Blog Posting # 874; Copyright 16 March 2026. EducateMHC
Know this! HUD-Code manufactured housing (‘MJH’) is federally-regulated, performance-based, affordable-attainable, factory-built housing(a.k.a. one of four types of offsite construction: those being manufactured, modular & panelized housing, plus Park Model RVs – or accessory dwelling units, a.k.a. ADUs), routinely paired with traditional stick-built, single-family residential housing (a.k.a. onsite construction, where building permits, starts & completions are tallied and reported monthly by the U.S. Census Bureau). Land lease communities (a.k.a. manufactured home communities, ‘mobile home parks) are the commercial real estate (‘CRE’) component of MH. And, along with various types of housing finance (e.g. chattel or ‘home only’ loans, and real estate-secured mortgages) constitutes the post-production segment of the MH industry.
EducateMHC is an MH historian, trade term & trend tracker, as well as MH information resource! Contact EducateMHC via (317) 881-3815; email gfa7156@aol.com, or visit www.educatemhc.com to purchase ‘Community Management in the Manufactured Housing Industry’. This book belongs in every land lease community nationwide! And ‘SWAN SONG’- a history of land lease communities & official record of annual MJH production totals since 1955.
And my autobiography, ‘From SmittyAlpha6 to MHMaven’, describes personal combat adventures in Vietnam as a USMC lieutenant, a 45 year entrepreneur business career in MH & community ownership, as well as freelance consulting and authoring of 20 nonfiction texts.
George Allen is the sole emeritus member of the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI’), a founding board member of MHII’s National Communities Council (‘NCC’) division, an RV/MH Hall of Fame enshrinee, Allen Legacy columnist and editor at large for ‘MHInsider’ magazine.
YEAR END 2025 & JANUARY 2026
COMPREHENSIVE TOTAL NEW RESIDENTIAL HOUSING REPORT
1,634,799 new residential housing completions during year 2025, and 139,033 new residential housing completions during January 2026.
Now, how did we arrive at these ‘first time ever reported numbers’? It wasn’t easy, in large part due to the federal government shutdown during fall 2025, and no fewer than four statistical reporting anomalies (i.e. ‘deviations from the common rule’); those being
:
- U.S. Census Bureau gathers new housing data only where housing permits are recorded
- U.S. Census Bureau does not include HUD-Code manufactured housing units unless permanently installed and recorded on privately-owned building sites.
- No one routinely collects and reports modular and panelized housing installations.
- While HUD-Code manufactured housing is tracked monthly by the Institute for Building Technology & Safety (‘IBTS’), that data is reported differently by MHI & the MHARR.
Bottom line? The U.S. housing industry needs a major change to ‘how it keeps score’! Simply put, STOP reporting only onsite construction housing permits, starts, and completions; and, BEGIN including offsite construction factory-built housing as well! Here’s how the annual and monthly perspectives should look, going forward:
YEAR END 2025 Total New Residential Housing Report. Begin with the 1,497,800 onsite construction completions reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, & add offsite construction units:
1,497,800. Onsite construction units, now add offsite construction housing units.
+ 102,738 HUD-Code manufactured housing units as reported by the IBTS & MHARR
+ 29,956 Modular & Panelized housing units; estimated to be 2% of onsite total
+ 4,305 Park Model RVs reported by the Recreation Vehicle Industry of America (‘RVIA’);
__________This category a placeholder for accessory dwelling units (‘ADUs’) in the future.
=1,634,799 Grand total of onsite & offsite construction housing units during year 2025
JANUARY 2026 Total New Residential Housing Report. Begin with the 1,527,000 onsite construction completions reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, and covert to monthly figure of
127,250 Onsite construction units; now add offsite construction housing units.
+ 8,878 HUD-Code manufactured housing units as reported by the IBTS & MHARR
+ 2,545 Modular & Panelized housing units, estimated to be 2% of onsite total
+ 360 Park Model RVs reported by the Recreation Vehicle Industry of America (‘RVIA’);
________ Again, a placeholder for accessory dwelling units (‘ADUs’) in the future.
=139,033 Grand total of onsite & offsite construction housing units during January 2026
So, does this roughly 11,000 difference in monthly tallies – between ‘onsite construction alone vs. onsite & offsite construction together’, really make that much of a difference in reporting?*1 That’s a difference in opinion, but one that should be seriously considered nonetheless.
End Note.
*1 Here, year end 2025 and January month end 2026 compared:
Year end 2025. 1,634,799 new format (-) 1,497,800 present format = 136,999/12 = 11,416
January 2026. 139,033 new format (-) 127,250 present format = 11,783 for month of January
Know what is needed now? Leaders in the offsite construction types meet, agree, and lobby onsite construction scorekeeper (i.e. U.S. Census Bureau) and representatives from modular & panelized housing types, as well as RV industry to broaden and improve the accuracy of new residential housing permits, starts, and completions going forward!
George Allen