Live in a Toyota?

The residential inventory in our Lakes Region of New Hampshire communities continues to grow as we reach the peak summer selling season. We are up just about a hundred homes on the market compared to last month. Could there be a Toyota in your future?  Maybe. I bet you didn’t know that second largest auto maker in the USA also builds homes. According to a July 2 Wall Street Journal article, Toyota has actually been building steel frame prefab homes on a small scale in Japan since 1975. They use the same production line model that the giant automaker uses to churn out Corollas and Camrys. The Toyota home is built out of ”cubicles” that are stacked together like Legos. It usually takes about 6 or more cubicles and about 45 days start to finish to construct the average home.  Homes cost from $200,000 for a 1,000 sq ft model up to $800,000 for the loaded “Lexus” model. The average Japanese home only lasts about 30 years and then it is demolished and a new structure built in its place.  Toyota built homes are designed to last about twice as long.  That still doesn’t seem to be a very long life compared to the century old homes we have here in New England and other parts of the country. Toyota is applying its car technology in their homes with things like a “smart key” that will fit your car and your home, sound deadening, and rust proofing. It sounds kind of funny to rust proof a house, but these are steel framed homes. If you’re old enough, you’ll remember that the early Japanese cars rusted away before your eyes! I guess they didn’t want to take any chances. Toyota is also testing electricity monitoring devices that will charge your electric hybrid vehicle during off peak periods too keep monthly electric bills low. The batteries in you car would also provide a limited amount of electricity back to the home in blackouts. They are also experimenting with using solar panels as siding and powering homes with fuel cells. A hybrid without wheels so to speak. 

Much to my dismay, Toyota won the NASCAR Coca Cola 400 on July 5. Seems a little un-American on our country’s birthday weekend.  Toyota does make a great car but it has no plans to build homes here in the U.S.A., so if there is a Toyota in your future it will have to be the four wheel version.  And that’s OK because I’m not sure what would happen if you parked a Chevy or Ford inside a Toyota built garage, it just wouldn’t feel right…

Residential Homes Available as of July 1

Towns of Alton, Barnstead, Belmont, Center Harbor, Gilford, Gilmanton, Laconia, Meredith, Moultonborough, New Hampton, Sanbornton, and Tilton

This entry was posted on Friday, July 11th, 2008 at 9:20 am and is filed under Lakes Region Home, Market Report Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.