05/12/2025
Congressional Findings on Manufactured Housing
The information presented below was embedded within Federal legislative bill # HR 7220, the Frank Adelmann Manufactured Housing Community Sustainability Act (2022).
More than 17 million people live in manufactured homes, benefitting from high-quality affordable homes that can provide them stability.
Owners of manufactured homes are disproportionately low-income households: in 2013, the median annual household income for those living in manufactured housing was $28,400.
About 75% of manufactured home households earn less than $50,000.
Over 10% of U.S. veterans live in manufactured homes.
In the late 1990s, manufactured housing represented two-thirds of the new affordable housing produced in the United States. It remains the largest source of unsubsidized affordable housing in the country.
As of 2015, the average cost per square foot for a new manufactured home was $48, less than half the $101 per square foot of the structure-only cost of a new site-built home.
In 2009, 43% of all new homes that sold for less than $150,000 were manufactured homes.
Manufactured homes account for 23% of new home sales under $200,000.
More than 50,000 Manufactured Home Communities (MHC) exist throughout the United States.
More than 2.9 million manufactured homes are placed in MHCs.
MHCs provide critical affordable housing but receive very little local, State, or Federal funds subsidizing the cost of these homes.
Manufactured home owners in communities may own the home, but they do not own the land under their homes, leaving them vulnerable to rent increases, arbitrary rule enforcement, and even closure of the community if the community owner decides to convert the land to some other use.
Eviction or closure of MHCs is very disruptive to residents who may be unable to pay the thousands of dollars it takes to move their home or even find a new location for their home.
In the past two decades, a national network of housing providers has helped residents purchase and own the land and manage the community in order to preserve a crucial source of affordable housing.
Nationwide, there are more than 1,000 of these stable, permanent cooperatives or nonprofit-owned developments in more than a dozen states.
Members continue to own their own homes individually and an equal share of the land beneath the entire neighborhood where everyone has a say in the way the resident0owned community (ROC) is run, and major decisions are made by democratic vote by a member-elected board of directors.
In New Hampshire, more than 20% of MHCs are owned by residents.
In Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Washington, Oregon, and Minnesota, resident owned cooperatives and nonprofit ownership have flourished.
Nationwide, only 2% of all MHCs are resident- or nonprofit – owned.
Owners are frequently reluctant to sell the community because they would prefer to pass the property on to their heirs tax free and avoid capital gains taxes.
When the owner dies, the heirs frequently sell the community to the highest bidder resulting in displacement for dozens and sometimes hundreds of families.
A Federal tax benefit needs to be established to induce owners to sell to residents they have known for decades or to nonprofit organizations in order to preserve the community for years to come.
