MHI Monthly Economic Report: Manufactured Housing Shipments In March 2018 Up 6.8 Percent From Last Year
Quick on the heels of their busy, exciting Congress & Expo event, MHI has now delivered even more good news to the manufactured housing industry. MHI’s recently released Monthly Economic Report indicates steady growth across the industry throughout the month of March. Below, we’ll highlight the report’s findings and explore what they might mean for the industry as we move through 2018.
Manufactured Housing Shipments Growing Month Over Month, Year Over Year
“New manufactured home shipments increased 6.8% to 8,813 homes in March 2018 as compared to the 8,254 homes shipped in March 2017. Total shipments for March 2018 are higher by 752 homes when compared to the prior month of February. Compared with March 2017, the trend is positive with shipments of single-section homes up by 7.9% and multi-section homes up by 5.8%. Total floors shipped in March 2018 increased 6.6% to 13,495 compared to March 2017.”
According to MHI’s report, home shipments in March 2018 increased by 6.8% over the same period last year. This means the manufactured housing industry shipped nearly 600 more homes this March than they did during March of 2017. In addition, manufactured home builders and retailers shipped 752 more homes this March than they did during the previous month of February. If growing these numbers on a month-by-month, year-by-year basis means lasting success for our industry, then MHI’s March report is very good news indeed.
“Of the 8,813 homes shipped in March, only five homes were designated as FEMA units with all five going into Texas.”
This note in MHI’s report is of particular importance. In the past, large numbers of Manufactured Housing Units (MHUs) built to serve FEMA’s disaster relief efforts have been included in shipments of new manufactured homes. The numbers in their March report, however, include only 5 of these MHUs—meaning the other 8,808 manufactured homes shipped to eager new homeowners.
“The seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of shipments was 102,836 in March 2018, down 1.8% from the adjusted rate of 104,769 in February 2018. The SAAR corrects for normal seasonal variations and projects annual shipments based on the current monthly total.”
Although it can’t predict the future, MHI’s SAAR metric goes a long way toward predicting how shipments will level out by end of year. While a dip in the SAAR from February to March of this year signifies lower year-end totals for now, the SAAR is calculated each month—meaning the calculation for April could very well signify a better year overall for manufactured home retailers, builders, communities, lenders, and everyone involved in our growing industry.
For more information, visit MHI at their website, manufacturedhousing.org.
