You could be forgiven for asking the obvious: "What the heck is a house doing in the parking lot at Scotiabank Place?"

The contemporary construction of exposed wooden beams and glass looks lonely, sitting in the spring sun under the giant posters of Ottawa Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson and crew that hang over the front doors of the team's official home.

The players are long gone for summer, but for four months of the season, thousands of fans walked past the home, glancing in the windows.

"It's all about marketing and raising the profile of a new, very green and decidedly modern player in the world of prefab homes," says a slightly wistful Dany Bonneville, co-president of Bonneville Homes, a Quebec-based firm that has built more than 35,000 homes since 1977.

As the savvy marketing whiz for his family-owned company, Bonneville was hoping the Sens would go further in the Stanley Cup playoffs, bringing crowds — and potential buyers — past the two-bedroom NaturA model in parking lot 6.

The house arrived late last year on a series of flatbed trucks from the company's factory in Beloeil, just outside Montreal. Within days, crews had ripped off the heavy plastic that protected the modules for the road trip and then cranes moved the pieces into place. The crews "buttoned" up — or attached — the modules, which were already wired, plumbed and had cabinets hanging on the kitchen walls and hardwood on the floor. Furniture arrived the next day.

Instant house.

In this particular case, it's a house with a contemporary pedigree and energy smarts that drop heating and cooling costs. The house easily exceeds Ontario's tough new building code for energy consumption, thanks to precise construction in a factory setting.

Yet there is still the challenge to change the perception of modular homes.

Gone are the days of cheap, boring designs. Today, companies are using smart factory-built technologies to speed up the construction process, while hiring leading architects to deliver open, multi-use spaces devoid of clutter that create a strong connection to the outdoors thanks to big windows and sliding glass doors.

Bonneville is a leading member of this ultrachic modular club, a membership that includes an innovative developer who is days away from selling a $1.6-million modern home on the side of a ravine in the heart of Toronto and two Calgary brothers who recently won national honours for a modest green cabin that's big on design and small on price, starting at $154,000.

Best of all, the Toronto developer, Gary Lands, who owns Nexterra Green Homes, and the Calgary brothers, Kurt and Kris Goodjohn, owners of Karoleena Homes, are developing distribution systems to ship their modular homes across Canada, including to Ottawa.

And there are other familiar names in the modular business, including Ottawa's Guildcrest Homes and Sea Hawk Homes.

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Building modular homes is not new. Sears Roebuck shipped components for more than 100,000 homes across the United States between 1908 and 1940.

Bonneville is Eastern Canada's biggest modular builder, celebrating 50 years of building mobiles in one form or another. In 1977, Paul Emile Bonneville bought the Beloeil factory and started building affordable, modular homes in a controlled setting where the weather was not a factor. It's a dynasty that has spanned three generations and a huge portfolio of home styles.

PAGEBREAKIt's newest series, the Natur, has provided star performers for half a dozen years at home shows in Ontario and Quebec, plus in a certain parking lot at Scotiabank Place.

Besides trekking to home shows, Dany Bonneville runs nine traditional model sites in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, including a courtyard of permanent homes outside Arnprior and Chelsea and a joint project with race car driver and former Montreal Canadiens star Patrice Brisebois that opened Easter weekend at Mont-Tremblant.

Called Domaine Mont Bellevue, crews were finishing off a swanky $500,000 Natur model at the Mont-Tremblant site on Good Friday when Kash Pashootan walked through the doors and was smitten.

Pashootan visited the Beloeil factory and signed a deal for the partially finished home on Easter Sunday.

"It caught us off guard because we were going to use the house as a model for six months," says Bonneville, who is now busy designing another model home for Domaine Mont Bellevue, which — when finished — will have 140 super-green modular homes on 1.5-acre lots.

"It was everything I wanted," says the high-flying financial adviser at the Ottawa offices of Raymond James and regular financial adviser on television and in newspapers. The confirmed modernist has already designed and built a contemporary stone-and-glass home close to the Ottawa River in Gatineau.

