Startup uses tech to make Asheville housing affordable

ASHEVILLE – As the Laytons looked for a home to call their own in Asheville, discouragement surrounded them.

"Unless it was a trailer, there was barely anything available for us," Kate Layton said, as she and her husband ran through the list of heartbreaks the family of three endured to find a house in the Asheville area for less than $135,000.

First, there was the series of perfect houses that were perfectly overpriced for the working-class family.

"We couldn't find anything else," they both said.

Then, there was the two-bedroom, one-bath house in Woodfin that could have become their home if not for the additional $30,000 of work needed to bring the residence up to code.

"We'd see lots of things that we liked, but then it would be a diamond in the rough and a fixer-upper," Matt Layton said. "But money isn't all of the problem. It's also the time available to do it, and to do those kinds of projects. With a 2-year-old and with me working, it's just not suitable for us."

With two dogs and two cats, even the rental market was no place for the Laytons.

"Most of them won't even take pets, or their prices are just out of this world," Kate Layton said.

As the couple continued their house search, building a home of their own seemed an impossible and expensive endeavor — a fantasy at best. But come April, the family will have a two-bedroom, two-bath home of their own in the Oakley area because of Fine and Small Homes, a startup company headquartered in Asheville that is using advanced robotic technology to build new, affordable and cost-efficient homes.

"There really is a difference between a house and a home. It's amazing that we can say we are going to be able to make our own home and make memories in it for years to come," Kate Layton said as she spoke of her family's 1,200-square-foot new house-to-be. "We're really excited to have a house that will actually feel like home in a place that feels like home."

The idea: 'Our company is about people'

Like the Laytons, too many people are being priced out of the housing market both in Asheville and nationwide, according to Joe Kimmel, the co-founder of Fine and Small Homes.

"The rental market so far exceeds a mortgage on a home, construction companies can't afford to build homes inexpensively enough and many of the homes that have been purchased are being flipped or sold as vacation rentals," Kimmel said. "It keeps it impossible for working people to get a home."

Citing data presented in the Asheville Housing Needs Assessment, Jeff Staudinger, the city's assistant director of community and economic development, said 67 percent of the market can afford to buy homes priced only at $200,000 or below. However, just 27 percent of the housing inventory in Asheville is less than $200,000.

This idea that working-class people are facing these major hurdles in the existing housing market inspired Kimmel to make Fine and Small Homes a reality.

"Our company is about people," the 74-year-old engineer said.

Before co-founding Fine and Small Homes with Nicholas Godfrey, Kimmel was working at the company he founded in Louisiana in 1981 and would later move to Asheville. After more than 30 years of working at Kimmel & Associates, his construction industry executive search company, Kimmel decided to retire and pursue his next passion.

"I went to my greatest interest, which was robotics and research and development," Kimmel said.

Kimmel connected with Godfrey, a who owns a robotics company called Charleston Fab Lab in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.

Modeled after the digital fabrication lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Lowcountry makerspace provides 3-D printing, 3-D modeling, laser cutting as well as product design and digital fabrication, which is a manufacturing process where a machine is controlled by a computer.

From there, Godfrey and Kimmel started using the machines at the Charleston Fab Lab to build emergency and disaster shelters. However, the duo decided to pivot their focus away from shelters and toward what Kimmel saw as a disaster in the housing market.

"Working families, younger people, cashiers — they all need a home," Kimmel said. "It totally changes their life because, oftentimes, they've given up on the idea of being able to own a home."

That's what happened to the Laytons. Though Kate and Matt Layton had owned a home together previously in Austin, Texas, the pair said they did not think they would be able to afford to build a new home — especially not in Asheville.

Even with the money they made selling their home in Austin, it wasn't enough.

"We've been living with my parents in the meantime," Kate Layton said. "I never really thought we would build a house. There was no way we could afford anything that existed in Asheville."

Last July, Godfrey and Kimmel founded Fine and Small Homes as a way to build smaller homes — between 1,000-2,100 square feet — in a way that makes the price of the house affordable to people both when they sign the contract and after the move-in date.

"It's a very green house. You can have solar panels and dual AC/DC wiring through the whole house," Kimmel said. "On five-and-a-half killowats, you can entirely power the entire house."

After people purchase the land parcel where they want to build, the houses themselves tend to cost between $86,000-$92,000. The more customized the home, the more expensive. Whitney Herline, project manager of Fine and Small Homes, said the company tries to keep the costs below $149,000.

How does it work?

Even though it is stretched across two states, the way Fine and Small Homes works is straightforward.

After designing a model of the home on a computer, the design information is sent to a computer numerical controlled (CNC) cutting machine at the Charleston Fab Lab.

Mark Welch, the director of business development at Fine and Small Homes, said it's kind of like printing a house piece-by-piece. By using these robotics, Welch said they are reducing the amount of skilled labor needed during the construction process.

The pre-built homes are then shipped and construction begins. Instead of a concrete foundation, homes are built on helical piers. And instead of taking three or six months to complete construction, it often just takes one month.

"We can go from foundation, so helical piers, and get those done in half a day; and get an entire house set up and dried in in less than two or three days. We can have it all totally finished in less than 30 days," Welch said, noting that different components of the home fit together like Legos.

With a professional engineering stamp on every piece used in these homes, Kimmel said they can withstand hurricane-strength winds. The homes have a 10-year warranty, the materials have 40- to 50-year warranties and the helical foundation has a 50-year warranty.

Though the startup company is using advanced technology, it is still considered a typical stick-built home, which is the common practice of having a wooden house constructed largely on-site. But instead of large construction crews, these homes take a crew of only three or four.

"It's a way to combine advanced technology, as far as robotic technology, with construction in a way that had never been done before," said Herline, the project manager of Fine and Small Homes. "You end up with these houses that can go up in 30 days or less that are energy efficient."

Though pieces of these homes are cut using advanced robotics, Kimmel said these are not cookie-cutter homes. Every component can be customized, from the roof to the design of the home itself.

For example, the Laytons designed their house to include a mudroom toward the back of the home for when the dogs and daughter Clementine come inside after playing in the backyard.

"You can finish it however you want to. The base model is rectangular with the porch on the front, or there's the shot-gun style house and you put a side porch on it," Herline said.

Welch said the startup is now at the point where they are ready to start building these homes.

Fine and Small Homes has already purchased 52 lots in West Asheville, Shiloh, and Hendersonville to build on. The company is also looking to build in areas of North Charleston, as well.

All that's needed now are the homes and the homeowners, said Welch.

"We're ready to start building," he said.

Bringing it all home

The Laytons will be the first family in the Asheville area to have a house built by Fine and Small Homes. Kate Layton said they hope to have their house built by the time her husband turns 30 in May. If they don't hit that mark, she said they are realistically expecting to have everything done by the end of April.

The next challenge, Welch said, will be helping others like them.

"Just today I went to get my haircut, and I went to Sport Clips. The lady that was cutting my hair has looked at 40 homes and had eight contracts fall through. ... I'm really excited to help folks like that to find a home that they can call their own, and help them build some equity," Welch said. "You start looking at the housing problem, but then you have to decide do you want to finish the puzzle or leave it unfinished? I like to finish them."

Matt Layton said more of this problem-solving is needed to address housing needs in the Asheville community because he said his situation is not unique.

"I've got lots of guys my age that I work with that live all the way out in Madison County or Candler because they have families but can't afford to live anywhere else," said Matt Layton, who works as a city carrier assistant for the U.S. Postal Service. "I'm a working-class guy, and Kate stays at home. We really only have one income, and we are still able to afford something that we want to live in and that's quality. That's what's needed around here."