40 Years, 100,000 Homes

The Bend Bulletin business section featured a front page article about Fuqua Homes and how they are celebrating their fortieth anniversary.

Below is the content of the article.  It can also be seen on the Bend Bulletin website, click here.

Stairs just to the right of the front door lead to the home’s second and third bedrooms, wood beams stretch across the living room and sunlight from a multi-pane window fills the space.

In another home, granite countertops and hardwood floors decorate the kitchen.

“You wouldn't even dream that it was built in a factory,” said Fuqua Homes owner Phil Daniels, who spent Thursday preparing with staff for the Bend-based company’s 40th anniversary party tonight. Tours of some of the company’s home models will be offered from 6 to 8.

As the housing market struggles, Fuqua Homes has maintained its business by expanding into new markets, said Daniels, who bought the company in 1986.

The company, which has plants in Bend and Boonville, Mo., and a design center in Eugene, ships homes to 22 states, including Alaska. The company recently received approval to ship homes to Canada, too.

“Business has been slow, but it’s actually picking up for us,” Daniels said. “There are still some growing markets outside this area. Oregon makes up about 20 percent of our sales.”

As consumers become more careful with their money, Daniels said they work harder to find homes they can be proud of without constraining themselves in a difficult market.

“The affordability and value of our product” set us apart, Daniels said. “We continue to design new products that our customers are demanding.”

The base price on some Fuqua Homes runs as low as $88,000, with higher-end homes at nearly $135,000. Additional options and amenities can add about $40,000 to a home’s price tag.

The Chalet model, Fuqua’s most popular, outsells other models by about 20-to-1 and runs $88,000, said design consultant Cindy Blanchard.

Fuqua Homes employs more than 300 people in Bend and has built more than 21,000 homes at the Murray Road factory. Companywide, Fuqua has built more than 100,000 homes.

In addition to affordability, manufactured homes offer other advantages over site-built homes, Blanchard said.

“We’re so much faster than a site-built home, yet we’re still very customizable,” Blanchard said. “We’re months and months faster.”

The homes are 85 percent to 90 percent completed when they are wheeled to the site by truck and placed on top of a foundation. Two-story homes are delivered in four parts, she added.

Not ‘grandma’s trailer’

Blanchard said the company works hard to provide quality, aesthetically pleasing homes, moving beyond the mobile home image.

“They definitely aren’t grandma’s trailer anymore,” she said.

Don Carlson, the editor and publisher of Automated Builder magazine, which recently featured a Fuqua home on its cover, said the Bend builder is about average in the industry in terms of sales volume, “but very high quality in the kind of units that they turn out. Fuqua builds a pretty classy house.”

As it sprints past its 40th birthday, Fuqua Homes has no plans to slow down.

“If Canada comes on board, we’ll kick it into super high gear,” Daniels said.

Bob Albrecht can be reached at 541-617-7862 or at balbrecht@bendbulletin.com.