Elliott, the founder of Solitaire Homes, took a hard look at the manufactured home industry and came to some profound conclusions regarding quality of materials, workmanship, and pricing of factory built homes. He contended that one should be able to find a home of the same quality as site built, but at the lower manufactured home prices. He found that most manufacturers used inferior quality mate
rials that were designed to last eighteen to twenty years: products like particleboard flooring, vinyl clad sheetrock, cheaply made faucets and fixtures, very low quality tubs and showers, plastic trim and fake wood molding, as well as many other products that simply were not designed for long-term use. He also realized that thousands of dollars were being spent each month in advertising to attract new buyers, and, while it is a fact that advertising attracts new business, it does nothing to add value to the product. It is great for the seller, but adds to the price of the product. Another area of loss that he discovered is in the realm of home production. The other manufacturers build multiple floor plans in a single series. For example: They will build one floor plan for a customer, then retool the assembly line, which takes approximately 400 man hours (or 400 men, 1 hour), to build a different floor plan and then retool again for a different floor plan and so forth in an endless and wasteful cycle. As one can imagine, this adds seriously to the cost of the home, and, once again, this is a cost without gaining any quality or value for the extra expense. To control pricing, the manufacturers are forced to use cheaper products in order to operate in this manner. Also, by operating in this endless and wasteful cycle, the manufacturers try to offer every conceivable change in the layout and structure of the floor plan in order to overcome the customer's objections related to the actual quality (or lack thereof) of the home. Again, this practice, while convenient, adds nothing to the quality or value of the home. Every Solitaire Home is built with ninety to one hundred year construction that matches or exceeds the quality of a site built home. Solitaire has a stellar reputation for exceptional quality of materials and workmanship (nailed siding and shingles, hand-painted interior and exterior)
Solitaire spends very little on advertising. Reliance, instead, is on word-of-mouth for new business. Solitaire builds homes in runs of twenty-five to thirty homes for each model before retooling to build a different floor plan. This saves thousands of dollars, which provides for great quality at lower prices.
