Despite all of the negative publicity pre-fabricated homes get, you can get a pretty decently constructed home placed on an acceptable plot of land for ~150k all-in (subject to location, of course), as you benefit from the economies of scale Ford model. There's also the added bonus of having major structural components all prepped in a controlled environment, so the quality of work has the potential to be pretty high up there (a CNC can weld joints or plane the warp out of wood with a lot more accuracy then some dead-tired tradesman hoisting up some framing after 7 hours in the rain). I don't own one, but the 10-year-after build quality of the homes I've seen have been effectively on par with McMansions if not better.

RE: Sears - A friend of mine bought a fixer-upper circa 2008 while getting his Pharm.D. in San Diego. He shopped around for the best deal and ultimately settled with king-of-MDF IKEA to redo his whole kitchen. 10 grand later, he had a functional, aesthetically consistent (albeit somewhat bland) remodel complete without having to go through every single supplier/distributor to select 'which faucet will go well with this lighting enclosure'.

Sears re-branded everything they bought. They didn't manufacture any of their tools (though they did stand behind them with a fantastic warranty). I'm sure it's easy for us to say "things were so great back in the day!". Things were a bit better constructed domestically, but they were a lot more expensive too. I've talked to a lot of old-timers because I'm a bit of a history nerd - when they went down to Sears and bought a lathe (which was usually a re-branded Logan) this was a big purchase for them. Tools were expensive both to manufacture and buy, so the extra 10% went into each unit to ensure that lathe was going to turn your stock true.

Now we can go to Home Depot and buy a $50 drill (that Ryobi is just like your proverbial McMansion - built for a specific grade of consumer) because consumers don't really want/have the need to buy an industrial quality Hilti or Fein. (I happily buy beat up pre-TTI Milwaukee NiCad drills off eBay for ~60 which I consider to be prosumer/almost-but-not-quite-contractor-grade equipment, throw new carbon brushes in there, convert them to Li-ion with Sanyo or Panasonic greens and have a tool I know is going to last ~10 years (got 3 years out of this beater so far, we'll have to wait another 7 to see)).

\/\/ RE: On par with McMansions - that was my whole point. Those pre-fabs get a bad rap by the McMansion owners but are constructed just as well if not better. My comment was one on society -- the supply for McMansions would not exist if there wasn't a demand for it. The rampant number of McMansions constructed as a result of consumer demand (and easy credit, but that's a whole different topic) is a reflection of the 'disposable unit' mentality of the consumer on the whole. Much like people will buy a pretty crappy Ryobi $50 because they're not focused on longevity of their unit -- though I'll be the first one to admit that analogy is somewhat flawed because not everyone needs industrial quality tooling.

I'm just saying that Harbor Freight and Walmart stay in business for a reason. Furniture, art, and hell, rugs[1] used to be passed down as heirlooms because guess what, that old-growth oak table was made by a craftsman who charged the equivalent tens of thousands of dollars for it. It's no surprise that your $200 Ikea dining set complete with 4 chairs isn't as stable after you tore it down to move to your new apartment. The holding-torque of a fastener decreases upon re-assembly in material like MDF and particle board? Who knew..

[1] Remember in The Godfather where the guy was like "do you want a rug?" "of course! but who can afford a rug!" Before the era of cheap imports, shipping containers, being able to injection mold plastic widgets for pennies, and mass-production, there was a premium on production per unit, so items had a longer shelf-life that often spanned generations.