In 2012 Iowa retailers ordered 271 HUD Code manufactured homes, well below the years from 1964 to 1982 and 1988 to 2002 when orders ran over 1000 annually, but 28 percent higher than the 212 ordered in 2011, according to Joe Kelly, executive vice-president of the Iowa Manufactured Housing Association. Numbers are up for the first third of this year as well: 88 HUD Code homes have been ordered through April, compared to 51 for the same period in 2012. 90,036 homes have been ordered over the 52 years from 1961 to 2012 for an average of 1,731 homes annually. Iowa retailers brought in 95 modular homes in Q1 2013, down slightly from 98 for the same time period last year. However, modular homes comprised six percent of single-family building permits in Iowa for the first quarter, in fourth place behind N. Dakota (19.4%), Maine (19.2%), and New York (7.2%). Meanwhile, as MHProNews has learned, the creation of a revolving loan program to assist purchasers of manufactured homes and administered by the Iowa Finance Authority passed the Iowa House but did not make it through the Senate.
