Japanese housing manufacturers claim that they have been producing higher-performance houses for about the same price as conventional ones. They give their factory-built or industrialized housing the higher levels of amenities that make their residential construction a living environment, whereby room temperature, air-cleanliness and soundproofing in the house are well controlled. Today, manufacturers compete to produce homes equipped with photovoltaic (PV) electric power generating systems. These manufacturers use value-added production as well as mass custom design approaches to produce ‘mass custom homes’ equipped with PV systems that correspond with the wants and needs of both individuals and society. Their design and production approaches reflect the manufacturers’ ‘cost-performance’ marketing strategy, which can be considered the essence of their business success in producing marketable PV solar homes. Thus, this paper identifies the ‘cost-performance’ marketing strategy and suggests some opportunity for future research.