3 minute readUnmet needs. They’re a doorway to opportunity in any business, and everybody knows housing is full of them.
What that doesn’t mean is that people who step up and try to meet those unmet needs get any sort of free pass – time, money, land, political will, skilled labor, etc.
The dire nature of an unmet need – a housing access, attainability, and affordability crisis – still doesn’t change the fact that those who strive to meet it do not have a break coming to them because their efforts are fueled by the noblest of purposes.
This, of course, is news to no one who’s been working in the field longer than, say, maybe the last 10 years. The past decade may likely have given entrants to the business a distorted experience of how residential real estate and construction work.
Evidence of unmet need in housing’s domain is always, everywhere, and all at once.
A Reality today means that without a free pass, those striving for opportunity to create and sustain value to meet that unmet need require capability that meshes precious resources – money, land, materials, time, and people – with a hardware and software solution that eliminates waste and inefficiency across each one of those valued, finite resources. As Mosaic launches into pre-construction on two of its latest new build-to-rent (BTR) communities by NexMetro Communities – Avilla Palomino, in Glendale, AZ, and Avilla Berry Creek Highlands, in Georgetown, Texas, in the Austin Market – the projects exemplifies a model that brings that capability to bear when a free pass is not part of the deal. The projects together add up to more than 400 homes, including one-, two-, and three-bedroom options in duplexes and single-family detached homes with private backyards and front patios, from 690 to 1,265 square feet. With just these two projects together, there’s no two ways around getting almost 425 separate build-cycles, each involving about 450 SKUs that account for upwards of 20,000 separate pieces, with about 700 lines of detail in each unit’s bill of materials done flawlessly by 25 different trades on schedule and on budget. Capability, yes. Free pass, no. Capability in the form of an end-to-end build-cycle-as-a-service can offset at least some of the difference between having a free pass and not. Here’s some high-level take-aways from Mosaic marketing manager Emily Erickson that speak to the capability Mosaic brings to the real-world requirement that meeting an unmet need has still got to pencil profitably. Or else, it’s going to be someone else’s job to fill it. Salman Ahmad, co-founder and CEO at Mosaic, likes to talk of a capability solution where software, epic partnership and trusted relationship, process, and core competence allow humans to work at their highest level of value creation. Meanwhile, tech and data tools co-pilot, unify, subtract friction, simplify, and accelerate that human value creation so that the people, the process, the systems, and the results add up to more, better, and faster. That is, meeting the unmet need. It’s incredibly encouraging to the work we’re doing at Mosaic to see like-minded folks from software and hardware taking advantage of this tech revolution,” Ahmad says. Capability. It’s how people striving to fill one of housing’s myriad “unmet needs” do it without the benefit of a free pass.
