There’s a Major Information Gap in Housing, and This Tech Founder Aims To Fix It

Greyson Gibson, CEO and co-founder of LotRoll, aims to address a significant information gap in the manufactured housing sector, which he believes is a bottleneck hindering its growth as a solution to the housing crisis. LotRoll, a startup, aggregates data from public records, mobile home parks, and other sources to provide property valuations based on location, size, community features, and auxiliary structures. Gibson stated that the perception of manufactured homes needs to align with their current quality, noting that "the homes are amazing" and often indistinguishable from site-built homes internally. He identified land availability and manufacturer supply as key constraints for the growing segment. The manufactured housing industry faces challenges due to a lack of awareness and a conflation of different home types, including mobile homes (built on a chassis) and factory-built or "prefab" homes. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development recently proposed new rules to broaden the definition of manufactured homes, potentially facilitating the construction of multistory factory-built homes and easing industry regulations. Concurrently, the bipartisan 21st Century Road to Housing Act has advanced in Congress, also seeking to reduce restrictions on manufactured homes.