RnRMarketResearch reports demand for prefabricated housing will expand 15 percent annually through 2017, but manufactured housing’s share of that will fall as conventional mortgages become easier to obtain. The study, based on data from 2002, 2007, and 2012, is combined with current market conditions, industry structure and competition in its analysis of the manufactured, modular, precut and panelized home building industries. Demand for the other three will be similar to stick-built single-family homes. Manufactured housing saw a decline beginning in 1998 as the economy slowed and MH borrowers defaulted, leaving repossessed homes competing with new ones. Through 2005, easy credit led borrowers into site built homes, which in turn led to what became the housing bubble and the Great Recession. As MHProNews documented monthly last year, MH production increased throughout 2012 but fell off towards the end of the year.
