The Modular Housing Playbook That Beats the Cycle

Two backgrounds, one shared obsession: cycles and downside protection

Greg started on Wall Street at firms like Credit Suisse First Boston and DLJ, living inside income statements and cash flow models before he decided he wanted to be closer to the actual assets. He went to Harvard Business School, fell in love with the entrepreneurial spirit of real estate, and spent the next few decades battle tested through the GFC, the retail apocalypse, Covid, and the regional banking crisis. 

DJ’s path was less traditional, and that is what makes it fun. He was working on a coffee project in Saigon, Vietnam, came back, asked himself “now what?”, and decided to go all in on real estate. He raised private capital and started building what would have been an early single family REIT concept.

Their shared belief is simple: most investors do not need more hype. They need a plan that protects the downside and compounds over time.

The thesis: when everyone buys multifamily, do the opposite

DJ said something that should sound familiar if you have been underwriting deals the last few years.

They have not touched multifamily in the last five to six years. Not because they do not like housing, but because the pricing stopped making sense. “Buy at a 5 cap and sell at a 4 cap” is not a strategy. It is wishful thinking.

Instead, they went hunting for a structure where the margin of safety is baked in.

That is where their modular workforce housing strategy comes in.

The play: build to a 10 cap, not a 5 cap

Evergreen is developing over 2,000 modular homes across six gated communities in high growth areas of the Houston MSA. Two sites are already operating and leasing, and the remaining sites are in various stages of development. 

Here is the part that made my ears perk up.

They are not doing typical modular single family homes. They are building roughly 400 square foot single box homes. One unit is one box, produced in a controlled factory environment, then delivered and set in place. Speed matters because you can keep building regardless of weather, and you get a more reliable timeline.

Greg said they are building an “institutional product,” not a flimsy trailer park concept. These are clean, gated, well lit communities, built to withstand major winds, with strong warranties, and set up so tenants can move in with basically just their clothes.

And the economics are the kicker.

They can build to a 10 cap while many traditional deals have been priced and traded at much tighter yields. They project investor returns in the 22 to 25% range with roughly 1.7 to 2.0x equity over four years, driven by the basis advantage and execution speed.

The real wedge: control the factory, control the outcome

Most sponsors rely on a chain of third parties and hope timelines behave.

Evergreen controls a 190,000 square foot factory with 115 employees, producing about five homes per day today, and capable of scaling significantly with additional shifts. That control lets them manage timing, quality, and cost. Greg said controlling this piece saved investors over $20M compared to a traditional outsource model across the broader buildout.

This is the underrated lesson: verticalization is not a buzzword. It is a risk reduction strategy.

The misunderstood demand: “modular” is not “trailer park”

When most people hear modular housing, they picture grimy trailer parks, junk in the yard, and unsafe living conditions.

Evergreen is flipping that perception by building communities that look and operate like a modern, clean, branded housing product. The tenant profile is workforce housing: people making roughly $15 to $30 an hour who often cannot qualify for more traditional options nearby.

They are placing communities within a 10 to 15 minute drive of major employment nodes. That is the real value proposition.

You are not just lowering rent.

You are giving people back one to two and a half hours per day that would have been spent commuting.

They also made the leasing model unusually flexible. Tenants can pay weekly, bi monthly, and use modern payment methods. Greg described it as a “horizontal hotel” in terms of flexibility.

Why this works

1. They solved the margin of safety first

   Building to a 10 cap gives you room to breathe. If cap rates move, or financing tightens, the deal is not instantly fragile.

2. They made the product fit the tenant reality

   Workforce tenants value proximity, safety, and predictability. These communities are close to jobs, clean, gated, and priced below many alternatives.

3. They are ruthless about the downside

   Both Greg and DJ kept coming back to stress testing. Underwrite for “what if exit cap is 6,” not “what if it gets better.” Protect the downside and let the upside take care of itself.

4. They built an ecosystem, not just a deal
   Evergreen is pairing investments with education and community through something they built called the Family Office Real Estate Institute. The point is to help investors make better decisions, not just chase yield.

The risks (and how they address them)

Debt market risk: They talked openly about how hard development debt has been, and how they had to get creative with capital stacks, including preferred style capital between equity and mezz, and even exploring an all cash path as a backstop. As markets improved, they were able to push toward more traditional senior debt structures at 60 to 65% leverage.

Execution risk: Modular is only “easy” if your team is elite. Their operating partner has built tens of thousands of modular homes and put significant capital into the pilot community, which Evergreen could observe leasing through Covid.

Perception risk: “Trailer park stigma” is real. Their answer is product quality and community standards that feel like the opposite of what people imagine when they hear modular housing.

What You Can Learn (and Steal)

Control beats forecasting
You cannot predict rates perfectly. But you can control build cost, build quality, and build speed. Verticalization is one of the cleanest ways to reduce execution risk.

Stress test like your future LPs will
If your deal only works when everything goes right, it does not work. Underwrite the ugly scenarios and make sure you can still survive.

Real estate is still about people
Greg said it plainly: you can make an Excel model say anything. The difference is the team, communication, and systems that show up when things go wrong.

Listen to the full episode

🎙 Groundbreakers with Greg Guido and DJ Van Keuren of Evergreen Property Partners

In it, we cover:

• Why they avoided multifamily while everyone else piled in

• How they are building 2,000+ modular workforce homes across Houston

• Why speed is the real modular advantage, not just cost

• The factory control strategy and how it changes returns and risk

• The “do good and make money” framework for investors and operators

• Why they believe the next 12 to 18 months could be a generational buying opportunity