Biden Housing Plan Aim to Close Gap in Affordable Home Supply Within 5 Years includes Expanded Access to Manufactured Housing

Amid skyrocketing prices, President Joe Biden’s administration is taking steps to spur more affordable housing as the White House seeks to close the U.S. “housing supply gap” in five years.

Among the efforts is an increase in federal assistance to help finance and produce more factory-built homes, including manufactured homes.

Freddie Mac announced it is exploring purchasing chattel loans (home only), on which the majority of homeowners rely rather than traditional mortgages.

These and other measures were outlined in a housing supply action plan the Biden Administration unveiled recently.

The following Housing Alert by the Manufactured Housing Instute (MHI)  titled – Administration Looks to Manufactured Housing to Help Increase Nation’s Afordable Housing Supply – details all aspects of the Biden Supply Action Plan that include manufactured housing benefits.

MHI May 16, 2022 –  Today, President Biden released a Housing Supply Action Plan (the Plan) to address the shortage of affordable housing in the country and ease the burden of housing costs over time. Calling it “the most comprehensive government effort to close the housing supply shortfall in history,” the goal is to “help close America’s housing supply shortfall in 5 years, starting with the creation and preservation of hundreds of thousands of affordable housing units in the next three years.

The Plan includes several provisions related to manufactured housing, reflecting MHI’s advocacy priorities of ensuring federal mortgage financing programs include manufactured housing, keeping the HUD Code up to date, addressing zoning barriers, easing supp;y chain constraints, and addressing the shortage of construction workers. In its release, the White House specifically said that manufactured housing and other innovative forms of home construction “hold promise for increasing housing productivity and thus housing supply.”

         Plan Highlights Related to Manufactured Housing

• Financing – The Plan calls on HUD to increase the usability of FHA’s Title 1 loan program for manufactured housing and support greater securitization of Title 1 loans through Ginnie Mae’s platform. Additionally, the Plan recognizes the recent efforts by Freddie Mac to create a personal property (chattel loan) financing product to foster greater liquidity for manufactured housing,
• Zoning – The Plan provides incentives to states and localities for land use and zoning reform. Immediately, the Plan will provide higher scores in Department of Transportation (DOT) competitive grant programs to reward jurisdictions that have put in place land-use policies to promote density and rural main street revitalization. In addition, the Plan calls on Congress to pass the “Unlocking Possibilities Program,” which would establish a new $1.75 billion competitive grant program administered by HUD to help states and localities eliminate needless barriers to affordable housing production, including permitting for manufactured housing communities.
• Supply Chain Constraints and Workforce Programs – The Plan includes a partnership with the building industry to explore additional actions that the federal government and the private sector can take in partnership to help turn the record number of homes under construction into completed homes where Americans can live. As part of this initiative, the Plan calls for updates to the HUD Code to allow manufacturers to modernize and expand their production lines, and help manufacturers respond to supply chain issues. The plan also calls on Congress to pass legislation proposed by the Administration to provide additional funding for programs to “recruit more workers into good-paying construction jobs.”

The manufactured housing provisions within the Administration’s plan reflect MHI’s policy priorities and are a direct result of MHI’s ongoing advocacy efforts. A dozen federal officials from HUD, DOE, USDA, and the White House participated in this years Congress & Expo where they received personal tours of the manufactured homes on display in The Neighborhood and met directly with MHI members to discuss updates to federal mortgage programs, zoning barriers, supply chain constraints, and streamlining updates to the HUD Code. These meetings marked the beginning of the stakeholder engagement portion of the White House Interagency Manufactured Housing Task Force, which is working to address market and regulatory barriers to manufactured housing and impacted the provisions announced today.