Now CityHomes
A street of new apartment buildings with an autonomous shuttle at the curb. Concept rendering.

Now City Homes

Aggregate massive demand for high quality factory built multi-family buildings by driving cost below $200/sq ft with technology and design.

50,000homes a year by year 10, our target
$200a square foot, our target, against $350 today
$6.9Brevenue in year 10, our plan
Concept rendering
3,700,000

homes short in the US. A new Portland apartment building costs $350 a square foot to build.[1][2]

Housing factories that could cut the cost keep closing between orders: Katerra in 2021, Veev in 2023, Factory_OS in 2026.[3][4][5] Developers buy one building at a time, so no factory gets steady work.

Aggregate the demand first. Then build one catalog at factory scale.

DemandBuilders, developers, cities and buyers commit to one catalog
→
Order bookTen years of steady volume
→
Supply networkPartner plants with robots, built on the order book
→
DeliveryFlat-pack parts by rail and, as it matures, autonomous electric truck
→
AssemblyBuildings go up in weeks
An autonomous electric truck and a freight train carrying flat-pack wall panels. Concept rendering.
Flat-pack parts by rail and autonomous electric truck. Concept rendering.

Now City Homes is the industrialized construction layer of the Now City Stack, which runs demand first.[6][7] AI and robots run through every step.

The rules, the builders and the machines changed in the last two years.

ZonedCalifornia allows up to 75 feet near rail stations from July 2026[8]
One stairWashington allows six-story single-stair buildings[9]
Built to orderLarge builders now build to order and move framing into plants[10][11]
RobotsAutomated steel framing cut build time up to 46% in a DOE-funded plant[12]

$899B of homes missing. $167B built a year. Our share: $6.9B.

A stylized map of the United States with lines for corridors and dots for assembly hubs. Concept illustration.
A conceptual supply network, not operating hubs
$899BTAM, one time: the 3,700,000 homes the US is short[1]
$167BSAM: 688,000 apartments and townhomes a year[13][14]
$6.9BSOM: 50,000 homes a year at $200, our target: about 7% of SAM homes

The largest US builder closed 89,690 homes in fiscal 2024.[15] 50,000 is 56% of that. We start on the West Coast, where 79,000 apartments and townhomes are permitted a year.[16] Market research

Factory startups that owned their plants closed. A catalog with pooled buyers worked.

ModelOutcome
Katerra, Veev, Factory_OSOwned their factoriesClosed[3][4][5]
Large homebuildersPanels and trusses for their own housesGrowing[11]
Kombohus, SwedenPublic buyers order from one catalogAbout 10,000 apartments[17]
Now City HomesBuyers pooled across four channels; partner plants50,000 a year, our target

One catalog of buildings, made in plants and assembled in weeks.

A mid-rise block on a corner. Concept rendering.
The Block: homes around one shared stair
Timber row houses with porches along a planted lane. Concept rendering.
Row homes, each with a second small home
A taller timber building on a busy street at dusk. Concept rendering.
A taller building for busy streets, priced separately
A family living room with light from two sides. Concept rendering.
Daylight on two sides
A parent and child cooking in a bright kitchen. Concept rendering.
A kitchen with daylight
A living room opening onto a planted balcony. Concept rendering.
A balcony on the courtyard

Concept renderings.

How we think we get from $350 to $200.

Ten levers, each a share of today's cost, designed to count each saving once. All are our estimates, to prove in the pilot; two lean on published figures. The biggest choices come first: which sites, which building types, and how often we repeat them.

Today[2]
$350
Sites that build easily
−3%
Simple building types, no podiums
−6%
One kit of parts, few layouts
−6%
Simpler building systems
−4%
Manufacturing, with robots[18]published: 10 to 25%
−11%
Construction in house
−6%
Volume buying and logistics
−4%
Weeks on site, not months[18][19]6% site overhead × 35% shorter
−2%
Repeatable approvals
−1%
Demand aggregation: makes the rest repeat
0%
Delivered, about 43% less
$200

Depending on the market and the building, $200 is a cut of 26% to 60%.

MarketHard cost today, a square foot[20]Cut to reach $200
Los Angeles$270 to $44026% to 55%
Seattle$290 to $49532% to 60%
Portland$350 to $45043% to 56%

These ranges cover many building types and count gross floor area. Our $350 is one Portland building, counted by residential area.

Contractor overhead and profit run up to 8% of hard cost, and site overhead up to 6%, under one state agency's caps.[19] Shorter schedules also cut construction interest and bring rent sooner, outside this hard-cost bridge.

Robot arms building wall panels with windows on a factory line. Concept rendering.
Robots build panels in the plant. Concept rendering.
A crane setting a finished wall panel on a rising apartment building. Concept rendering.
Panels set on site in weeks. Concept rendering.

