Quality Homes
files for liquidation
Quality Homes of the Pacific, a Hawaii limited liability company, filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy last week after incurring sales setbacks and the loss of its plant lease.
The company's manufactured housing plant was established about two years ago to provide affordable, prefabricated homes to native Hawaiians and others. The plant also was supposed to provide affordable options for homesteaders who could not afford to build homes on their leased residential lots.
However, several setbacks prevented the company from achieving its goal and company creditors, who were owed around $1 million, were not willing to invest more capital, said Steven Guttman, a bankruptcy attorney representing the company. Following bankruptcy proceedings, more than $100,000 will be paid to the company's creditors.
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs was a majority stakeholder and had invested $500,000 in the plant. Other major investors included Hawaiian Community Development Board; MH Consultants; Laborers' International Union of North America Local 368; other suppliers and company founders including Kali Watson.
Watson, a former Department of Hawaiian Home Lands chairman, helped establish the company in a Kalaeloa aviation hangar. When the company was organized, Watson said owners had expected to produce 500 homes per year with a work force of at least 100. However, the company was unable to attain this goal and only manufactured and sold about 25 homes before making the decision to close in October, Guttman said.
The company found lenders were hesitant to issue consumer mortgages for the prefabricated homes and was never really able to recover from losing a contract for a 45-home Hawaiian Homelands project in Kapolei, he said.