DontLetAmericanDreamOfHomeOwnershipSlipAwayNAHB-NAR-MHI-MHARRfederal-IndependentFactsIncludingManufacturedHousingData1995 toAugust2023ChallengesAndSolutionsMHLivingNews

Don’t Let American Dream of Home Ownership Slip Away-NAHB, NAR, MHI, MHARR, Federal and Independent Facts Including Manufactured Housing Data 1995 to August 2023 Challenges and Solutions

On October 12, 2023 the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a new report entitled “The Affordable Housing Crisis Grows While Efforts to Increase Supply Fall Short.” The GAO also recently stated: “The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) leads housing efforts at the national level” and “Manufactured homes—homes that are built in factories—can be an affordable option for some, including lower-income homebuyers.” Per the GAO website: “What GAO Does,” “GAO provides Congress, the heads of executive agencies, and the public with timely, fact-based, non-partisan information that can be used to improve government and save taxpayers billions of dollars. Our work is done at the request of congressional committees or subcommittees or is statutorily required by public laws or committee reports, per our Congressional Protocols.”

Inflation. Rising interest rates. Paychecks that routinely fail to keep pace with the rising cost of living, including the cost of housing. These are clear and present risks to the American Dream of Homeownership.

As the purportedly nonpartisan GAO pointed out, “Manufactured homes—homes that are built in factories—can be an affordable option for some, including lower-income homebuyers.”

Before jumping into the manufactured housing data that follows, it is helpful to know what the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and the National Association of Realtors (NAR), both via X-posts (formerly Twitter) said.

 

Not only does NAHB not hide their numbers, they arrange to report their data via news interviews such as the one in the example below.

 


From the National Association of Realtors (NAR), are the following X-posts (previously known as “tweets). Note that NAR breaks down the information they provide in several ways that gives them an opportunity to communicate information to various market segments (first time buyers, investors, cash buyers, etc.).

 

Note that NAR’s Lawrence Yun is practically begging for more housing starts.  Again, the information is broken down in a manner that makes it easy for certain groups to relate to the information.

 

MHProNews provided some information on the above from NAR earlier this week as provided by the Wall Street Journal. That report unpacks what the data could mean for growth oriented manufactured housing professionals and affordable housing seeking consumers, IF certain corrective steps were taken.

 

WallStreetJournalConventionalHousingSalesMayHit2008LowsHigherCostsInterestRatesOpenDoorForOpportunitiesForManufacturedHousingPlusMHVilleStocksMarketUpdatesMHProNews
https://www.manufacturedhomepronews.com/wall-street-journal-conventional-housing-sales-may-hit-2008-lows-higher-costs-interest-rates-open-door-for-opportunities-for-manufactured-housing-plus-mhville-stocks-market-upda/

 

But for whatever reasons, it seems that the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) is unable to get good federal laws enforced. Part of what the GAO report and analysis, linked here, unpacks is the troubling history of manufactured housing lending in the 21st century. “Credit (financing) is the lifeblood of housing,” said former Harvard Joint Center of Housing Studies fellow Eric Belsky. Per MHI’s Modern Homes Development, Belsky also said (circa 2000) that “there are multiple reasons to expect manufactured housing to do better than site built housing in the [current] decade.”

 

 

 

For the past few months, MHProNews and MHLivingNews has been doing periodic tests using the Bing AI search tool instead of Google.  Let’s note in passing that as an informed researcher on this topic, so far, Bing’s AI appears to offer a superior result to Google. That said, this inquiry was made to Bing AI on 10.20.2023 at about 10:41 AM ET.

> “Eric Belsky purportedly said “there are multiple reasons to expect manufactured housing to do better than site built housing in the decade.” circa 2000 can you confirm the source(s) for that remark?”

 

Here is Bing’s AI response.

According to the web search results, the source for that remark is a report titled “The Future of Manufactured Housing” by Eric Belsky, who was then the Executive Director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) at Harvard University. The report was published in May 2000 by the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) in its now defunct Modern Homes Development magazine12. The exact quote from the report is:

“There are multiple reasons to expect manufactured housing to do better than site built housing in the decade ahead. First, manufactured housing has a significant cost advantage over site built housing. Second, manufactured housing has improved its quality and broadened its market appeal by offering larger and more amenity-laden homes. Third, manufactured housing producers have become more vertically integrated and have developed relationships with lenders that could facilitate innovation in inventory finance and retail lending. Fourth, manufactured housing has made strides in overcoming regulatory barriers at the state and local level, although much more needs to be done. Fifth, demographic trends favor manufactured housing since it has a strong presence in rural areas and in the South, where population growth is expected to be concentrated.”12

I hope this helps you to confirm the source(s) for that remark?

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