We plan to sell the whole building at $200 a square foot and keep 12%.

A 694 square foot home costs $138K instead of $243K. The buyer saves $104K. We keep $16.6K.

Where 50,000 homes a year come from, our targets

15,000Homebuilder partners
20,000Developers and public land
10,000Buyers and renters, direct
5,000Now City districts
A new community of townhomes around a green. Concept rendering.

Homebuilders: 3 partners × 5,000

One large builder we are targeting doubled deliveries from 6,282 in 2012 to 14,169 in 2024. Half its 2025 deliveries were in the West, and it now builds to order on a 90-day target.[10]

Old industrial halls converted around new homes, seen from above. Concept rendering.

Developers and public land: 200 projects × 100

We plan framework agreements for catalog buildings on transit, surplus, mall and office land, starting with California's.[21][22]

A bright live-work apartment with a balcony. Concept rendering.

Direct: 10,000 homes

People pick a home and a place at nowcity.life. Today it is a sign-up list; a reservation product with deposits comes later, on its own terms.[23]

Courtyard blocks of homes seen from above. Concept rendering.

Now City districts: 5,000

Our own districts buy first. The first plans homes for 2029.[24]

Two co-founders: 30 years running property, and training in architecture and urban design.

Erik Gillberg, CEO

Product and go-to-market. 30 years in property operations, 20 in technology. Roughly equal owner with Ritchie.

Ritchie Ju, COO

Sales and partnerships. Architecture and urban design, Carnegie Mellon and Columbia.

Advisors

Neal Payton, urban design, Torti Gallas. Michael H. Shuman, local capital.

First hires

Supply chain, engineering, robotics, AI, builder partnerships.

$75M to reach $6.9B in revenue and $547M in operating profit.

Cash break-even in year 8. We plan for partners to fund most plant capacity on our order book.

Plan 50,000; low 25,000; high 75,000.
Plan $200. Today $350.
Plan 12%; low 8%; high 15%.
RevenueOperating profit

Use of funds and milestonesWhen
$7.2M: catalog, platform, first commitmentsYear 1 (2027)
200 pilot homes at a measured cost; first builder partnerYear 2 (2028)
The network grows with orders: 7,031 homes in year 5Years 3 to 7
50,000 homes a yearYear 10

Low case: 25,000 homes a year at 8%, peak cash $194M, no break-even in ten years. High case: 75,000 at 15%, peak $47M. Every driver is our assumption.

