Extreme Makeover: Home Edition will feature a segment on a family getting into a Deltec Home this weekend.

The show, a reality-based series that chronicles the adventures of families working through rehabilitation of their homes, will air on August 31st at 8 pm Eastern time on ABC.  The show runs for 2 hours.

In this instance, the home being built is for a family, the Useas, who were made homeless by Hurricane Katrina.

No word on whether Hurricane Gustav will enter the picture, although it is likely that the weather resistant Deltec home would be able to withstand even a Category 3 Hurricane.

Today the FDIC has apparently drawn up a list of banks that it believes are moving into dangerous territory towards a potential failure. Yesterday, in fact, The Columbian Bank & Trust Company of Topeka, Kansas was shut down. The remaining assets will go into a receivership arrangement. It is the ninth bank this year that has failed. The largest, of course, is IndyMac.

It has been a tough year. We have seen the end of Bear Stearns. We may see the end of Freddie and Fannie, as we currently know them. There may be more to come.

We know why it is happening. Mortgage loans are going bad. Lots of them.

This is why I think manufactured housing has a chance to break through, right now, in redefining its image among housing policy advocates.  That involves examining the underlying motive for our interventions in housing.

But lo, I do not want to dedicate this post to asserting who is at fault for this situation. That is a good (more…)

When the Clinton Administration proposed a shift to 13 SEER
(Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio) technology for air conditioning units, some groups pointed out that the size of these units would be an impediment to some builders.  Manufactured housing construction was one of the groups cited, as space is an important consideration.

The number in the SEER ratings system correspond to relative savings in energy consumption.  A SEER 13 rated system saves 30 percent on energy costs relative to a SEER 10 system.

For this and a few other reasons, the Energy Policy Act of 2002 rolled back standards to SEER 12.  Some asserted that low-income people would be forced to bear higher costs than they could afford.  Some Senators from the Upper Midwest and the Rust Belt argued that their residents would rarely experience the cooling demands that would make the investments viable.  They were supported by representatives from AC manufacturers and  energy companies.

Some people weren’t happy with that result.  That included a coalition of representatives from the utilities industries as well as private contractors.   Notably, low-income advocates from the Consumer Federation of America supported higher energy efficient standards, even as proponents for lower standards asserted that such standards should not be supported because they would put a cost burden upon low-income people.

The 2002 bill had language that would have put the SEER 12 standard into effect beginning in 2006.  By that time, though, the EPA had ruled that new homes had to have SEER 13.  Many states have SEER 13 requirements, too.

In spite of fears about size, producers have responded to the challenge.  Now there are a set of specialty heat pumps and air conditioners with SEER 13 ratings that fit for manufactured housing applications.

I am going to list a few here.  There is the Style Crest, the Carrier Air Master Heat Pump.  There are surely others.  If anyone has had success with a particular model, please share the information in a comment below.

Guidelines

The Manufactured Housing Research Alliance has a nice document outlining ways that consumers can save money on their heating and cooling costs.  A more thorough publication from the EPA is here.  These documents seek to give people the right product to fit their needs, without overstating the cost savings that might be possible.  In some cases, consumers may buy too much cooling capacity.

Few people outside of the “know” might realize that modular homes can be utilized for multifamily housing construction.  Many might be surprised to see stackable homes.  Yet that is an option that some are taking advantage of in their designs.

Lexington Station is a great example.  Its a multi-story modular project.  There is a great website that shows how modular housing can be stacked on-site to build a multistory home.  This is ingenious.  It shows how revisioning of industry standards can find new ways to make factory built housing reach new audiences.  This project was built in Asheville, North Carolina.  This is an area with plenty of rules governing development.

The same goes for using manufactured housing in multistory designs.  One of the more well-known examples is the work done by Oakland Community Housing, Inc.  (OCHI).  The folks at OCHI have been building affordable housing in the East Bay.  It is not easy to build affordable housing in the Bay.  Land prices are very high.

OCHI’s Linden Terrace consists of three-story homes built with exterior staircases using manufactured homes.  They won a prize for best manufactured housing development from MHI in 2006.  There are garages on the bottom floor and the main entrance to the homes are located on the second story.

OCHI doesn’t build exclusively within this platform.  It has also been able to use manufactured housing on infill lots to build single family homes.  Some of their neighborhoods are cut out from parcels of land that other developers left alone.  I visited one on a slip of land adjacent to the Port of Oakland.  These are far and away the best homes in the neighborhood.

Delaware House Bill 504, passed this session, will create a model for adding security to the lives of manufactured housing community residents.  The bill creates requirements for disclosure by park owners to residents in the event of a sale or a change of use request.

While some states have variations of these laws, none has the authority spelled out in the Delaware bill.

Some states, such as New York, have a requirement for resident notification in the event of a change of use.  That rule goes into effect in cases where a park owner gets a park rezoned.  A new use will, by common sense, mean a higher value for the land.  This creates a catch-22 of sorts.  Although the disclosure rule gives residents notice, it only takes place when  the price of their park has suddenly increased.

What is special about the Delaware provision is that it extends to any park sale.  There is also a notice sent to the state Housing Finance Agency.  This creates awareness among professional non-profit developers.  These groups can approach the residents.  They can help them to understand the path to resident or non-profit ownership.  As well, the state and the non-profits are probably more adept at tapping banks for loans.

Last, there are penalties for owners who fail to follow the disclosure rules.

North Carolina recently passed a disclosure bill.  It requires park owners who sell to non-profits or resident-owned groups to also disclose to the state Housing Finance Agency.  The owners get a 5 percent deduction, based on the sales price of the park. It is an advance, but it limited relative to a bill like the one in Delaware.