Manufactured Housing News: North Carolina and 92 Million Millennials Look at Prefab Housing
North Carolina’s Buncombe County seeks to allow manufactured homes (MFH) countywide, some believe that Millennials elusive homebuyers will turn to MFH for their housing needs, and many industry leaders seek relief from Dodd-Frank verbiage.
Manufactured Housing News: North Carolina and 92 Million Millennials Look at Prefab Housing
Those are today’s manufactured housing headings… let’s build on those facts!
Affordable Housing for North Carolina County
Politicians in Buncombe County are looking at allowing manufactured homes throughout the North Carolina County. Currently Manufactured homes are forbidden from being utilized in many of the county’s primary residential areas. While manufactured housing is permissible in many of the county’s outlying areas, according to Buncombe County staff, the currently allowed locations are not economically feasible for manufactured homes.
On Tuesday, during a government retreat with local politicians, a damning report on the lack of affordable housing was unveiled, prompting the county commissioners to allow its staff to look at eliminating the ban on manufactured housing. The principal advocate of this action was none other than the Board of Commissioners Vice Chairman Joe Belcher – who was once employed by the manufactured housing industry. “To not allow an efficient, less-waste, low-priced product in Buncombe County … it’s not good for our taxpayers, it’s not good for our people and it restricts our choices,” Belcher said.
Will 92 Million Millennials Bet On Manufactured Homes
Millennials are youthful and comparatively free from preconceived notions. Characteristically, they fall between 19 and 33 years old, and are generally intrigued by the idea of living in a tightknit, urban neighborhood, and one that is close to both amenities and work. Unfortunately for them, Millennials remain at the bottom-end of the financial food chain, swimming in debt and having just witnessed the great recession and its near-collapse of the American real estate market. Understandably, today’s youth are more than slightly reticent when asked about homeownership.
Regardless of their fear, the American real estate market needs this next generation of potential homebuyers: The Millennial generation, or “Gen Y” if you will, symbolize one of the largest segments of potential American homebuyers; representing approximately 76% of the country’s first-time homebuyers; per the National Association of Realtor’s 2014 Home Buyer and Seller Generational Trends report.
Manufactured home industry seeks relief from Dodd-Frank
Begging for relief, the manufactured home industry claims it needs a reprieve from the overreaching Dodd-Frank regulations; adjusting verbiage that has caused mortgage providers to stop providing low-balance loans common in manufactured home sales. The manufactured housing industry is asking the U.S. Congress to pass a piece of recently reintroduced legislation that would allow lenders to originate high-interest mortgages for manufactured home buyers.
Under the restored legislation, first passed last year as the ‘Preserving Access to Manufactured Housing Act,’ the low-balance “chattel” mortgages, normally used to help finance manufactured homes sales, would instead be treated more like consumer car loans. The change would allow salespeople to broker loans on manufactured homes without being considered a loan officer, provided the salespeople don’t receive compensation from the loan proceeds.