Risks
  • $200 is unproven. The pilot measures it before the network grows.
  • Robotics savings are early and mostly reported by the companies selling the robots.
  • Letters of intent do not bind. Deposits are the test.[25]
  • Imported steel carries 25 to 50% tariffs.[26] Year 1 prices timber and steel.
Assumptions
  • 694 square feet a home: the Portland prototype, $243,211 at $350.[2] Market dollars use it, so they run low. SOM dollars use $200.
  • Cost a square foot is construction hard cost divided by residential gross area, with parking shown separately. We also track cost per home and per rentable square foot. Today's $350 is a 6-story Portland podium building on the study's own basis, which may include parking area. The podium lever counts structure, not parking. The $200 path is for the Block and row homes.
  • Manufacturing, design and weeks on site may overlap: a factory saving can include some of the others.
  • Weeks on site: 6% is one agency's ceiling for site overhead, and 35% is the middle of Terner's 20 to 50% shorter schedules.
  • Channel shares are our targets: homebuilder partners 30%, developers and public land 40%, buyers and renters, direct 20%, now city districts 10%.
  • Costs: $8M a year fixed, $4M a year platform in years 1 to 3, 4% of revenue, $8K of our equipment per home of added volume, 10% working capital.
Sources
  1. Congressional Research Service, "The U.S. Housing Shortage", IN12628, December 15, 2025, citing Freddie Mac (3.7 million homes, Q3 2024). https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/IN12628.html
  2. BAE Urban Economics for the City of Portland, Inclusionary Housing Calibration Findings, July 2023. https://www.sightline.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Portland-Inclusionary-Housing-Revised-Calibration-Findings-7-7-2023-1.pdf
  3. ProBuilder, 2021, on Katerra's bankruptcy and the sale of its Tracy plant. https://probuilder.com/modular-builder-vbc-verge-25-million-buy-katerra-assets
  4. TechCrunch, "Prefab home builder Veev reportedly shutting down", November 2023. https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/27/prefab-home-builder-veev-reportedly-shutting-down-after-reaching-unicorn-status-last-year
  5. Vallejo Sun, February 2026, and Offsite Innovators, "Farewell to Harbinger", September 2026, on the closure of Factory_OS (renamed Harbinger). https://offsiteinnovators.com/farewell-to-harbinger-a-factory-that-proved-modular-could-build-at-scale/
  6. Now City, Manifesto: the Now City Stack, "Industrialized construction" and "demand first". https://nowcity.life/manifesto
  7. Now City, Approach: "The Now City Stack is four delivery layers we coordinate as one system". https://nowcity.co/approach
  8. California HCD, "SB 79 Transit-Oriented Development", updated August 2026. https://www.hcd.ca.gov/planning-and-research/sb79-tod
  9. Washington RCW 19.27.115 and WSR 25-23-081; Oregon Building Codes Division, 2025 OSSC Appendix Q (single-exit stair). https://www.oregon.gov/bcd/codes-stand/Documents/25ossc-single-exit-stair-appq.pdf
  10. A large US homebuilder's annual reports: 6,282 deliveries in fiscal 2012 and 14,169 in fiscal 2024; 51% of fiscal 2025 deliveries in its West Coast and Southwest regions; predominantly built to order, with a 90-day build target (company-reported, 2026)
  11. Builders moving production off site: PulteGroup acquisition of a wall-panel and truss maker (2020) and robotic wall pilot (2025); Toll Brothers panel and truss plants (fiscal 2025 10-K). https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250220988040/en/PulteGroup-Pilots-Innovative-New-Construction-Process
  12. US Department of Energy, "Transformative Efficiency and Automation in Modular Homes" (GTI Energy with Dvele, Loma Linda, California), updated March 2025. https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/transformative-efficiency-and-automation-modular-homes-teamh
  13. US Census Bureau and HUD, New Residential Construction, December 2025 (2025 annual, preliminary), February 18, 2026. https://www.census.gov/construction/nrc/pdf/newresconst_202512.pdf
  14. NAHB Eye on Housing, "Flat conditions for townhouse construction", March 12, 2026 (173,000 townhouse starts in 2025). https://eyeonhousing.org/2026/03/flat-conditions-for-townhouse-construction/
  15. D.R. Horton, fiscal 2024 results, October 29, 2024 (89,690 homes closed). https://investor.drhorton.com/%7e/media/Files/D/D-R-Horton-IR/press-release/q4-and-fy24-earnings-release.pdf
  16. US Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey, state annual files 2019 to 2025 and January to September 2026. https://www.census.gov/construction/bps/
  17. Sveriges Allmännytta, "Public housing: Sweden's Kombohus"; Unihouse on the 2020 six-year framework. https://sverigesallmannytta.se/in-english/public-housing-swedens-kombohus
  18. Terner Center, testimony to the California Assembly Select Committee on Housing Construction Innovation, January 6, 2026. https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/blog/testimony-to-the-select-committee-on-housing-construction-innovation/
  19. Connecticut Department of Housing and CHFA, Construction Guidelines, September 2020: builder overhead capped at 2%, builder profit at 6% and general conditions (site supervision, temporary power, trailers, fencing, security) at 6% of hard cost. https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/DOH/2020-Sept-Construction-Guidelines----Construction-Costs.pdf
  20. Rider Levett Bucknall, North America Quarterly Cost Report, Q2 2026, indicative construction costs. https://www.rlb.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/06/Q2-2026-QCR_7.7.2026.pdf
  21. Enterprise Community Partners, "Assessing the Potential of Transit Agency-Owned Land for Housing Development in California", March 2026. https://enterprisecommunity.org/sites/default/files/2026-03/Enterprise-Transit-Agency-Land-Use-Report.pdf
  22. Mall redevelopment plans: Stonestown (CBS News SF, July 2024), The Rise at Vallco (SV@Home, February 2026), Westminster (CoStar), Lloyd Center (Axios Portland, February 2026), Northgate (The Urbanist, 2024), Tanforan (CEQAnet SCH 2023120409). https://cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/sf-stonestown-galleria-3500-new-homes-final-approval-board-of-supervisors
  23. Now City Neighborhoods, nowcity.life: a sign-up list and home preferences that shape the home mix (no leases or reservations offered today). https://nowcity.life/homes
  24. Now City, nowcity.co: "first homes are scheduled for 2029". https://nowcity.co
  25. Construction Enquirer, "Offsite specialist Ilke Homes falls into administration", June 2023. https://www.constructionenquirer.com/2023/06/30/offsite-specialist-ilke-homes-falls-into-administration/
  26. Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum (tracker through August 2026); Arent Fox Schiff, April 2026. https://www.strtrade.com/trade-news-resources/tariff-actions-resources/section-232-tariffs-on-steel-aluminum