Additional Manufactured Housing Could Benefit Millions of U.S. Homebuyers
Pew Research shows this option, more attainable for many
(Source: the following are excerpts from part #1 and part #2 of a Pew Research comprehensive analysis of the benefits of manufactured housing).
At a time when the housing shortage has caused home prices to soar, removing the barriers that prevent more manufactured housing from being built is vital. Improving access to these modern manufactured homes could give millions of people nationwide better access to a kind of unsubsidized and more affordable homeownership.
To better understand how much of a savings manufactured housing could provide to homebuyers, as well as assess the current barriers to its broader use and opportunities to expand supply. The Pew Charitable Trusts funded three research papers produced by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS). The work, published in 2023 and 2024, also provides examples of how builders and developers are starting to use these homes to build new neighborhoods, fill in vacant lots, or install accessory dwelling units on single family lots.
The center’s first analysis found that purchasing a new manufactured home could save a homebuyer $50,000 to more than $100,000 compared with a comparably sized site-built house. That is because, even considering that manufactured homes must be shipped and installed on a lot, they still cost 35% to 73% as much as construction of a traditional home. Not including the land costs. However, the JCHS research shows that manufactured housing remains largely unavailable in 845 counties. That’s slightly more than a quarter of all counties nationwide, mainly in the Midwest, according to the portion of the work that examines the barriers and potential of manufactured housing.
The second study, published in January 2024, found that misconceptions about the safety, quality.and style of manufactured housing represents another key barrier that keeps it from being used more often. In reality modern manufactured homes can have high-end finishes and pitched roofs that look very much like site-built single-family homes. They are often made to be very energy efficient as well, with available as “net zero” homes that make all of their own energy. In September 2024, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development made extensive updates to its building code for manufactured housing to allow for more modern and accessible designs.
Still, outdated impressions have resulted in zoning restrictions – especially in suburban or urban areas – that disallow manufactured homes in single-family neighborhoods. Most owners of these homes also own their own land and can get a mortgage, but is locations where these homes are allowed only on rented land (as is common in metropolitan areas), homebuyers are often prevented from getting a mortgage and must turn to financing alternatives that frequently have higher interest rates and fewer consumer protections. In these situations, affordability is diminished and borrowers are more vulnerable to loss of their homes.