He had been searching for a modern, environmentally friendly recreational property at Tremblant, but couldn't find anything. He was thinking of buying land and building, but then happened upon Domaine Mont Bellevue.

"I am a big fan of Dwell magazine and modern publications. This was a really good option. It is modern, green and already built, yet you still have the ability to use your creativity with the finishes."

The main level of his two-bedroom Tremblant house will feature about 1,500 square feet of glass, exposed wooden beams on 10-foot ceilings, concrete floors and built-in furniture.

He plans to create a rooftop garden and is now finishing the lower, walkout level with large glass walls, more bedrooms and a strong connection to nature.

"It will be all wood, stone and glass. It will be woodsy and natural. And it will be ready by June 1, just in time for summer," says Pashootan.

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The Bonneville homes are perfect for buyers driven by immediate gratification and builders who plan on construction timetables of three months and not the 12 to 18 months it takes to build a conventional home on a site.

And they're just one of a group of inspired factory-built homes popping up on ravine lots in downtown Toronto, urban streets in Calgary and providing shelter on Alberta farms.

PAGEBREAKThese new prefab designs are sleek, ultra-green performers, a Canadian take on contemporary, factory-built homes popularized by American architect Ray Kappe, who established the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-ARC) in 1972, mentoring generations of contemporary architects to design multi-levelled homes that reach out through glass walls to touch the landscape.

It was California developer Steve Glen who hired Kappe to design a line of sophisticated, green contemporary homes for his modular company, Living Homes. Toronto developer Gary Lands noticed the media buzz, met up with Glen and Kappe five years ago and invested in the company. He wanted to bring the California designs to Canada.

Lands set up Nexterra Green Homes, bought four lots on a Toronto ravine and started the complex negotiations to get city approval for the country's first modular home built to the tough standards of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) platinum certification.

There is a geo-thermal heating system, ultrasmart wiring behind the walls, a sizzling European kitchen by Scavolini and modern furniture. The house opened to rave reviews in late April and Lands is now days away from selling. A similar home in California would cost about $4 million, he says.

The cost of buying a modular home is similar to a stick or site-built home, but the advantage comes down to quality control (because it's built in a factory) and in the speed of construction, says Lands, who is looking for other sites to build more modular homes.

"It is a disciplined way of building because the price is locked in near the start," says Lands. "This is a new concept and it makes so much sense for an urban site that is 25 or 30 feet across. You get a crane and set it down."

He adds that "the time has come for modular housing," saying factory-built homes can sidestep the nagging issue of fewer trades and an aging workforce in the housing industry. "There is no reason more homes cannot be built in a factory setting. It makes sense."

Calgary's Kris and Kurt Goodjohn are creating their own green, contemporary buzz, winning the Best Innovation award in April from the Canadian Home Builders' Association for their Karoleena Cabin. The 700-square-foot, glass-and-wood cabin was a hit at home shows in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver and is now on a permanent foundation on a ranch near Invermere, B.C.

"The rancher flew to the Edmonton show to see the cabin and bought it for $225,000," says Jamie Reeney, sales and marketing manager for Karoleena Homes.

The Goodjohn brothers are young, emerging stars in the Calgary housing marketing, opening a 30,000-square-foot factory four years ago and building the Gracie, a contemporary four-plex apartment on a tight lot in an inner neighbourhood, in 2009.

There have been more inner-city homes and a range of recreational cabins. There are housing projects in northern Alberta, an appearance on Dragon's Den and requests from across the country, including Sudbury and Ottawa, to ship their modern homes east. There is now a network of dealers for most of Canada, including Ontario, says Reeney.

PAGEBREAKThe Goodjohns were inspired by the modular advantage after watching European countries and Japan adopt the building concept.

Western Canada has embraced the contemporary designs, but Ontario is a bit slower, says Reeney, adding that the factory and Karoleena's 24 employees are working flat out to keep up with demand. It takes five weeks to manufacture a home in the factory.

