Today the terms modular homes and manufactured homes are becoming synonymous in many homebuyers’ minds but that wasn’t always the case.
The industry got its start building mobile homes, the kind with wheels that packed into trailer park communities — most of them low-income settings — across the U.S.
But trailer parks have come a long way since Sammy Kershaw hit the top 10 of the Billboard charts with his 1993 country hit “Queen of My Double Wide Trailer.” And maybe even since Toby Keith’s “Trailerhood” hit in 2010. Trailer parks are no longer seen as lower-income havens. Sure, some trailer parks still are, but increasingly there has been a shift to more upscale park model modular homes.
The difference between manufactured homes and modular homes is slight. The main difference is that manufactured homes are built to the national HUD code, while modular homes are built to applicable state and local building codes. But they essentially look the same, although modular homes are built to the IRC code while manufactured homes are built to the Federal HUD code.
Allied Market Research estimates the size of the manufactured homes industry will grow from $31 billion today to $39 billion by 2027, at an annual rate of 6.5%. Some 22 million people in the United States live in manufactured.
But a number of economic trends suggest makers of manufactured homes are broadly poised to benefit. Those trends include:
- The ongoing downsizing trend as baby boomers enter retirement age and look to cut costs.
- Rebranding the names from “trailer parks” and “mobile homes” to park sites that allow “modular homes.”
- People, both young and old, who have been forced out of the housing market by sky-high property values.
- Millennials see manufactured and modular homes as the next wave of the housing market, where you can take your home with you.
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