Cities around the world are facing an affordable housing shortage – and the Covid-19 pandemic has only worsened the crisis. A 2021 report revealed 88 out of 92 major cities are considered unaffordable. The least affordable of them is Hong Kong, where the median house price is more than 20 times the annual median household income.
But there is a potential solution that is garnering attention: factory-built homes. These houses – also known as modular homes – are constructed in controlled conditions and can take just a week or two to build.
“We can build 27 Top Hat homes for every one brick and mortar traditionally built house,’ said Jordan Rosenhaus, who is the CEO of modular housing factory, TopHat. “So, over the next week, we’ll finish approximately 10 houses, that’s just our production program for now. That can ramp up”.
So can this innovation solve the housing crisis? Watch the video above to learn more.









The reality, however, is that modular, prefabricated housing can exceed the limitations put upon it by popular conceptions of trailer parks and postwar government housing. Not only are they certainly faster – an important factor in cost, as the cost of land and construction have as much as


systems, we are able to speed up the process, and bring down the overall cost of home construction,” says Anotnio.