"Hold on. Where do you get these rooms, and roofs, and uh… siding? You have a factory?"
"Good a term as any. Actually a fat airbubble, portable, with one giant loading airlock. I have three semis with fold down sides that hold the epoxy casting machinery. I drive to the area I'm developing, set up the semis, blow up my balloon, and go to work."
George was lost. He tried again.
"But you must have huge costs. All the molds, and the plumbing and the wiring…"
"We got that figured out early. Houses have basically only three kinds of rooms. Big ones, middle sized ones, and little ones with plumbing. We have two sizes of each. The living room can be a dining room, or a family room, or a master bedroom, or a double garage. The pullman kitchen can be a bathroom, a laundry room, or a storage room. We mix and match to suit your budget and your taste." He gave a toothy grin.
"But the trade costs? I had to, call a plumber once, when my sister visited me with a baby and diapers, and he charged me a smalls fortune."
"That's the beauty of it. Each room is cast with all the electrical! gizmos, heating and plumbing in stalled."
"How do you accomplish that?"
"We lay the pipes and electrical cables on prongs inside the molds. Then we pour in the epoxy and let it set two hours before unmolding."
"What's the reason for the bubble?" George knew it was a stupid question.
"Besides the manufacturing process, you mean? Each room has to cure inside the warm bubble for about twenty four hours. While it's curing, we use the time to plug in the heating cooling strips and test the circuitry. Then we cart it off to be bolted together."
This time it was George who grinned.
"And how many houses can each one of these turn out a day?"
"About ten."
"I'm impressed." George swallowed. "But I'd like to ask a few more questions…"
"Go ahead."
"How did you get around building regulations? You're using methods and materials that aren't even mentioned in the codes."
"My legal beagle found a loophole in the Colorado state statutes. If you can get eighty five percent of the property owners in an area to form a planning district, they can supersede county regulations. On my first project, two years ago, I bought up a bunch of contiguous lower ethno property in Mid Metro District County, put the title in fifty names, mostly friends and relatives, and set up my own planning district.
"No one even noticed. I made about three percent on the deal, selling the houses back to the original inhabitants, but the glue stuck, and everybody was happy. That was the lever that got me into the suburbs."
"Weren't people outside the Core a little dubious about plastic houses?"
Tod Houseman snorted. "Right now the cheapest house my competition can build costs forty five thousand dollars for a two bedroom, eight hundred square foot crackerbox. Hell, I can build a three bedroom, sixteen hundred square footer with a two car garage for less than twenty thousand dollars."
"Twice the house for half the money."
"It works well enough."
"Financing?" prompted George.
Houseman nodded. "A problem at first. I started my own bank on the second project."
George shook his head slowly.
"Schools, utilities?" George knew there would be a ready answer, but had to ask anyway.
"Public Service has lines all over the state. I built my own sewage plants. Then I tooled up a special mold on classrooms and built all the schools at once. I leased them to the county at a ten percent re turn and they thought they were taking me."
George was feeling thirstier. He swallowed.
"Just how many of these air bubble factories do you have?"
"Four."
George multiplied. Forty houses a day. Fifteen thousand a year, and just beginning.
"I see. I think that about does it… I'll be in touch."
"Appreciate your interest, but I could have told you all this on viewer."
"There's no way to tour your areas by viewer," said George. Or get out of the office, he thought.
Houseman grinned again and offered his hand. "Take care, George. We appreciate a healthy interest in our projects."
George shook his hand firmly and wondered exactly what he meant by a "healthy interest."
He stopped for a Coke at the first Vendaserve he spotted, and then, wielding the unwieldy map he'd gotten from the receptionist, George struggled out to Point Ultimate.
As George cruised the area, he began to appreciate Houseman's taste. The exteriors looked like real timber and brick, the shake roofs like cedar. The cluster arrangement left wide areas of greenbelt. The density was offset by evergreens and decking.
Although there was the usual litter of tricycles, mufflebikes, and rockeprams, all the front decks had flowerpots, instead of milk boxes, and every garage door was closed. George pulled over by the exit to study the map. He got lost three times on his way to the Denver Federal Center.
He finally stopped to ask directions.
Trading on an access code he should have forgotten, and the Council's name, he got what fie needed through the Denver Data Link.
He headed for the elevator and the FHA office.
"Yes?" She was dressed in bright red and was suitably dumpy.
"I'm Dr. George Graylin from Washington, with the Council of Economic Advisers. Who could fill me in on the local low cost housing market?"
"That would be Mr. Gouger. I'll see if he's available."
Herman Gouger was slight and blond, with a wispy mustache and a lisp.
"What did you want to know, Dr. Graylin?"
George did not say, "Call me George."
"I'd like a general run out on low cost housing, Federal sponsored and commercial."
"Well, as I am sure you know, Dr. Graylin, there is a substantial lack of new and approved techniques in the low cost housing market. Because of this dearth of innovation, we have been forced to concentrate the majority of our resources on the multifamily unit.
"Unfortunately, personal and tenant satisfaction are not maximized in such a situation. This has effected higher than desired insurance rates on the mortgage protection for the constructing agencies and a more rapid trend toward obsolescence."
George smiled. "Translated loosely, people don't like government subsidized apartments and are tearing them up."
"Permanence in construction has been a definite and persistent problem," admitted Gouger. "What about new techniques?" "With the notable exception of Houseman Enterprises, progress has been less than exceptional in that particular line of endeavor."
How can he keep a straight face, wondered George.
"Who runs this Houseman Enterprises?"
"A black chap who" utilizes a less labor intensive method of prefabricating modular construction for employment in lower income housing. He has set up several companies to promote his products and his developments."
George remained disinterestedly intent.
"Mr. Houseman remains an enigma to the Federal Housing Ad ministration in that he never consulted with us on the availability of Federal funding."
"Why?" queried George.
"I presume that not involving the Government in his sundry enterprises enabled him to maximize profits, minimize indecision, and circumvent difficulties inherent in low income housing regulations. Technically, he has no connection with subsidized housing, although…"
"Although?" pursued George. "Although the product of his efforts is less expensive and more desirable than any of the Government projects."
"He builds a better, bigger, cheaper house?"
"Substantially, and the process allows one to select a wide variety `of extremely variable color schemes, even though the choice of actual modules is somewhat limited."