The Wisconsin Housing Alliance reports the production of off-site built homes is down this year, especially for modular homes, which suffered a drop of ten percent in 2013 over 2012. As biz-times.com tells MHProNews, production in 2004 was almost 700 percent higher. Pittsville Homes closed this summer after 40 years of modular home building, and Wickfield Building Systems idled 150 workers when it closed its modular plant in Marshfield, WI in 2009. Wisconsin-based Ferkey Builders, which usually produces 8-12 homes a year built only one in 2013, the worst year in the history of the company. But co-owner Colleen Ferkey says the pendulum is slowly swinging back.

The manufactured housing (MH) industry in Wisconsin saw the number of home shipments decline from 2,760 in 2003 to 306 in 2013, which is up from the 207 homes in 2009. As MHProNews has posted monthly, the national MH industry production has been growing, although slowly, since Aug. 2011. Amy Bliss of the Wisconsin Housing Alliance (WHA), noting the decline of the overall housing industry following the Great Recession, says, “The No. 1 reason for the building industry’s troubles is due to a lack of available financing,” citing the Dodd-Frank Act and the SAFE Act as over reacting to poor lending practices of the past. Ross Klinzler, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Housing Alliance (WHA), echoes her sentiment: “Once some rationale returns to the lending industry, we’ll be fine.” ##

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