Maine needs more housing, fast. Two companies are turning to the assembly line. [Video]

As more people look to lay down roots in Maine and fill critical jobs, Lincoln County is in a position where it needs to build nearly 2,000 homes in the next five years.

Washington County needs to increase its annual housing production by over 1,200%. Cumberland County is short more than 16,000 units.

Maine’s housing crisis has reached a boiling point, exacerbated by decades of underproduction.

Across the state, regulators, developers and housing advocates are scrambling to build more housing as quickly as possible to meet current and future needs.

One solution that has emerged is multifamily modular housing — an assembly-line, factory style of construction that can turn a hole in the ground into a turn-key apartment building in a matter of months, rather than the year or more required for traditional stick-built housing.

The style of building has been around for centuries but has struggled to overcome a pervasive stigma of poor quality and comparison to mobile …