National Policy Research

Bringing Manufactured Housing into the Real Estate Finance System (Pepperdine Law Review, Ann M. Burkhart, 2010)
Although manufactured housing accounts for nearly two-thirds of the new affordable homes built each year, the government has done relatively little to assist the manufactured housing market as it struggles to recover. The government has, however, spent billions of dollars to strengthen the mortgage market in attempts to prevent home foreclosures. Because manufactured homes are typically classified as personal property rather than real estate, they are effectively excluded from all federal and state funding intended to aid the housing market. In this article, published in the Pepperdine Law Review, Burkhart demonstrates that manufactured homes should be classified as real property, describes the recent challenges faced by the manufactured housing market, and explains the need for better access to credit. The article also explores the impediments created by certain state laws affecting the finance market and discusses the effects and viability of classifying manufactured homes as real estate.

Regulatory Barriers to Manufactured Housing Placement in Urban Communities (Prepared for the HUD Office of Policy Development & Research by the Center for Housing Research at Virginia Tech, 2011)
Manufactured housing units (built under the HUD Code or Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards in the controlled environment of a manufacturing plant and transported in one or more sections on a permanent chassis) provide an important source of affordable housing within the United States. After adjusting for land costs, the per square foot cost of HUD-Code housing is less than half of standard, site-built housing. With the increased use of multi-section units and recent innovations in manufactured housing building technology, particularly integrated floor and chassis systems, many manufactured housing units are now virtually indistinguishable from conventional site-built units.This study examines the scope and severity of state and local regulatory barriers to manufactured housing placement within CDBG-eligible communities.

Accessing Public Resources for Manufactured Homebuyers and Communities - Resource Guide (CFED, 2010)
Though manufactured home ownership is a popular, low cost alternative for consumers who cannot afford site-built homes, manufactured homebuyers often struggle to find fair and affordable financing to purchase manufactured homes. When manufactured homes are titled as personal property rather than real estate or when homeowners place their homes in land-lease communities, they are at a distinct disadvantage to traditional homebuyers when seeking financing. This guide is designed to help consumers, nonprofit practitioners and advocates learn how to leverage public financing for the purchase, rehabilitation or refinancing of manufactured homes. The guide offers lists of public resources available for financing for individual homeowners who want to purchase or rehabilitate their manufactured homes and homeowner groups that want to purchase their communities; it describes program parameters to help advocates understand how to access various programs; and recommends programmatic changes that could improve the function of public programs for which manufactured housing is an eligible use.

Conventional Mortgage Financing - Resource Guide (CFED, 2010)
Manufactured housing is an affordable homeownership option for many families. Obstacles in obtaining conventional mortgage financing, unfortunately, create a huge roadblock. In most cases these homes – though as permanent as homes built on-site – are treated by lenders more like automobiles than homes, preventing owners from realizing the many benefits of homeownership. This guide is a resource for policy makers, advocates and industry stakeholders interested in ways to expand the availability of better and less expensive conventional mortgage financing for buyers of manufactured homes, especially low- and moderate-income buyers. This guide lays out the different methods of titling manufactured housing and the implications for home financing; discusses manufactured housing finance; outlines challenges in accessing conventional mortgage financing for manufactured housing; and offers policy recommendations for increasing access to conventional mortgage financing for manufactured housing.

Advocating at the Local Level - Resource Guide (CFED, 2009)
This guide is a resource for anyone interested in promoting the use of manufactured housing as an affordable housing and asset-building strategy through local policy. It examines areas of local policymaking that have potential impact and reviews a sampling of existing and proposed municipal and county ordinances and other policies.

Overcoming Barriers to Placing Manufactured Housing in Metropolitan Communities (Journal of the American Planning Association, 2009)
This article examines barriers to placing manufactured housing in metropolitan areas that planners might influence, focusing particularly on land use and design regulations. The authors find that a variety of regulatory restrictions impede the placement of manufactured housing in metropolitan communities. In general, such regulations determine whether or not jurisdictions have any manufactured housing at all; if they do, market conditions have the primary influence on the number of such units in a community.

Promoting Resident Ownership of Communities – Resource Guide with Appendix A on model law and alternatives (CFED, 2009)
Appendix B:  Summary of state notice and right of first refusal laws
Appendix C:  Compendium of existing laws that foster resident ownership
This tool summarizes the case for resident ownership of manufactured home communities as a path to affordable housing preservation and asset building. The guide establishes key elements of strong policy and suggests model legislative language, as well as giving examples from states that have adopted purchase opportunity legislation.

