Given the intention of policy makers at the Federal Housing Finance Administration, the manufactured housing industry may have to pin its hopes for recovery on the fickle interest of private investors on the secondary market.

They may have to wait.

Since 2001, the secondary market for asset-backed manufactured housing securities has been thin. The (more…)

Shipments of manufactured homes fell in July, compared to the same time last year.

The latest report from the Census department says that 4,900 manufactured homes were shipped in July.

Manufactured housing has managed to miss during both of the eras that defined housing in (more…)

Americans are not buying many mobile homes any more. This is something that has been true for years, and the numbers are only getting worse.

The Census Department released new shipment numbers for May and provided a seasonally-adjusted prediction for annual sales in 2011. Their prediction is that there will only be about 40,000 new shipments this year. That portends a fall off of almost twenty percent from the (more…)

Recent data from the Census Bureau’s American Housing Survey shows that people living in mobile homes spend far less on keeping up their homes than do residents of stick-built homes.

America’s infatuation with home-ownership didn’t include much interest in getting people into manufactured homes. It was an exception to a larger gospel about home ownership. With the best of intentions, many housing experts encouraged low-income households to build assets by buying a home.

More than any other factor, “experts” didn’t get on the manufactured housing bandwagon because of one thing – a perception that mobile homes do not appreciate in value.  There’s probably more than (more…)

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has just issued a notice of proposed rule-making that will change how the GSEs approach the acquisition of manufactured housing. It is part of a larger response on the treatment of under-served markets, and the proposed rule would effect not just manufactured housing, but also affordable housing preservation and rural housing.

This rule-making is a long time coming, but I am going to contradict the gospel of progressive non-profits acting in this field and say that I think it the very proponents of manufactured housing have conspired to limit the gains that could have come from the FHFA’s interest.

The new rules put the GSEs on the hook to buy more manufactured housing mortgages, and to at least venture into providing capital for parks, too.

If you have followed the story of manufactured housing, you would know that this industry tanked in the early 90s when Greentree and Conseco withdrew from the secondary market for these loans. Good financing dried up. It is hard (more…)