Manufactured Homes: The Affordability Factor
The affordability of today’s manufactured home is validated and appreciated by most of those that have explored the world of manufactured housing in comparison to the conventional site built home.
The affordability of manufactured housing is mainly attributable to the efficiencies of the factory process. The controlled environment and assembly-line techniques remove many of the problems of the site built industry, such as poor weather, theft, vandalism, and damage to building products and materials stored on site. Also, factory employees are trained, scheduled, managed by one employer, as opposed to the system of contracted labor in the site-built sector.
Manufactured home producers also benefit from the economies of scale which result from being able to purchase large quantities of building materials and products. As a result they are able to negotiate the lowest possible price for items that are invariably more expensive in a site built home.
There are many manufactured homeowners today who could have afforded the purchase price of a site-built home, but elected instead to choose a manufactured home because of the value, price, quality of construction, design, energy efficiency, and safety. There are so many manufactured homeowners that could not afford the price of a site built home and have benefited from affordability factor of the manufactured home.
According to a 2002 report released by the Millennial Housing Commission, manufactured housing remains one of the largest sources of non-subsidized housing in the nation. The report also cites that manufactured housing accounted for almost 72% of the growth in the nation’s affordable housing stock in the 1990s.
In addition, according to the 2002 Apgar Report titled, “An Examination of Manufactured Housing as a Community-and Asset Building Strategy,” manufactured housing has emerged as an important housing option over the past decade and a half. Among households with very-low incomes (less than 50% of American Medium Income) 23 percent of homeownership growth between 1993 and 1999 came from manufactured housing.
The manufactured housing industry has always been committed to providing quality affordable homes to all homeowners and is dedicated to continuing that commitment in the future.
The American Dream of Homeownership is being realized with today’s manufactured home, not only by those who have the means and desire to purchase a manufactured home, but also those that cannot afford a traditional site built house.
(Image from Oasis Homes)
