While you were eating dinner last night, HUD announced a “wholesale review” of manufactured housing regulations stating that this is the one housing industry that can meet the affordable housing crisis.
The manufactured housing industry should thank Warren Buffet’s interest in Clayton Homes for this ‘wholesale’ downsizing of regs. What better way for manufactured housing to grow than to push HUD for lesser regs and at the same time have a way for people to finance them through Buffet’s mortgage companies which recently also saw a softening of mortgage requirements for their industry.
I really have no problem with what is happening in the manufactured housing world.
My problem is who is fighting to see the same thing happens in the modular housing industry where state regulators bottle up plan reviews, write new internal regulations that make no sense, deny home plans for even the smallest infractions of their precious backroom regs and fight the modular housing industry on more fronts than ever before.
You can only ship through one state at certain times, unnecessary width restrictions in another, a backlog in another so long that customers actually put off building a modular home. The state offices that stop an entire industry that is needed more today than ever before is usually manned by one or two people. Have we allowed them to become so powerful that we now have one of our national associations, the MHBA, spending an enormous amount of time searching weekly through every state’s pending laws and regulations looking for ones that will tighten the noose just a little more.
My solution is quite simple. Turn the single family side of our industry over to HUD who will write a few new regulations just for us and then allow the third party inspection agencies to stamp the plans without state approvals just like a manufactured home, saving months of a couple people in a small office at the state level holding up plan reviews just to justify their jobs.
Here is the opening statement for the new proposal to cut regulations for HUD manufactured homes:
What the hell is wrong with us? 
HUD ANNOUNCES WHOLESALE REVIEW OF MANUFACTURED HOUSING RULES
Public comment sought in effort to identify regulations that stifle affordable housing and job creation
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today announced a top-to-bottom review of its manufactured housing rules as part of a broader effort to identify regulations that may be ineffective, overly burdensome, or excessively costly given the critical need for affordable housing. For the next 30 days, HUD is accepting public comments to identify existing or planned manufactured housing regulatory actions to assess their actual and potential compliance costs and whether those costs are justified against the backdrop of the nation’s shortage of affordable housing. Read HUD’s notice.
Shortly after taking office, the President issued Executive Order 13771 (“Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs”), directing federal agencies to identify or streamline regulations that are wasteful, inefficient or unnecessary. HUD Secretary Ben Carson quickly followed the President’s Executive Order by charging the Department’s Regulatory Review Task Force to identify HUD’s existing rules that may inhibit job creation or impose costs that exceed the public benefit.
Manufactured housing plays a vital role in meeting the nation’s affordable housing needs, providing nearly 10 percent of the total single-family housing stock. It’s estimated that more than 22 million American households reside in manufactured housing, particularly in rural areas where this form of housing represents an even greater share of occupied homes. The manufactured housing industry is also an important economic engine, accounting for approximately 35,000 jobs nationwide.
HUD’s regulation of manufactured housing fulfills a critical role to ensure a fair and efficient market that supplies affordable housing for households of modest incomes and protecting consumers. HUD may adopt, revise, and interpret its manufactured housing rules based upon the public’s comments it receives and the recommendations of the Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee, a statutory federal advisory committee comprised of producers or retailers of manufactured housing as well as consumers, residents and public officials.
CLICK HERE to read the HUD notice.
