Tag Archives: manufactured housing

More manufactured homes approved for suburbia

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One response to rising housing costs in the United States is moving to approve manufactured housing for suburban communities:

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For decades, manufactured housing has mostly been limited to trailer parks and rural properties. Now, a few developers are pitching factory-built homes as the way of the future, trying to sell higher-quality homes in a new context: the typical American suburban subdivision…

Stigmatized as low-quality, less-safe housing for the poor, factory-built housing was banned for decades by many towns and cities. But as soaring home prices prompt a search for affordable options, some policymakers have been willing to give manufactured homes a new look.

Villa’s new neighborhood is one of a few dozen similar experiments across the country. The major manufacturer Clayton said it has sold more than 2,000 of its “cross-mod” homes, which are partially factory-built and partially site-built, to 23 subdivisions in 10 states…

“They had a really bad reputation, and a lot of localities put in exclusionary zoning to prevent them from being used in neighborhoods,” said Rachel Siegel, a housing analyst at the Pew Charitable Trusts who believes that modern manufactured homes are of a much higher quality than those of past decades and should be allowed in more places. “We see empty lots that just don’t get filled. We see really old, unrepairable homes not get taken down and replaced because the cost to do a site-built home is just too high. … There’s almost no other way right now to build smaller homes that people can truly afford, that are new, outside of manufactured housing.”

The article suggests this is possibly a new trend or still in experimental mode. The need for affordable housing may push more communities toward changing their zoning and regulations. Many current residents and potential future residents want cheaper quality options. It would be interesting to see more residents and possible residents advocate for this kind of housing.

At the same time, I suspect wealthier and higher-status communities would be slower to approve manufactured housing. Reputations and stigmas can be hard to overcome, particularly if current residents have resources to afford more expensive housing options. This is another way certain communities can distinguish themselves from other suburbs; they are compromising in order to have affordable housing but we do not need to do that.

Manufactured housing to be more popular with fancier features?

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Those seeking cheaper housing options may like both the price of manufactured housing and the features they can purchase:

The hope is that more Americans will see the factory units not only as a more-affordable alternative to a traditional single-family house, but also an appealing one, without the old trailer-park stigma. It helps that they’ve been getting fancier.

Scott Richards, a salesman for Rona Homes in Pataskala, Ohio, said that when shoppers come to his lot, he can dazzle them with customization options like hickory cabinets, rainforest showers and built-in entertainment systems coupled with electric fireplaces.

“We’ve got linoleum floors that look just like hardwood floors,” said Richards, who got back into selling factory-made houses after leaving the industry in 2012. “You don’t think about solid granite being in a manufactured home, but we have that as well.”…

The company sells what most people probably picture when they think of manufactured homes — single- and double-wide houses wholly built on a chassis in a factory — as well as modular homes, which are factory-built in sections that are assembled on a lot. While a single- or double-wide is often much cheaper than a modular home, both offer cost advantages that come with putting construction on an assembly line.

The article goes on to talk about some regulations involving the federal government and lenders that could be altered to make manufactured housing more available to house buyers. Theoretically, these changes could open the floodgates to cheaper housing for many.

Yet, I would suggest there is then another hurdle to overcome that might prove even more difficult. This housing may be cheaper than other options and it could even be attractive inside and out. This does not mean that it will be easily accepted by numerous communities, particularly those with higher qualities of life. In many of those places, manufactured housing implies all sorts of things that those communities work hard to keep out through formal and informal means. It will take time to reverse the common image of such housing.

The same issue faces tiny houses. Even if they look nice and are attractive inside, they are not easily accepted in places with more expensive single-family homes. Tiny houses are affordable – though significantly smaller than the manufactured housing options discussed in this article – but not necessarily that popular, either to consumers or neighbors.

Want more affordable housing? Build more pre-fab homes and trailer parks

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Affordable housing can be cheaply provided by building more manufactured homes:

“The manufactured home is probably the most cost-effective way to provide quality affordable housing,” said Donna M. Blaze, the CEO of the Affordable Housing Alliance, which helped provide manufactured homes for Sandy refugees. “Most of our new units are light years ahead of the apartments for rent in today’s market.”

The average sales price for a manufactured home in 2013 was $64,000, according to the Census Bureau, while the average sales price for a single-family home was $324,000. The single-family site-built home includes the land, though, while owners of manufactured homes often have to still grapple with landlords and leasing issues. But the structure itself is nevertheless significantly cheaper: New manufactured homes cost around $43 per square foot; site-built homes cost $93 per square foot…

There are currently about 18 million Americans living in manufactured homes, and the houses make up the largest stock of unsubsidized housing in the country, according to the Manufactured Housing Institute. That is becoming more important as government budgets shrink and Americans prioritize other policy areas over public spending on subsidized housing…

But there are actually fewer of these homes being built than there were two decades ago. While manufactured home builders shipped more than 200,000 units a year through the 1980s and 1990s, last year there was demand for a fraction of that amount, just 60,000, according to the Manufactured Housing Institute.

From one end of the housing market – luxury in NYC – to another. I can only imagine the response in some communities if this is the kind of affordable housing proposed. It is already difficult for many middle- or upper-class communities to promote affordable housing without also having to combat the (unreasonable) stigma of manufactured housing. So even while these homes might be quite cheap, where exactly can they be put?