GroundFORCE Building SystemsPermanent 2 Go
A finished home,
delivered to your lot.
Foundation included. GroundFORCE builds permanent homes whole, under one roof, and sets them in place: behind a house or duplex in the city, on a rebuild lot, or across a hillside too costly to grade. Less time on site, and less money in the ground before the home is lived in.
If you build infill
Add a rentable home behind a house or duplex you already own. It arrives finished, so there are no months of construction beside your tenants.
See it for infill buildersIf you develop land
Approved land that costs too much to grade? Homes that follow the slope need far less earthwork, and they can go in a few at a time.
See it for land developersIf you lend on housing
Permanent homes on concrete foundations, financed and delivered a few at a time, each advance matched by a finished home.
See it for lendersBuilt whole, delivered whole, set in place. Nothing poured on site, nothing to wait on.
Why now
The market moved. The plans didn't.
Most housing plans, from hillside tracts to city lots, were drawn for a market that no longer exists. Seven things have changed in ten years, and every developer, builder and lender now works with all of them.
- Money costs more
- Thirty-year mortgage rates were under 4% in 2016. They are above 7% today, so the same payment buys far less house.
- Builders buy differently
- Large builders now control most of their lots without owning them. The land owner carries the grading, roads and utilities.
- Site work costs more
- Grading, fees, materials and labor have pushed the cost of a finished lot past what many builders will pay.
- Fire changed insurance
- Coverage for homes near open land is harder to find and more expensive.
- Power costs more
- Household electricity rates in Southern California have risen sharply, which raises the monthly cost of every home.
- Small homes are legal
- California now allows accessory homes on most residential lots, including lots with duplexes, with fast approval for pre-approved plans and no impact fees under 750 square feet.
- Cities are behind
- Many California cities are short of their state housing targets, most of all for lower-cost homes.
Each one adds cost or delay to building the usual way. A home that arrives finished, on its own foundation, avoids several of them.
For infill builders and owners
One more home behind the ones you own.
A single module is a complete small home of about 384 square feet, with a bath, a kitchen, and living and sleeping space. It goes behind an existing house or duplex, beside a new house on a rebuild lot, or anywhere a lot has room for one more front door.
Arrives finished
The home is built indoors. On the lot, the work is the bearing points and the utility connections, not months of construction beside occupied homes.
Rents sooner
It is built while permits and site work move ahead, which shortens the gap between deciding to add a home and collecting rent on it.
Built for rebuild lots
Non-combustible materials inside and out, for neighborhoods where fire and insurance are the hard questions.
- Where it goes
- Behind a house or duplex, beside a new house on a rebuild lot, or on a small lot of its own.
- Sizes
- One module is a studio-sized home. Two joined make a home with separate bedrooms.
- Approval
- California allows accessory homes by right on most residential lots, and pre-approved plans can be decided in 30 days.
- Access
- The home is set from its carrier, without a crane. We check the route first: a street, driveway or alley wide enough to bring it in.
Preliminary plan of one module. Final designs, finishes and configurations are in development and subject to site conditions and local approval.
For land developers
Good land, stalled.
Across the region, land approved for homes sits empty. The plans depend on reshaping the land itself: hillsides cut and filled, earth moved by the ton, roads and utilities built long before the first home.
Costs arrive early and returns arrive late. Soils can be expansive or unstable, slopes are steep, fire risk is real, and every month of waiting adds to the bill. The land isn't the problem. The approach is.
Conventional building asks the land to become flat. We ask less of it. Homes follow the natural contours, so slopes stay slopes, drainage keeps its course, and more of the landscape stays as it was.
Level ground
Where the site allows, homes rest on level, compacted ground. Nothing is excavated and nothing is hauled away.
Difficult ground
Helical piers are screwed into the earth rather than dug, reaching stable soil without footings or spoil.
Every site, studied
Each project starts with the soils. The foundation is engineered to match what the ground can support.
- Earthwork
- Each home sits on its own foundation, so the hillside doesn't have to become terraces first.
- Phasing
- Homes arrive finished, so a phase can be a handful of homes instead of a hundred graded lots.
- Open land
- Ground that isn't graded can stay as open space, natural drainage or fire buffer.
- Options
- A home designed to move leaves the land's future open if plans or markets change.
Bring a site plan, topography and a soils report. We'll show what fits and what it asks of the land.
How it works
The foundation comes with the home.
We build the entire home, its concrete foundation included, as a single structure, then deliver it whole and set it in place. The result is a permanent home that needs only a light touch on the land, and one that can move if the land is ever needed for something else.
Foundation included
Cast first, built on, delivered as one piece
Light on the land
No mass grading, no excavation, no spoil
Built to resist fire
Non-combustible materials inside and out
Permanent, and movable
Built to last decades, able to relocate
01
Cast
The concrete foundation is cast first, under controlled conditions, strong enough to carry the home and travel with it.
02
Build
Walls, roof, systems and finishes go on indoors, protected from weather and inspected at every stage.
03
Deliver
The finished home travels intact on a carrier designed to protect it, arriving the way it left the floor.
04
Set
It is set on prepared ground or piers, utilities connect, and it is ready to live in.
Room to grow
Simple parts. Lasting homes. Room to grow.
One well-designed module, repeated. It stands alone as a small home, joins a second for a family home, and a third to form a home around a courtyard. Homes grow as needs change, without starting over.
Start with oneA small home on its own.
Add a secondRoom for a family.
Add a thirdA home around a courtyard.
- Simple
- One shell, built to repeat. Fewer parts, fewer surprises.
- Durable
- Materials that don't burn and details that don't need constant care.
- Adaptable
- Homes that grow, change, or move as needs and plans change.
- Fitting
- Forms and finishes that suit their surroundings rather than fight them.
Concept images. Final designs, finishes and configurations are in development and subject to site conditions and local approval.
For lenders
What a lender is looking at.
A lender asks three things: what the collateral is, how long the money is exposed, and how the loan is repaid. Here is how this approach answers them, and what we will bring before asking for a decision.
- Collateral
- A permanent home on a concrete foundation, designed to California's factory-built housing standards, which apply the same building code as a site-built home.
- Exposure
- Less site work before there is a home to lend against, and a build that runs from factory order to delivery instead of through a full construction season.
- Phasing
- Homes can be financed and delivered a few at a time, so each advance is matched by finished homes.
- Repayment
- Sale to a homebuyer, sale or refinance of a rental community, or both on the same site.
- If plans change
- A home designed to move can be relocated. Few kinds of housing collateral can.
What we will bring to underwriting
- A fixed delivered price for each home
- State approval for the model
- An engineer's foundation design for the site
- An insurance quote for non-combustible construction
- A schedule from order to occupancy
Designs are in development and the first demonstration homes come next. We would rather show a lender a finished home than a projection.
Our experience
Generations of moving what was never meant to move.
For three generations, the Neatherlin family moved large, fragile structures that were never designed to travel, and delivered them intact.
The family's favorite proof is a fully stocked convenience store that made the trip without spilling a drop of milk.
GroundFORCE turns that experience around. If moving a building is the hard part, build one that's designed to move, and give it a real foundation from the start.
Bring us a lot, a site or a question.
We are choosing the first sites now. Tell us what you have and what you need to see.
A question
What you would need to see to finance a home, a phase or a production line.
Email about financing