Home sales continue to rise

Now that the massive number of foreclosures on the market is drying out new-home sales is starting its run with the strengthening economy.  In July new-home sales increased by 40% in the Northeast and 18% in the South reaching the highest levels of sales since 2007.  You read that right, 2007, we are seeing pre-housing collapse numbers.  On Tuesday the Commerce Department stated that the demand for new homes has eclipsed the pace of construction.  Tian Liu, chief economist for Genworth Mortgage Insurance said that he sees tremendous potential for new-home sale growth as the demand continues to create a supply shortage of newer existing homes.  Construction companies throughout the East have add 215,000 jobs to their workforce and are still running behind the demand for new-home construction.

Though new-home sales does not directly impact or correlate to manufactured home sales it does show the potential for greener pastures in our industry as one of our two largest competitors, existing homes, are running in short supply and forcing Americans to either site-build or come see us.  Let’s hope with rising demands, millennial’s obsession with speed and efficiency, and consumer education that we will begin to ride the next great wave of home sales.

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Modular Homes

In a recent article Ken Reinard of Professional Building Systems gave his take on the new growth being seen in the manufactured housing industry, and more specifically, Modulars.  Reinard said that over the past five years he has struggled to keep full employment for PBS’s work force and that the opening of a sister plant specializing in multi-family housing is what helped keep PBS floating during the over half decade of debacle left behind from the housing meltdown.  Reinard said that he is seeing people buying single family homes again, and this is apparent in PBS’s need to begin hiring fulltime positions for their single family plant.

Growth in the manufactured housing market is in large part due to a better economic position for most middle class Americans and to more favorable lending terms.  Further growth in Modulars is due to its own specific reasons, being the age of consumption for millennials, consumer education, and affordability.  While Singlewide and Doublewide consumers still consist of the same two groups of people that they always have, young people of low income and elderly people of fixed income, Modulars are beginning to break into new groups of consumers.

Thanks to increased affordability consumers who traditionally were looking into higher end double-wides are now breaking into the Modular scene and thanks to strategic marketing and consumer education, people who had the funds to buy an existing home or hire someone to site build are heading toward Modulars because they understand that they are getting similar and often better quality in a Modular but for 20%-30% less in costs.  All things considered the entire manufactured housing industry is seeing a period of growth, but Modulars are growing at an increased rate because they have been able to pull would-be site built and Doublewide customers away from those options.

How are you positioning yourself in the Modular home market?

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