Titling Homes as Real Property – Resource Guide. (CFED, 2009)
Manufactured homes are the largest source of unsubsidized, affordable housing in the United States. Although a modern manufactured home may be indistinguishable from a site-built home to many observers, a manufactured home is typically considered personal property, rather than real estate. This guide provides a state by state analysis of the current statutes in regards to property classification. Further, the guide features recommendations for strong policies for the conversion of manufactured homes to real property.

Protecting Fundamental Freedoms in Communities – Resource Guide. (CFED, 2008)
Manufactured homes represent a pathway to affordable homeownership for millions of Americans, but their potential as a wealth-building vehicle remains tenuous in many states. Resident ownership of manufactured home communities is one strategy to help low-income homeowners build assets, but certain basic freedoms must be protected if homeowners are to purchase their communities. This guide identifies four types of homeowner protections that pave the way for asset building. It also identifies several key elements of strong policies to protect homeowners, suggests model legislative language, and lists states with precedents for policy adoption.

Titling Manufactured Housing As Real Property (Fannie Mae, 2007)
This website provides state titling information for loans secured by manufactured housing that is real property. Individual state titling issues are covered in Fannie Mae's state-specific reports and can be downloaded as PDF files.

Case Law Analysis (Housing Preservation Project, 2006)
Resources on this page provide case law analyses of court decisions on park preservation cases. Analysis of court decisions cover the following areas: right of first refusal, relocation costs, and good cause eviction and change of use.

"Manufactured Housing: Not What You Think." by Cathy Atkins (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2006)
This article and accompanying charts provide comparative information on state-level manufactured housing policies.

State MH Titling Statutes (National Consumer Law Center, 2005)
This legal analysis by NCLC on state MH titling statues discusses the issues associated with manufactured housing titling and the process of MH title conversion to real property. The article also list and reviews state titling laws that provide owners of manufactured housing the ability to title their homes as real property.

AARP Issues in Manufactured Housing
In addition to offering descriptive data for the over-50 population residing in MH, this policy brief describes the results of AARP's 1999 survey of MH owners of all ages regarding their problems with maintenance, construction and warranty service. It closes by describing the most common problems faced by residents of land lease MH communities.

AARP Public Policy Institute
Manufactured Housing Tenants: Shifting the Balance of Power
The model statute presented in this report by the AARP Public Policy Institute provides a context in which to discuss the problems and issues facing residents in manufactured-home communities and to provide advocates and state legislators with a useful tool for evaluating their own statutory protections for these residents.

Consumers Union Manufactured Housing Project
This page provides links to the entire series of Consumers Union's policy reports on manufactured housing. Topics include: An introduction to the primary issues for affordable housing practitioners interested in learning more about the sector, including lessons learned from various non-profits' MH experiences, factors driving the appreciation/depreciation of MH, retail pricing variations in the sector, market failures in the sector, fraud and predatory lending, consumer protection, regulation, and enforcement. The site also provides links to many other online resources, classified by policy topic. The Consumers Union page also provides a variety of resources for prospective buyers and current owners of MH, including information in Spanish.

State Policy Research and Case Studies

California

"Manufactured Housing Barriers Fall in California" Breakthroughs, HUD Regulatory Barriers Clearinghouse. (HUD, January 2006).
This article details the history of legislation passed by California state lawmakers "designed to remove unreasonable barriers to the placement of qualifying manufactured homes in both urban and rural neighborhoods." It reaches the conclusion that "the real winners in this quarter-century trend have been first-time home buyers who formerly had few living choices other than renting."

Minnesota

Manufactured Housing: The Issues (Northcountry Cooperative Development Fund, August 2007)
This fact sheet contains Minnesota-specific information on manufactured housing. It also contains state level data, such as the number and demographic profile of residents living in Minnesota's manufactured homes and housing communities.

New York

Housing Finance Agency Guidelines for the Manufactured Home Cooperative Fund
These HFA guidelines are specifically for NY's Manufactured Home Cooperative Fund (MHCF) Program. This program provides HFA financing for MH park conversions to resident-owned cooperatives in New York

Vermont

Manufactured Housing: An Emerging Solution (Opportunities Credit Union Inc., 2007)
This article discusses the affordable housing problems in Vermont, the untapped and underutilized potential of manufactured housing, and introduces the work Opportunities Credit Union is doing to advance a manufactured housing strategy in the state.

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