M.H.I. Report: Manufactured Home Shipments and Production Maintaining Pre Covid-19 Levels
Spring into summer is traditionally the home buying season for thousands of American’s seeking the uniquely American dream of homeownership. Conventional wisdom would suggest that many would have put a hold on those aspirations due to conformance with COVID 19 “stay at home” protocols requested or mandated by federal and state officials.
However, those restrictions have not deterred manufactured home shoppers from continuing their aspirations of affordable quality homeownership. In fact, it has been possible for many to continue and enhance their shopping experience online from the safety and comfort of home. Here at ManufacturedHomes.com, we have received a dramatic uptick of shoppers exploring and discovering today’s modern high quality manufactured housing. The following report would seem to confirm that resilient Americans are finding a way towards homeownership realization.
According to the Monthly Economic Report by Manufactured Housing Institute (M.H.I.), in July 2020, 7,490 new manufactured homes were shipped, a slight decrease of 90 homes or 1.2% compared to the previous month (June 2020), and an increase of 359 or 5.0 percent compared to July 2019. Compared with the same month last year (July 2019), shipments of single-section homes are up by 4.4 percent and multi-section homes were up by 5.6 percent. Total floors (sections) shipped in July 2020 were 11,690, an increase of 5.1 percent compared with July 2019. (None of the shipments for July 2020 were designated as FEMA units, which is the same as July 2019).
The seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of shipments was 99,030 in July, up 14.8 percent compared to the adjusted rate of 86,251 in June 2020. The SAAR corrects for normal seasonal variations and projects annual shipments based on current month totals.
Cumulative shipments from January through July this year totaled 53, 663 homes compared with 53,840 for the 7-month period of 2019, a net decrease of 0,3 percent.
NEW HOME PRODUCTION INCREASES
In July 2020, 7,485 new manufactured homes were produced, an increase of 838 homes or 12.6 percent compared to July 2019. MHI’s Monthly Economic Report includes numbers for both for manufactured home production and shipments. The difference between the two is attributed to the number of units that have been produced, but their destinations are pending.
The number of manufactured home plants reporting production in July 2020 was 134 and the number of active corporations was 33, the same number of plants and corporations as reported in the prior month.
