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Comment by blcArmadillo | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for sharing. These look pretty nice but I just can't get over the price of a lot of these prefab and tiny homes.

From Cover's FAQ page (https://www.cover.build/faq):

  How much do Cover structures cost?
  Most of our structures cost between $300-400 per square foot, all inclusive.

Seems expensive to me. Isn't part of the promise of prefab lower costs?

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Huh that is really expensive. According to Fixr, average cost per square foot is $117 [0], so Cover is ~3x as expensive. The benefits of going prefab would have to be pretty extreme to be willing to do that

[0]: https://www.fixr.com/costs/build-single-family-house

While $117/sq.ft. is the average cost nationwide, the average in Los Angeles City – where Cover operates – is a lot higher. In addition to that, Cover offers backyard homes, which means they're smaller than a full size home. They're typically between 300-900sq.ft. A lot of the costs of a home are the mechanical systems, kitchens, bathrooms – which you still need in a small space. So the smaller you go, the higher the cost/sq.ft. When you look at the numbers – you can build a 900sq.ft. Cover backyard home in Los Angeles for $300K. It's hard to even find a good apartment at that price in LA. Full disclosure - I'm the cofounder & CEO of Cover.

Alexis, have you guys worked directly with the city to fast track your ADUs from a permitting standpoint? We’re now converting a garage in LA after a brutal time with historic review (mostly) and planning/dbs (less so).

Also to confirm what Alexis is saying about LA... We’re in the middle of our project and though we’re doing it on the cheap it’s mid 200’s per foot. Can easily see how it could be double that.

Harmmonica, Because we build in a factory, we do almost all the inspections and building safety checks with the State, which is a custom process we've developed with the state specific to our building system. This means that our process is faster and more certain than building traditionally. If you're interested in learning more, email us at hello@cover.build - our team would be happy to see how we can help!

Cover is in the early stages (think Tesla Roadster stage). Goal is to drive down costs significantly as they achieve economies of scale.

Is that why you invested?

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