USDA Final Rules on Manf. Housing

[Terrel L. Shields]

USDA’s rural manufactured housing rule has gone into effect

The rule seeks to bolster housing supply in rural areas by addressing the supply shortage in a different way than site-built homes.

www.housingwire.com

 

[Artemis Fowl]

Paywall

Federal Register :: Request Access

www.federalregister.gov

 

[Vermonter]

https://archive.ph/S7Lol

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

https://archive.ph/S7Lol

An interesting observation which I have said for a while.

Interestingly, data from HUD and the U.S. Census Bureau analyzed by LendingTree that month also found that manufactured homes are appreciating faster than site-built homes, which found that the average price of a new manufactured home sold in the U.S. increased by 58.34% between 2018 and 2023. During that same period, site-built homes appreciated at 37.66% over the same period.

Because so much housing is so high, it is out of the reach of many lower income people. By necessity, they are living in manufactured homes and because there are now more and more people who cannot afford to even look at anything newer in stick built, they are opting to look for affordable housing and a manufactured home is more affordable and thus the pool of buyers is growing as wages stagnate and stick built prices escalate.

As a secondary consideration, newer manf. homes are often better built although we'd rate their quality at or below "starter home" levels. And again, MHs are extremely popular out of regulated city limits. I often wish I had a MH instead of stick built at my age. Being on the farm, my heirs will have an issue of what to do with my house. We have no one at the age they will need a house. So, if my home was a MH, they could simply sell it and be shed of the unit and let the yard revert back to pasture.

 

[TerryRohrer]

An interesting observation which I have said for a while.



Because so much housing is so high, it is out of the reach of many lower income people. By necessity, they are living in manufactured homes and because there are now more and more people who cannot afford to even look at anything newer in stick built, they are opting to look for affordable housing and a manufactured home is more affordable and thus the pool of buyers is growing as wages stagnate and stick built prices escalate.

As a secondary consideration, newer manf. homes are often better built although we'd rate their quality at or below "starter home" levels. And again, MHs are extremely popular out of regulated city limits. I often wish I had a MH instead of stick built at my age. Being on the farm, my heirs will have an issue of what to do with my house. We have no one at the age they will need a house. So, if my home was a MH, they could simply sell it and be shed of the unit and let the yard revert back to pasture.

I was appraising a mobile home court that included a few owned mobiles and was verifying rents and vacancies with a local broker. At some point in the conversation, I remarked about the high rental rates for 40+ year old mobiles in a nondescript court and the brokers response was, "Yeah, some of people just love their mobile homes!" That is why I don't rely much on broker/agent opinions.

When everything is out of reach, there is a scramble at the lower end of the monthly cost spectrum and prices increase faster than the higher-priced alternatives. Here, prices for homes in the $200,000 to $500,000 range are generally always increasing while those above that range can be flat or even falling. There was likely no increase in $1 million plus home prices from about 2012 through 2020.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Being so close to Bentonville and hundreds of Walmart executives and vendors (vendors send a VP in sales or such as their go-between with Walmart. You'd be surprised at the number of vendor reps who are ex-Walmart or Target employees) So, we have a lot of $500-1,500K homes. But for the warehouse workers, store employees, a lot of them are in older houses or manufactured homes. I saw one single wide remodeled 20 years old, on 5 acres that was 8 miles out of a town and selling for $200,000. Absolutely ridiculous. The person who set the unit paid $48,000 for it used and spent another $25,000 remodeling and moving it. And they gave $25,000 for the land. Made a nice profit. And it wouldn't qualify for FHA (they tried) due to having been moved on to the site from another site.

 

[TerryRohrer]

Before Covid, there were hundreds of old mobile homes around that were simply unmarketable, and generally offerred free, to be moved. Since then, those have been selling for $5,000 to $30,000. One little town flooded in 2022, and someone listed about a dozen flood-damaged mobile homes from the 1970s and 80s for $6,000 plus and sold them all (all disasters before the flooding). Another disaster in the making when these folks try to recoup their expenditures!

 

[alebrewer]

It doesn't take an Economist to understand that we're in a pretty dramatic shift WRT affordable/alternative housing. Whether it was/is the 'tiny house' craze that started a few years back, or 'full time RV'ers, or MFG - the lower end of the home buying market is shifting en-masse away from site built and toward more mobile, cheaper alternatives. Aside from the state parks, there are pretty much zero empty RV spaces around my area - all full of permanent residents (or as permanent as you can be in an RV).

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

here are pretty much zero empty RV spaces around my area - all full of permanent residents (or as permanent as you can be in an RV).

Same. A neighbor runs a small RV park with only 15 sites. Even in the middle of winter 10 sites were occupied. Full now. He said a lot of them are single guys working construction locally. I appraised an RV Park where they are adding 20 additional sites. They filled the original construction by the time they finished it. He has 10 sites that are for overnighters, but the rest are full time RVers that are either retirees (it's near a lake) or construction workers.

 

[Bobby Bucks]

As a secondary consideration, newer manf. homes are often better built although we'd rate their quality at or below "starter home" levels.

Many of the new ones I've seen are superior in quality to the tract built plastic boxes thrown together by Doctor Horton, America's greatest Q5 home builder. In fact I'm surprised the manufactured housing industry hasn't performed wind test comparisons of their products to Hortons. They put a slab of granite in the kitchen and market it as a modern smart home, but strong winds aren't intimated by granite kitchen islands, Horton's junk doesn't even have tie downs like any self-respecting trailer does. I often wonder why Doctor Hortons' product doesn't carry the stigma that manufactured homes do . I'll bet there are appraisers who have been booted from Horton's lender roster for labeling one of their products Q5 when they wrecked a deal.