Washington, D.C., August 5, 2019 – The Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) reports that according to official statistics compiled on behalf of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), year-over-year HUD Code manufactured home production declined again in June 2019. Just-released statistics indicate that HUD Code manufacturers produced 7,761 homes in June 2019, down 6% from the 8,258 homes produced in June 2018. Cumulative industry production for 2019 now totals 46,682 homes, a decline of 8.2% from the 50,897 HUD Code homes produced over the same period in 2018.
June 2019 thus marks the tenth consecutive month of HUD Code industry production declines despite continuing economic growth and related strong demand for affordable home ownership and housing opportunities. And while short-term market variations are inevitable and to be expected, an extended and continuous drop in the HUD Code market, such as is occurring now, demands solutions and, most importantly, action.
Given the fact that manufactured housing producers today are building their best homes ever and providing a degree of consumer protection that is unparalleled since the enactment of the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000, MHARR’s ongoing evaluation of this market decline continues to point toward two major factors that the industry must face and resolve. These are, extreme and worsening zoning and placement restrictions on HUD Code manufactured homes and, even more importantly, the domination of the manufactured housing consumer lending market by two or three corporate conglomerates, together with the ongoing failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to expand that market through the implementation of the Duty to Serve Underserved Markets (DTS) for manufactured housing personal property (chattel) loans. MHARR, as reported previously, has – and will continue to – take specific action to directly address both of these matters. The conglomerates and their representatives, however, continue to virtually ignore a decline which they apparently see as primarily harming their smaller competitors – a posture that is and should be unacceptable to both the industry and consumers as well.
A further analysis of the official industry statistics shows that the top ten shipment states from the beginning of the industry production rebound in August 2011 through June 2019 — with cumulative, monthly, current year (2019) and prior year (2018) shipments per category as indicated — are:
The latest information for June 2019 results in no changes to the cumulative shipments list.
The Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform is a Washington, D.C.-based national trade association representing the views and interests of independent producers of federally-regulated manufactured housing.
