The ElkhartTruth reporter Jeff Parrott quotes L. A. “Tony” Kovach – publisher of trade media ManufacturedHomeLivingNews.com and MHProNews.com – explaining the spread of bad loans twice triggered the housing market slide. Once occured within MH lending, starting in the late 1990s, and later in the meltodwn of 2008 for conventional mortgages. The second time pulled an already struggling MH industry down with it.
Due to the purchase of many MH units by the Federal Emergency Management Agency following Hurricane Katrina, the MH industry produced 146,881 homes in 2005, but that number quickly dropped to 81,907 by 2008, according to the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI).
As the Great Recession of 2008 settled in and millions lost their jobs, production fell to 49,717 the next year, but has been steadily climbing and is forecast to hit 63,000 units this year.
According to elkharttruth.com, while four MH factories in the county continue to employ thousands of workers, last year the county produced only eight percent of the nation’s manufactured homes, as compared to 48 percent of all new HUD Code manufactured homes produced in 1990.
Kovach, says Parrott, has been urging the industry to embark on an aggressive marketing campaign. “We’ve got this affordable housing shortage in America,” Kovach said. “Manufactured housing is a solution, but it’s not a solution that a lot of people are turning to. We still suffer from this ‘mobile home image’ issue. But yet if a person goes to see what a modern manufactured home looks like, it takes their breath away.”
Although the recession drove the county jobless rate to 20 percent in 2009, RV production is expected to hit 350,000 this year, the largest production since 2007. In April, there was a shortage of drivers to deliver finished goods, but that has now leveled out. Elkhart County currently accounts for 85 percent of the nation’s RVs Clearly, the GoRVing campaign has worked for their industry. ##
(Graphic credit: elkharttruth.com–MH production in Indiana)
