A New Path for America’s Housing Shortage: Why Modular ADUs Matter Now

November 23, 2025

By Brian English, Origin Studio

The U.S. is facing the largest housing shortfall in modern history. Home prices have risen more than 50 percent since the pandemic, rents have climbed alongside them, and first-time homebuyers are approaching age 40. Despite the urgency, the number of new homes built per capita remains lower today than it was decades ago.

The gap between what households need and what cities can supply widens every year. The issue isn’t just how many homes America builds — the issue is how those homes are built, approved, financed, and delivered.

Against this backdrop, one form of housing consistently stands out for its efficiency, feasibility, and public acceptance: Accessory Dwelling Units, especially those built modularly.

1. Housing Needs Are Personal Now — and ADUs Meet Those Needs Directly

The housing shortage shows up most clearly inside households, not policy briefings. Families are making decisions that weren’t common 15 years ago:

• Parents are moving closer to adult children for support.

• Adult children are returning home because rent is unattainable.

• Homeowners are looking for new income streams.

• Cities are trying to house teachers, nurses, and service workers who can’t afford to live locally.

ADUs match these realities in a way large developments can’t. They add supply incrementally, quietly, and flexibly. They fit the scale of neighborhoods. They use existing infrastructure. And because the homeowner benefits directly, ADUs avoid the political resistance that slows most new housing.

The demand drivers are structural and long-term. ADUs are positioned exactly where the need is most acute.

2. Traditional Construction Can’t Deliver the Volume or Speed Required

One of the most overlooked dimensions of the housing crisis is productivity. U.S. construction productivity has declined over the past five decades — a rare pattern in an otherwise modern economy.

Every other industry has modernized:

• Manufacturing

• Logistics

• Healthcare

• Agriculture

• Transportation

Housing has not.

Homes are still built outdoors, piece by piece, in unpredictable conditions, with fragmented oversight and volatile labor availability. This is one of the central reasons for rising costs, longer timelines, and limited scalability.

Modular construction offers a different model:

• Controlled factory environments

• Standardized processes

• Faster throughput

• Lower waste

• Precise quality controls

• Increased safety

• Predictable timelines and costs

• The ability to build year-round

Countries such as Sweden already build the majority of their single-family homes this way. The U.S. has the capacity to do the same — particularly through smaller, repeatable units like ADUs.

3. ADUs Are the Most Scalable, Politically Feasible Source of New Housing

Most housing solutions run into two barriers:

1. Local zoning resistance

2. Approval processes that outlast political cycles

ADUs avoid both. They don’t require rezoning. They generate immediate, tangible benefits for the property owner. And they create new housing in neighborhoods where people already want to live — without the visual or traffic impacts associated with larger projects.

For cities under pressure to produce housing quickly, ADUs offer:

• Small, incremental density

• Lower public cost

• Higher acceptance

• Faster permitting

• Fewer infrastructure demands

• A pathway to meet state-level housing targets

When built modularly, ADUs also become the closest thing housing has to true “mass customization”: standardized structure, flexible interior choices, reliable timelines.

The combination of political viability + modular efficiency is rare. ADUs sit at that intersection.

4. Policy Momentum Is Shifting Toward Production, Not Process

Across the country, policymakers are beginning to realize that building more housing depends on systems that can produce it efficiently — not on small tweaks to existing processes.

Several trends are converging:

• Federal proposals tying benefits to cities that hit housing targets

• State-level streamlining of ADU approvals

• Local encouragement of pre-approved modular plans

• Interest in modular prototypes for public workforce housing

• Efforts to modernize outdated building regulations

• Conversations about federal agencies purchasing modular units at scale

These shifts all point in the same direction:

places that want to increase supply need tools that are fast, predictable, and cost-controlled.

Modular ADUs match that profile more closely than any other form of housing currently in the market.

5. The Future of Housing Depends on Changing the Starting Point

Solving the housing crisis isn’t only a question of production volume. It’s a question of method. The on-site, stick-built model — while essential for many kinds of projects — cannot be the sole engine of national housing growth.

A more resilient system pairs:

• Off-site manufacturing

• Digital modeling and prefabrication

• Standardized modules

• On-site assembly

• Paired-upgrading of local permitting and zoning practices

ADUs are a natural proving ground for this shift. They operate at a scale that allows innovation without the complexity of multi-story development. They benefit from repetition. And they provide immediate relief to families and communities.

When modular techniques are applied to ADUs, the results are tangible: faster delivery, higher quality, and more predictable costs — all in service of creating homes where people actually need them.

The Bottom Line

The national housing shortage isn’t the result of one policy failure or one economic cycle. It’s the cumulative outcome of decades of under-building and an outdated construction model.

Modular ADUs don’t solve every piece of the puzzle. But they solve an unusually large number of them at once: supply, affordability, timeline, political feasibility, and scalability.