"It makes so much sense because you build quickly and you don't have to worry about weather," says Laura Felstiner, a marketing adviser who is raising awareness of the Karoleena brand in Ontario and overseeing local projects.

Kash Pashootan is well aware of the modular advantage, planting a garden and planning summer gatherings on the deck of his Tremblant getaway, with not a bit of drywall dust in sight.

Vancouver’s once-overheated housing market has cooled sharply, with the average price falling nearly 10 per cent in April from a year ago to $735,315, according to figures released Tuesday by the Canadian Real Estate Association. That was the largest drop since the recession and it marked the fourth decline in the past five months.

In a market once famous for being overheated, Mr. Arora said he hasn’t seen a bidding war in months. “It’s totally a buyers’ market. Buyers are determining the price,” he said. “And sellers are surprisingly accepting it. They are taking it.”

One reason for the decline is fewer buyers from Asia, something that had been driving parts of the Vancouver market in recent years, according to agents. “The number of buyers from China is definitely down this year,” said Andrew Hasman, a real estate agent who specializes in high-end homes. “We’re seeing far fewer buyers from that part of the world and that’s the reason our sales are down.”

Mr. Hasman said money flowing out of China has slowed considerably and Canadian banks have also tightened their mortgage lending rules, especially on larger loans commonly associated with high-priced real estate. Jean Zhang, who works for Sutton Group in Vancouver, agreed and said she is also seeing fewer immigrant buyers.

Over all, home sales increased slightly last month across Canada and the average price jumped 0.9 per cent on a year-over-year basis to $375,810, according to CREA figures. Prices were up in 80 per cent of all local markets. Toronto remained one of the hottest markets, with sales up 2.5 per cent and the average price climbing 8.4 per cent to $517,556 from a year ago.

“While growth in Canadian housing activity has lost some steam over the last year, the level of Canadian home prices and sales remain high,” said Diana Petramala, an economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank. She added that low interest rates continue to push demand and estimated that Canadian housing is 10 to 15 per cent overvalued, particularly in Toronto and Vancouver.

While Toronto has garnered much attention for its price appreciation and flurry of activity, it's not the only real estate market that's bustling.

In Regina, year-to-date prices are 9.4 per cent higher than the same period a year ago. Sales and average prices set a record last month, driven by strong population growth, including migration, and the lowest jobless rate in the country. The average home price in Regina is now $312,873, according to CREA.

“The picture that emerges from the April existing homes statistics continue to support our view that housing market activity – at least on the resales side – is on a path of moderation over all in Canada but that regional divergences remain,” said Robert Hogue, a senior economist at Royal Bank of Canada.

Not everyone is convinced there’s a housing bubble. Economic fundamentals are driving activity and prices, and many markets are still undersupplied, said Peter Norman, chief economist at Altus Group.

He points to an improving labour market, low interest rates, population growth and pent-up demand from the recession as driving activity. “I wouldn't say it's out of control but it certainly indicates strengthening demand in a relatively supply-constrained market,” he said.

Even in Toronto, where talk of a bubble is most concentrated, rising prices simply reflect population growth of about 100,000 people a year in a city where “severe land constraints” are limiting the ability to build single homes, he said.

PAUL WALDIE AND  TAVIA GRANT

A total of 157,804 homes have been sold across Canada this year, an increase of 6.4 per cent over the first four months of 2011.

As has been the case for several months, activity in two of Canada's largest housing markets, Toronto and Vancouver, is disproportionately skewing the national averages.

"It bears repeating that the national average price was skewed higher last spring by record level, high-end home sales in Vancouver’s priciest neighbourhoods, and that a replay of this phenomenon was not expected this year," CREA's chief economist Gregory Klump said.

'It’s not that surprising to see continued growth in Canadian home sales.'—TD Bank economist Diana Petramala

"Sales data confirm that high-end activity in Vancouver is well off the peak levels reached at this time last year, which is exerting a gravitational pull on the national average price."

