Manufactured Homes May be the “Magic Silver Bullet” for Nations Affordable Housing Woes

A new manufactured home is “everything a home should be” with half the cost of a site-built home — Meanwhile, the manufactured housing industry continues to produce high-quality affordable homes at an increased volume that is at least equal, and often superior, to site-built homes, in every respect, with a cost up to 50% less, not including land.

How is that possible?  Manufactured housing is victim to some of the same COVID-19 effects as site-built, such as workforce problems, material shortages, price increases, supply chain delays, transport, and backlog issues. However, the following advantages of factory construction vs. site-built are why manufactured home producers have rapidly adjusted to these hurdles and are building quality homes that American homebuyers prefer and can afford.

• Efficiencies of the factory assembly line factory building process with technological advances, evolutionary designs, and a focus on delivering quality homes that families can afford.
• Much like other assembly-line operations, manufactured homes benefit from the economies of scale resulting from purchasing large quantities of materials, products, and appliances, passing along savings directly to the homebuyer.
• Manufactured home builders can negotiate substantial savings on many of the same components used in building a home, with these savings also passed on directly to the homebuyer.
•  Factory employees are trained and managed more effectively and efficiently than the system of contracted labor employed by the site-built home construction industry.
• A new manufactured home can be customized to address the needs and desires of the individual homebuyer.

Today’s manufactured homes have experienced an evolution in the types and quality of homes available to home buyers. Technological advances allow manufactured home builders to offer a variety of architectural styles and exterior finishes that will suit most any buyer’s dreams while allowing the home to blend seamlessly into most any neighborhood. Homebuilding in America is facing a myriad of obstacles in the production of quality site-built single-family homes that lower and middle-income families can afford. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exasperated the pre-existing chronic affordable housing shortage. The following comments by home building professionals are evidence of the country’s housing woes,

The nation’s housing affordability crisis is “the largest social challenge” facing the United States, Finance of America Mortgage president Bill Davis told MPA (Mortgage Professional America).

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, home affordability has dropped to its lowest level in 13 years, with the median household now needing about 32% more of its income to cover mortgage payments compared to 2008.

In an analysis of the state of the housing industry, Dr. Robert Dietz, senior VP for economics and housing policy of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)  in an MPA online article)  said, “There is no silver bullet. It’s a lack of building lots, lending available to builders and developers, long lumber and building material shortages, and legal and regulatory costs that make it more expensive to build housing.”