacles we will accounter on our jurney. Sonja

Nick-

I also live in Santa Cruz, I'd be interested in finding out more information on your experience.

-Ken