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…)

Duroville’s continued existence points to the ongoing lack of affordable housing, particularly for very low-income workers.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson ruled that Duroville, a sprawling mobile home park in the far eastern portion of Riverside County, California, can remain open.  Larson indicated that the park should not be closed until alternative housing can be found for the park’s households.  When harvest time comes for the park’s myriad crops, as many as 6,000 people are estimated to make their home within the park.

Duroville is estimated to have more than 850 feral dogs.  It has open sewers with backed-up sewage.  Electrical systems are faulty.  And, systems for wastewater appear to be largely lacking.  Its a chronic mess that compromises the health of the farmworker families that live there.

The park is shielded from some law by the protection afforded to tribal communities.  Harvey Duro, is a member of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, and the park is on tribal land.

The key statement is that Larson recognizes that there is no better alternative out there for these families.   Its telling that the 250 mobile homes in the park house as many as 6,000 individuals.  This is a situation where people are probably taking shifts to sleep in beds.

I have seen these kinds of situations in Haiti.  Its hard to believe that its a good idea to house the people responsible for bringing food to our table in this kind of mess.

Housing starts fueled by subprime loans appear to have reduced demand for mobile homes.

That is the conclusion of economists at the Congressional Budget Office, who in November  2008 put together a nice analysis of the demand for new housing for the next four years.

“Some subprime loans for permanent-site single family homes were undoubtedly made to borrowers who would have otherwise lived in mobile homes.”

So chalk up another victim in the subprime housing crisis – the manufactured housing industry.  The evidence in the marketplace is apparent, as builders like Champion and Fleetwood are struggling to keep their shares lists.  Mobile home placements dropped to (more…)

Residents at Helendale Mobile Home Park and Blanton Mobile Home Park, in Hope Mills, North Carolina, have been notified that they have six months to pick up and leave their homes.

The two parks, located in Southeastern North Carolina, are home to about 70 families.  The Blanton family also owns a number of the units.

The parks will be converted to a new use.  Anyone who owns a home on the land must leave, per the notice given on August 28th, by the last day of February 2009.

According to a notice sent by the law offices of McCoy, Weaver, Wiggins, Cleveland, Rose Ray PLLC, the Helendale Park consists mainly of residents who own their homes.  The Blanton Park houses residents who have been renting both the land and the homes where they live.

Helendale MHP contains 26 singlewides.  Another 24 lots are vacant.  The oldest home in the Helendale Park dates back to 1968, but otherwise, all of the homes are built after the passage of the HUD code.   Most are relatively new, in fact.  Fourteen of the homes were built after 1990.

Notice of the closure went to the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency.  This is part of language written into N.C.G.S 42-143.  This law was revised in the previous short session.  One of the changes is the requirement to post the intent to change the use of the park to the NCHFA.

I was at a celebration in a successful park last week. There was a tent that covered the audience, who sat in folding metal chairs. It was hot, but not too hot. We had sheet cake.  Grown men held up a small marble trophy and spoke about meaning and purpose. It was a good day.

Afterwards, I spoke with a legislator who was attending the event. She was new to manufactured housing. Roughly paraphrasing her words, she said “I always think of manufactured housing as something to be avoided, people losing their equity and not having good quality homes. This is not like that.”

On this day, she saw Parrish Manor. She saw mobile homes that were outfitted with heat pumps, on manicured lots with sidewalks, street lamps, paved asphalt streetscapes with valley curbs and signage designed for safety. It changed her mind.

But not everyone gets out to visit a good park. Without exposure to these kinds of examples, what is left? Well, a lot of voices will say some of the same comments that this representative was making prior to her epiphany.

I hear people saying that “mobile homes don’t appreciate.” Well, perhaps they do not, but perhaps they do. I would argue that they can. Certainly, those mobile home owners who received $1 million for each of their lots in Florida last year managed to get some equity. For many, it is just the opposite — they are under water. There are all kinds of experiences for residents of mobile homes. The point is, the financial outcomes are hardly homogenous and for the most part are tied up in a number of dependent factors, such as neighborhood quality, location, proximity to jobs or schools, and infrastructure.

It is just as relevant, though, to gauge the suitability of manufactured housing by comparing how they would be if, alternatively, they were renting a home. Of course, there would be no appreciation at all in a rental unit.

It is a favorable comparison. Any equity that a resident of manufactured housing retains is icing on the cake, by comparison.

It is also relevant. The residents at Homestead Village, which this column has featured in recent weeks, would most likely find their next home in an apartment if they had been forced out. If they had to go rent, a 2 bedroom apartment in Raleigh begins at $500. A lot of people in singlewides, if they had to choose a different mode of home residence, would go into an apartment.

In the Triangle, mobile homes are either cheaper or comparable in price to apartments. The difference is slight, but nonetheless it is apparent. More than half (51.3 percent) of mobile home renters pay below 30 percent of their income on rent. By contrast, only 48 percent of renters in large (more than 20 units) multifamily buildings pay below 30 percent of income. (American Community Survey, 2006, table C25073). When you look at people paying an especially high burden, people in large multifamily apartment buildings are even more likely to be struggling. About 45 percent of those renters in Wake County pay more than 35 percent of their income on rent, compared to just 36.8 percent of mobile home residents.