I attended the BPF Residential Investment conference yesterday, and one of the recurring themes across the day's debate was the importance of modular construction for our future housing delivery - allowing a speed of delivery that traditional construction can not match.  Berkeley and Crest Nicholson are already predicting that modular units will form a significant part (perhaps as much as 40-50%) of their output within the next few years, and the acquisition below underlines industry support.  There are still questions to be answered about how residential lenders will view this type of product, and what the resale market will be like.  Interestingly, an America real estate lender I talked to at the conference told me that modular construction carries many of the same negative connotations in the States that perhaps linger over here with memories of post war pre-fab homes (albeit for differing reasons).  Changing that perception at end consumer level may be the biggest challenge.