HUD Focuses on Manufactured Homes’ Lower-Cost Option

Manufactured homes are getting more attention and more funding from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In February, HUD launched the PRICE* program, which provides $225 million in financial resources to help preserve and revitalize existing manufactured homes and communities. More than 22 million US residents live in manufactured homes.

Given rising single-family home costs and a 3.8 million housing unit shortfall manufactured housing is being given a spotlight as a viable ownership option.

Grants are available to individuals to rehabilitate homes, and for community owners to provide infrastructure updates like water, sewer, utilities, or extreme weather protection.

“As new manufactured home communities are complicated and often challenging to zone, improvements to existing sites will likely draw new, or retain existing, residents,” according to Marcus & Millichap’s Manufactured Home Communities National Report 1H24.

Meanwhile, long-term manufactured housing demand is likely to increase because of policy changes from HUD, FHA, and Ginnie Mae. It will take time to show their full effects, according to the report.

Marcus & Millichap said demand for lot space in manufactured housing communities will stay strong this year, particularly in regions with warmer climates and more costly single and multifamily housing.

As HUD provides funds to improve manufactured home communities, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Ginnie Mae are making manufactured homeownership more attainable. FHA announced new methodologies for calculating the loan limits allowed under the Title I Manufactured Home Loan Program, so that they align with current market pricing for these properties.

Ginnie Mae is revising its financial eligibility requirements for Title I issuers, helping to reduce the barriers to entry for lenders to participate in its securitization program for Title I loans.

These changes will increase the feasibility of personal property loans to purchase a home and occupy space in a community.

Southern, mid-Atlantic and Mountain states Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Arizona are among the top 10 states by absolute population growth and these areas of high in-migration have seen increasing housing costs over the past three years, leading many residents to seek lower-cost options and lowering manufactured home lot vacancies in these regions.

Those states are also home to 13 of the 15 fastest-growing age 55-plus cohorts, according to Marcus & Millichap.

With less left in their savings, aging populations are part of a prime cohort in need of lower-cost housing options, especially for those in the Southeast and Pacific subregions.

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