Brace Yourselves for Good Manufactured Housing News!

Several things are going on in today’s housing market that suggest that all is not gloom and doom in the manufactured home world.

First, the same onerous Federal and State regulations which keep many of us in the manufactured housing industry awake at night are also causing ulcers for those in the site-built market.

While we lament the fact that there are few lenders and effectively no secondary mortgage market in our industry, those in the site-built industry are struggling with lenders whose qualifications for new mortgages are so strict that fewer loans are being made.  On top of that, Realtors and the site-building guys are trying to deal with an oversupply of housing and unprecedented numbers of foreclosures.

So those in our industry who said a few months ago that manufactured homes can’t compete with rock bottom foreclosure prices on site-built homes are finding that regardless of how interested our prospective buyers may be in a foreclosure, they may not qualify for the mortgage.

Add to that the fact that manufactured home buyers frequently follow their previous generation and kinfolk.  To rephrase, those who grow up in manufactured homes or whose relatives live in manufactured home are inclined to buy a manufactured home themselves. So one might conclude that the final nail hasn’t been driven in the coffin of manufactured housing yet.

Those who thought our industry might survive government regulations and site-built sales thought surely we would succumb to site-built rentals.  Think again!

The inability of buyers to qualify for mortgages is driving rental rates to new highs.  A Wall Street Journal article today says new multifamily construction is now up almost 50% compared to a year ago.  So the same manufactured home sales prospects who couldn’t qualify for a site-built mortgage now can’t afford to rent.  At our location, our phones are ringing and our walk-in and Internet traffic is up!

Manufactured home land lease communities (LLCs) are finding themselves in a great position to sell or rent homes.  Many community operators are using internally-generated funds to buy new Community Series Homes (CSH) or previously owned homes to place in vacant sites for resale or rent.

Others are investigating offerings from specialized chattel lenders or consulting firms who claim to provide financing programs that comply with regulatory challenges.  Still others are relying on Lease-Option “sales”.

The bottom line is that our industry is not dead after all.  By seeking out the niches that are available, you too can have good manufactured housing news. # #

Spencer Roane,
Atlanta, GA
spencer@roane.com or (678) 428-0212

Editor’s Note:

Spencer serves on the Georgia Manufactured Housing Association board of directors and MHI’s NCC and Disaster Housing Task Force. He holds both Mortgage Loan Originator and Mortgage Broker SAFE Act licenses.  Roane has 4 MHCs in GA and TX.