Here's an enigma that has always perplexed me.  We know that in the world of mass production, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of vehicles on the road that are exact replicas of the new cars and trucks we drive off the dealer's lots.  Yet we cherish our new wheels as extensions of our own individual personalities.  But when it comes to new homes, it's all different.  Although it has come a long ways in terms of status, the manufactured home -- which enjoys the same scale economies that make new cars more affordable -- is looked on with disdain as "cookie cutter."

It’s an attitude that has served the status quo in the home building industry well.  The overwhelming preference of consumers for custom, built-on-site, new homes has largely protected a labor-intensive industry from the relentless pressures brought on by technological change and global competition that have caused such upheaval elsewhere in the economy.

That's not to say that home construction is an easy, or even an unchanging business, of course.  Standards and tastes, not to mention interest rates and availability of skilled labor, have been known to pull the rug out from many a once-successful builder.  And technology continues to bring on a continuous wave of new materials to make houses safer, more comfortable, and even more affordable.

Yet in an economy that has some manufacturers wondering if they will ever be able to raise their prices again, the price of new homes continues to rise.  And while some of us wonder if we can effectively compete against countries like China for markets we once dominated for manufactured goods, millions of men and women are deployed in subdivisions across America , putting up walls and pouring foundations in new homes much as they did decades ago.

The fact that most homes are built on site has preserved a situation where labor costs dominate the production process, and where the market power in the transaction between builder and buyer lies with the former.

That can be especially true in smaller markets, where lower volumes support a smaller number of builders.  Especially in the age of the Internet, the person in a small town can get just as good of a deal on exactly the kind of car he or she wants as their friends in the big city.  But when it comes to their new home, they may not only pay a higher price, but may also have more difficulty finding a builder who will, say, put in a basement, or pay sufficient care to make the home energy-efficient.

The situation could someday change.  Off shore producers have grown increasingly adept at paying attention to what U.S.customers say they want -- often better than our own companies here do -- and then bringing it to the market.  It happened in the auto industry twenty-five years ago, when Japanese companies like Honda and Toyotabrought out reliable cars with engines that met the pollution standards the U.S.companies once said were unattainable, capturing market share they've never relinquished.  It's happening in the furniture industry today, to the chagrin of suffering domestic companies, whose failure to shorten the frustratingly long wait for delivery of custom furniture has helped give Asian manufacturers an opportunity to make inroads.

Could it happen in the building industry?  It’s hard to see how we could ever get to the point where we pick up and take home our new houses the way we do with cars and washing machines.  But the longer we're content to continue to assemble boards and shingles at millions of different home sites in the traditional way, the more we will all pay, in terms of cost and frustration, with the results of that process.  That leaves the door open to anyone who can listen and find a way to bring modern manufacturing techniques to the home site.