MH Digest

This isn’t a trailer in a trailer park. Instead, it’s a quality built home that is almost identical to traditional “site-built” housing, except it is built in a factory and transported to the lot where it will be placed on a foundation.
The average cost in July of last year of a new manufactured home in Georgia was $82,000 for a single-wide and only $158,700 for a brand new double-wide three-bedroom two-bath home. That is from a recent report of the Census Bureau’s Manufactured Housing Survey (MHS).

For all its complexities, America’s nationwide housing crisis boils down to a problem of supply and demand: The country needs a lot more homes than it has, yet even ambitious reforms won’t provide developers with enough incentive to bridge the gap. Addressing this dilemma could well be the defining public-policy challenge of the next few decades. One promising option is manufactured housing, which can be produced much more quickly and at much lower cost than traditional homes constructed stick by stick onsite.

Housing affordability nationwide is the worst it has ever been on record due to spiking home prices and interest rates, Bloomberg reports.

The bustling Middleburg factory shows just how efficient construction can be. Walk from one end of the cavernous factory to the other and you’ll see how a 64-foot by 13-foot floor—roughly the size of an oversized truck load—becomes a piece of a house, as workers add walls, windows, electrical wires, insulation, and siding as the module moves from one station to another on a rail track. At peak times, this happens quickly

The common-sense zoning reform found sponsors across the political spectrum, championed by progressive Daniel Volland and co-sponsored by conservative real estate broker Kevin Cross and by Forrest Dunbar, who just won election to the Alaska state Senate as a Democrat. The two other members of the conservative voting bloc on the Assembly followed suit, voting “aye” alongside the liberal majority.

As part of its Housing Supply Action Plan, the Biden administration earlier this year announced programs aimed at making the financing and development of manufactured homes easier. A recent Morning Consult survey finds that about half of Americans see alternative housing such as mobile homes as a good investment, with younger generations more likely to be interested in these types of homes.

Manufactured homes come in many forms. Entry-level models are broadly affordable for low and moderate-income Americans. Larger and higher-end models can meet the aesthetic and functional expectations in many communities across the country.

Inflation, rising borrowing costs and inventory shortages are pushing down sales of single-family homes, condominiums and land, but a more affordable part of the real estate market is still growing: mobile homes.

The price of a home ranks as the top concern for Gen-Z home buyers. While the median home price for site-built homes across the United States in July 2022 was $402,500, the average sales price of a new off-site built home without land, which varies by region, is around $130,000. Overall, Gen-Zers see the many possibilities for off-site built homes with customizable options at attainable price-points. Modern, stylish and energy-efficient home design options also contributed to the positive overall impression.

The goal is to maintain diversity in the housing supply. “It’s a small text change, but it would have big implications for a few areas,” Hurley said. “It could be a veteran, it could be another family that’s just trying to find, with rents escalating, just one more option.”