Montainer
Operating Status: Inactive
Montainer built and delivered homes made from recycled shipping containers in Missoula, Montana, before ceasing operations.
Founded
2013Montainer built and delivered homes made from recycled shipping containers in Missoula, Montana, before ceasing operations.
Montainer handled permitting and building-code compliance on the customer's behalf, and its chief executive told the New York Times in 2015 that its homes met building code requirements in nearly every United States jurisdiction for single-family homes and accessory dwellings. Customers whose permits could not be secured had their deposits refunded.
The homes used recycled Corten steel containers, a marine-grade corrosion-resistant material, configured into roughly ten module layouts of about 160 to 320 square feet that could be combined for larger homes. Production was centered at a facility in Bonner, Montana, with delivery offered anywhere in the United States, per the Missoulian.
Source: nytimes.com
Financing constrained the business: traditional bank loans were generally unavailable for homes of this size and market age, so customers paid in cash or used home equity loans, the New York Times reported in 2015, citing a Bankrate analyst who noted such properties were difficult to securitize. The company's chief executive said this limited the addressable market.
Montainer reported talks with credit unions in Montana and Washington State to arrange customer financing, but no source records that financing reaching customers before operations ended. Traffic measurement later showed near-zero monthly visits to the company's domain, per its Crunchbase profile.
Source:
When Montainer operated, the tiny-house movement was expanding: the New York Times reported in 2015 that the Tiny House Conference had more than doubled year over year and cited Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies data showing nearly half of United States renters spent more than thirty percent of income on housing, conditions that favored lower-cost housing alternatives.
The company nonetheless ceased operations, and no later source records a relaunch or successor under the Montainer brand. Its domain was repurposed by an unrelated operator and its traffic fell to near zero, so the record is held inactive rather than projecting renewed activity.
Source: crunchbase.com