Trade Free Time for a Free Home

Even free costs you. San Francisco-based fabMODERN is offering a deal called freeHOUSE where it is giving away a kit for users to build their own green home, free. The catch is participants must contract to provide a certain number of hours of service each day, and accept certain marketing obligations from a sponsor pool, to live in their sponsored home.

Once the home is completed, new prefab owners must participate in showcase events for the first two weeks. Homeowners must then complete “various tasks when they can undertake and complete on their own for a committed number of hours per day,” said a company statement. Homeowners get a free, computer to connect to the Internet in their home office to have the “flexibility to work from home” and “respond to sponsor requests, e-mailed to them daily.” Companies participating in the sponsor pool include government agencies, major corporations such as appliance companies, consumer electronics companies, media companies, finishes suppliers and community organizations. No mention of how long homeowners are required to participate, or if the responsibility rolls over to new owners if the house is sold, but will the company be around as long as a 30+ year bank loan?