CHICAGO — In a city where new construction often prices out working families, a Chicago-based company is flipping the housing model by building entire homes indoors and selling them affordably — without public subsidies.
Tim Swanson, founder of Inherent Homes, is on a mission to turn vacant city lots into vibrant, livable neighborhoods. Using prefabricated construction, Swanson and his team can build a fully assembled, livable home in just eight weeks, slashing both time and labor costs.
One recent buyer, Dominque Ward, saw her new home erected before her eyes and moved in with her children as a first-time homeowner. “Once you put it down on the foundation, everything’s in it — all the appliances came with it,” she said.
Ward paid around $275,000 for her new home on Chicago’s West Side — a major break from the area’s average of $500,000+ for similar properties. Her ability to buy stemmed not only from the lower construction cost but also from strategic land acquisition.
Finding a Home for $1 — Literally
Inherent Homes strategically builds on city-owned vacant lots, often acquired for as little as $1. This strategy helps first-time buyers qualify for city incentives like the Building Neighborhoods and Affordable Homes Program, which offers forgivable loans.
Because Ward’s new house replaced an unused weedy lot, she qualified for $100,000 in mortgage relief through that program.
The company keeps costs low by constructing indoors, avoiding weather delays, and buying materials in bulk. Swanson says it currently costs them about $350,000 to $370,000 to build each house. They sell them at around $395,000 unsubsidized, which is well below the city’s market average for new builds.
“We can go from raw material to framed interior in about 2.5 to 3 weeks,” Swanson said during a tour of their Lawndale warehouse. “It takes about eight weeks total to deliver a move-in ready home.”
You can read more about the effort and its community impact in CBS Chicago’s report.
The Bigger Goal: Scalable Affordability
Swanson says he’s open to sharing his playbook with other builders — not just to grow his own company but to scale a model that could tackle Chicago’s affordable housing crisis at large. He acknowledges it takes what he calls “a level of insanity” to navigate the zoning, financing, and logistics involved, but hopes more will take on the challenge.
Meanwhile, families like Ward’s are reaping the rewards — reclaiming neighborhoods and showing children what’s possible with the right support.
What do you think about prefabricated housing as a solution for affordability in Chicago? Share your thoughts with us at ChicagoSuburbanFamily.com.