Prices in the Greater Vancouver area came in 9.8 per cent below the level of a year ago, a fourth contraction in home prices in five months and the largest drop the region has seen since the recession, TD Bank economist Diana Petramala noted.

At the same time, activity in Toronto is stronger this spring than it was last spring.

"Higher-priced sales activity there is on the rise and buoying average prices," Klump said. "As the most active housing market in Canada, Toronto is the biggest factor supporting national average price."

If data from Vancouver and Toronto are stripped out of the equation, the national average price is up by 3.1 per cent.

"With mortgage rates still at rock bottom through the early part of this year and job creation heating up through March and April, it’s not that surprising to see continued growth in Canadian home sales," Petramala said.

"Absent of an external negative economic shock, Canadian housing demand should remain supported by a continued low interest rate environment through 2012."

TD Bank is expecting home prices to appreciate by about two per cent in 2012, a drop of seven per cent in each of the past two years.

A house on the 3000 block of West 24th Anenue, first listed at near $4.5-million six months ago, sold on April 15 for $3.35-million.

Fresh statistics from the Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board show the number of sales on the west side is down by nearly 40 per cent for the first four months of the year. Only a third of the nearly 400 homes listed in April have sold – one of the lowest rates in the region.

Realtors say the slowdown appears to have resulted from a combination of tighter lending practices by local banks, which now want proof of income to service large mortgages, more restrictions on how much capital can be taken out of China, and fewer immigrants.

“Banks are now requiring borrowers to disclose incomes and assets before mortgages are approved, as of the last six weeks,” said west-side realtor Marty Pospischil, who specializes in selling single-family homes owned by long-term residents. Last year, he says 90 per cent of his 100 house sales were to “offshore buyers” – people not living here yet, who flew in to buy. This year, it’s less than a tenth of that. “We’re now seeing a 50-per-cent collapse rate in deals, when it’s usually more like 5 per cent,” he said.

He and other realtors are saying the west-side slowdown is a good thing because the short-lived boom, which prompted local owners to start listing at increasingly inflated prices, was unrealistic and unhealthy.

“I always thought that market was not sustainable. Every local person was juiced out of the market. The average household income on the west side doesn’t support those prices,” said Andrew Hasman, who specializes in single-family homes on the west side.

Prominent condo marketer Bob Rennie said the high-end house prices in west-side Vancouver were so out of line with the rest of the region and country that it was skewing people’s perceptions of real-estate increases, not just in Metro Vancouver, but in all of Canada.

“In 2010, reports were saying real estate went up 8.9 per cent in Canada. But if you took out Vancouver, it only went up 4.3 per cent,” he said.

The spike in west-side house prices the last two years has provoked intense media coverage – with one Bloomberg News story in late May headlined, Chinese Spreading Wealth Make Vancouver Homes Pricier Than NYC – and debate among residents, politicians and commentators both here and abroad.

Much of it was attributed to “mainland Chinese” buyers, although no one had hard overall numbers to support that. Nor could anyone say whether that group might be 100 or 1,000 people, or whether they were truly offshore investors or immigrants.

But that didn’t stop arguments about the need to limit foreign ownership or to tax speculation to prevent the nebulous phenomenon.

A number of realtors said early signs started appearing six months ago that the market was slowing down, but the difference really appeared in early March. There is usually a surge of buying in Vancouver around Chinese New Year, as visitors from China come to see family or friends in the city and often make decisions to buy.

This year, the buying spree after Chinese New Year was much smaller, and house sales have slowed in March and April instead of the typical pattern of accelerating into spring.

Jean Zhang, with Sutton Group, said her clients, who tend to be immigrants looking to settle here permanently, are waiting longer to make offers.

“A few months ago, people were thinking, ‘I have to get in right away,’ ” she said. “Now, they see there are lots of choices. And they are giving lowball bids. They want to have good bargains in this market.”

FRANCES BULA

VANCOUVER— From Monday's Globe and Mail