Manufactured Home Acceptance Has The Potential To Chip Away At California’s Housing Deficit
California’s housing production has long lagged behind demand.This chronic shortage has only gotten worse – and more pervasive – in recent years.
More acceptance of manufactured homes has the potential to chip away at California’s 980,000-unit housing deficit and provide more low-income housing options, according to Freddie Mac.
To help support manufactured housing, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have included manufactured housing as one of its three key housing markets in their Duty to Serve program, along with rural housing and low-income housing.
Between 2022-2024, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac intend to support manufactured housing by:
- Increasing purchases of single-family mortgages secured by manufactured homes as real property, rather than as personal property.
- Enhancing their support of manufactured housing communities through increased purchase of those types of mortgages, especially by government entities, non-profit organizations and tribal communities.
- Providing tenants in manufactured housing communities credit-building opportunities,including the reporting of rental payments to credit agencies to help build tenant’s credit scores; and
- Supporting resident owned communities through purchasing more mortgages of this type and increasing outreach efforts.
California has 5,231 active manufactured/mobile home and RV communities which contain a total of 453,179 lots, according to the California Department of Housing and Community Development.
By county, the number of manufactured home spaces include: (according to the HCD).
- 6,221 in Alameda
- 7,148 in Fresno
- 10,560 in Kern
- 47,696 in Los Angeles
- 28,757 in Orange
- 34,266 in Riverside
- 12,319 in Sacramento
- 32,508 in San Bernardino
- 39,401 in San Diego
- 0 in San Francisco
- 17,878 in Santa Clara
There are 8 manufactured housing factories located in California to produce manufactured homes across the state, according to the Manufactured Housing Institute.
Manufactured homes include a host of benefits for California priced-out residents, since they are:
- Cost effective: Up to 50% of the cost of a comparably sized and equipped site-built home.
- Energy efficient: More savings with the Energy Star option.
- Safety: Studies have confirmed that manufactured homes are equal and often superior to site-built homes in the occasions of fire and wind storms.
- Value appreciation: Numerous reports have shown a new manufactured home will appreciate at about the same rate as a conventional site-built home.
According to Jess Maxcy, President of the California Manufactured Housing Institute CMHI): “While zoning issues are problematic across the nation this is not the case in California. Our state leads the nation in nondiscriminatory zoning for manufactured housing. See California Government Code sections 65852.2, 65852.3, 65852.4, 65852.5 and California Civil Code 714. Year to date, July 28.7% of our new m/home shipments have been installed as real property on in-fill lots in cities across the state.”
Sources include: Amy Platero firsttuesday – California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) –
Jess Maxcy, President California Manufactured Housing Institute (CMHI)- Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI).
