Washington, D.C., April 4, 2016 – The Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) reports that according to official statistics compiled on behalf of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), manufactured housing industry production experienced strong growth once again in February 2016. Just-released statistics indicate that HUD Code manufacturers produced 6,129 homes in February 2016, a 27.6% increase over the 4,803 HUD Code homes produced during February 2015.

A further analysis of the official industry statistics shows that the top ten shipment states from the beginning of the industry production rebound in August 2011 through February 2016  — with cumulative, monthly, current year (2016) and prior year (2015) shipments per category as indicated — are:

                         

The latest information for February 2016 results in no changes to the cumulative top ten list.

            While industry production, both short and long-term, thus continues to show sustained growth since its modern historic low in 2009, the potential for even stronger production gains – and possibly even record growth in light of pent-up nationwide demand for truly affordable housing – remains elusive, as the industry and consumers face a non-stop barrage of ever more unnecessary and unnecessarily costly regulation from HUD and its contractors, coupled with the continuing refusal of the Government Sponsored Enterprises and the Federal Housing Finance Agency to provide secondary market support and securitization for manufactured home chattel loans as directed by Congress in the “Duty to Serve” law. The industry is poised to do much more for American consumers of affordable housing, if and when these baseless barriers are removed.  This continues to be a fundamental part of MHARR’s mission on behalf of the industry.