1)Housing affordability is high.
2) New home building bottomed out in 2009 and is rising again.
3) Conventional home prices and sales are rising, which should also contribute to increased manufactured home sales.
4) Indeed, manufactured home shipments have risen for two years. Manufactured home shipments also started January 2013 with another nice bump up in sales over January 2012.
5) While all of these graphs/charts are revealing, this next one may be particularly powerful. The oversupply of homes, both rental and for sale, is nearing a 10 year low. Let’s recall the law of supply and demand, which tells us demand plus low supply equals rising prices. Rising conventional house prices and rising rents all bode well for manufactured housing.
February 2013 unemployment numbers are also showing another modest improvement.
With:
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the stock market responding well to the sequester and other factors,
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with modular shipments up,
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the reasons for the cautious optimism shown by attendees at the Louisville Manufactured Housing Show is becoming ever more clear.
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Rising pre-registeration for the 2013 Tunica Manufactured Home Show are also pointing towards a sign of growing MH Retailer, MH Community and builder/developer confidence, that may yield the biggest event in years.
These and other factors tell us things are looking up for manufactured housing.
To be sure, there are still challenges to navigate and there are certainly missed opportunities that need to be capitalized upon, as other MH Industry in Focus or The Masthead blog columns suggest.
But the outlook by some pros who project a 15% increase in new manufactured home shipments for 2013 seem to be supported by the facts and indicators noted in this Industry In Focus report. ##
By L. A. “Tony” Kovach – email latonyk@gmail.com.
