Blog Posting # 876; Copyright 1 May 2026. EducateMHC
Know this! HUD-Code manufactured housing (‘MH’) 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 accessory dwelling units/ADUs, e.g. Park Model RVs), 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) constitute the post-production segment of the MH industry.
EducateMHC is an MH historian, trade term and trend tracker, as well as MH information resource! Contact EducateMHC via (317) 881-3815; email: gfa7156@aol.com, or visit www.edcatemhc.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 MH production totals since 1955.
And my autobiography, ‘From SmittyAlpha6 to MHMaven’, describes personal combat adventures in Vietnam as a USMC lieutenant, a 40 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 MHI’s National Communities Council (‘NCC’) division, an RV/MH Hall of Fame enshrinee, Allen Legacy columnist and editor at large for ‘MHInsider’ magazine.
FEBRUARY 2026 TOTAL NEW RESIDENTIAL HOUSING REPORT
This compilation begins with 1,364,000 onsite construction completions reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, then converted to a monthly figure of 113,667 units completed.*1
To ascertain the estimated number of offsite construction units fabricated during February, add together: 7,689 HUD-Code manufactured homes reported by the Institute for Business Technology and Safety (‘IBTS’); 2273 modular and panelized units (i.e. 2% of onsite construction); and, 1,203 accessory dwelling units (i.e. 401 Park Model RVs X 3). Taken together these three subtotals equal 11,165 units. When added to the 113,667 onsite construction estimate, equals 124,832 Total New Residential Housing Units for February 2026.
End Notes.
- Source of U.S. Census Bureau data: census.gov/construction/nrc/current/index/html
NEWS SUPPORTIVE OF NEW AWARENESS RELATIVE TO:
Offsite construction and RVs as housing….
Everyone reads ‘MHInsider’ magazine. So, when new terminology and other forward-looking observations are published in this trade press serving manufactured housing and land lease communities, housing professionals and real estate investors take notice. Here’re two leading indicators found in the March/April 2026 issue of the magazine.
Headline on page # 34: ‘Champion Homes Showcases Energy-Efficient Potential of Offsite Construction in Virginia Debut’. Throughout the article ‘offsite construction’ is equated with energy-efficient housing.
And the subtitle, under the headline, on page # 48 reads: ‘New Team Enhances Nationwide Effort in RV, Manufactured Housing’. This is certainly not the first time MH & RV are mentioned in the same sentence or headline, but it does lend credibility to the practice of including certain types of recreational vehicles, as accessory dwelling unit housing, to address the affordable housing crisis in the U.S. today.
AND FINALLY…
Did you read in MHI’s newsletter on 1 May 2026 how the Big 3-C HUD-Code housing manufacturers command 85.66 percent of the national manufactured housing share? Breaking that total down, Clayton Homes = 45.52%, Champion = 22.39%, and Cavco = 17.75%.
Personal Notes.
I miss writing to you weekly. But find myself pulled in different directions these days. As you may or may not know, I’ve been researching and authoring the ‘RV/MH Hall of Fame History’ during the past two plus years. We’re nearing the point of inserting 100+/- historic photographs of RVs & MHs into the 160-200 page manuscript. My hope is to have the finished product printed and bound by year end; of if not then, sometime during year 2027.
My next book? Unsure. But I have outlined my ‘dream project’, tentatively titled ‘My Life With Books’. Therein I plan to share many of my favorite titles from past several decades, e.g. ‘My Travels with Charlie’ by John Steinbeck; ‘Matterhorn’ by Karl Marlantes; ‘Greyfriars Bobby’ by Eleanor Atkinson – in 1912, who also penned ‘Johnny Appleseed’; and many many more.
My great grandson Hunter, a paratrooper in the U.S. Army, has been deployed to the Middle East. The irony here, is that he deployed, to the month, 58 years after I was deployed as a young USMC second lieutenant, to the Republic of South Vietnam. Have you read my wartime experiences in ‘From SmittyAlpha6 to MHMaven’? Please keep Hunter in your prayers!