{"id":3615,"date":"2026-08-19T23:23:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T03:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/?p=3615"},"modified":"2026-08-19T23:23:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T03:23:19","slug":"the-sears-home-reimagined-a-plan-to-deliver-500000-affordable-move-in-ready-starter-homes-to-working-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/?p=3615","title":{"rendered":"The Sears Home Reimagined: A Plan to Deliver 500,000 Affordable, Move-In Ready Starter Homes to Working Families"},"content":{"rendered":"
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More than a century ago, American families could flip through a Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog, pick out a house, and have nearly everything they needed to build it delivered to them at an affordable price. Tens of thousands of Sears homes are still standing today \u2013 a testament to an era when a starter home could be both attainable and built to last. Today, as more Americans are priced out of the housing market, Groundwork Collaborative released<\/a> a new proposal to revive the Sears home model for the 21st century.<\/p>\n

The Modern Sears Home: Resurrecting the Affordable American Starter Home for a New Generation, authored by Groundwork\u2019s Noah Ball-Burack, Emily DiVito, and Alex Jacquez, outlines a federal initiative to deliver, over eight years, 500,000 high-quality factory-built homes directly to American families across the country for under $215,000. <\/p>\n

Today, the national median home price hovers above<\/a> $400,000, and the starter home \u2013 what used to be the first rung on the ladder to economic security \u2013 is all but extinct<\/a>. In some communities, starter homes can cost<\/a> $1 million or more, putting homeownership further out of reach for many families. <\/p>\n

The Modern Sears Home Program would deploy the federal government\u2019s purchasing power, land access, and ability to finance and site homes at scale to bring the cost of new, high-quality homes within reach. Furthermore, by guaranteeing demand for hundreds of thousands of factory-built homes, the program would also give private manufacturing firms the certainty they need to expand production, lower production costs, and increase housing supply. By bringing affordable homes directly to communities where the private market has fallen short, the Modern Sears Home Program could expand homeownership in rural areas and open the door for families who have historically been shut out of the housing market. <\/p>\n

The idea has vast public support. New polling shows<\/a> that three in four voters support the Modern Sears Home Program and the proposal enjoys broad support across party lines, including 80% of Democrats, 72% of Independents, and 74% of Republicans. Additionally, 69% of voters, including majorities across party lines, say the program would make homeownership feel more attainable. <\/p>\n

By some estimates, Sears sold more than 70,000 catalog kit homes during the 20th century, many of which are still standing today in states like Ohio, Illinois, New York, Michigan and Pennsylvania. <\/p>\n

Groundwork\u2019s Senior Advisor for Economic Policy, Emily DiVito<\/a>, shared the following: <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cFor too many families, homeownership has gone from a milestone to a mirage. Decades of under-building have left us with an affordable housing shortage that\u2019s pricing people out of their communities. Policymakers must pursue creative, tangible, and lasting solutions that bring homeownership back into reach. The Modern Sears Home program does just that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lindsay Owens<\/a>, President and CEO of Groundwork, reacted:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in a Sears Home, and I know the comfort and stability these houses offer the families who live in them. That\u2019s something far too many families can\u2019t count on anymore, as Wall Street and corporate landlords squeeze every last penny out of homeowners and renters alike. Reviving the promise of a Sears home is a chance to make quality and affordable housing the rule, rather than the exception.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the paper, the authors write:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cSears offered these homes for profit. The federal government \u2013 with greater resources, lower borrowing costs, and unmatched power to scale \u2013 can do it better…[with] the kind of public ambition that once sent 30,000-piece home kits rattling on rail cars across the country to families who otherwise thought homeownership a distant aspiration…The Modern Sears Home program is that ambition made actionable.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than a century ago, American families could flip through a Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog, pick out a house, and have nearly everything they needed to build it delivered to them at an affordable price. Tens of thousands of Sears homes are still standing today \u2013 a testament to an era when a starter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[742],"class_list":["post-3615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ciencia-y-tecnologia","tag-vr-news-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}