New owners have big plans for ‘factory-built’ housing company

A Wingham home manufacturer hopes to double production to meet Ontario housing demands. CTV London’s Scott Miller explains.

Doug Kuyvenhoven has watched over 7000 homes being built inside the Royal Homes factory in Wingham, a business his father started 54 years ago.

But, Kuyvenhoven and his partners recently decided it was time to find new owners.

“We had some tough years, and we had some good years. But we were getting to that age where it was time to transition the business. We’re all still healthy, and we wanted to see this transition happen while we were healthy, so that we could help the new owners, carry on,” says Kuyvenhoven.

Sid Kerrigan, is one of those new owners, who is ready to build on Royal Homes factory built housing model. Right now, Royal Homes builds about 100, largely custom homes, in their Wingham factory, each year, but Kerrigan envisions building 500 to 1000 smaller, modular homes each year, closer to 1000 to 1500 square feet each, inside Royal’s expansive Wingham facility.

“That’s not really available in the marketplace right now. So, we believe we can create an ability to bring that type of more repeatable housing, at scale, to market. And you can imagine as you do, more at scale, more repeatable, more cost efficient, we can pass those savings on to the customer,” says Kerrigan.

He believes the ability to build homes in weeks, not months, will set Royal apart, as Ontario requires as many as 2 million new homes within the next 5 to 10 years. In the United States, factory built housing makes up 5-10% of the new housing market, says Kerrigan. In Ontario, it’s less than 1% percent.

“I really believe if there’s any market in the world that should be focusing more on prefab factory built housing, it’s Ontario,” says Kerrigan.

To meet Kerrigan’s 500 to 1000 homes per year goal, there’s going to have be jobs, and a lot of them, added to Royal Homes. There’s currently 100 Royal Homes employees, Kerrigan expects to double that in short order, and says building a second, and possibly third factory, isn’t out of the question.

“That’ll be growth in terms of employment hiring. That’d be growth in terms of technology. Anything we can do to create, high quality homes, at speed, and at scale. And, yeah, there’s a very strong possibility of that happening, going forward,” says Kerrigan.

That’s music to Doug Kuyvenhoven’s ears. He really wanted to see his father’s business, not only stay in Wingham, but grow in Wingham.

“In all my years here, 50 plus years at Royal Homes, we haven’t had this kind of talk in the media about modular housing. So, I think the time has really come. There’s a huge housing need, so there’s a real opportunity for the new owners to really take this place, take Royal Homes, and really run with it,” says Kuyvenhoven.