Last year MHI (Manufactured Housing Institute) introduced the CrossMod manufactured home into the new home marketplace. At the time no-one was taking this seriously… now, everyone should be.
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| One of these is a CrossMod and the other is an IRC modular home |
Well, at least those modular home factories and the modular new home builders that are intent on surviving and thriving over the next 10 + years should be anyway!
I’m talking about the rapid and almost stealth-like introduction of the CrossMod home that was introduced with a name that creates confusion for the factory people and builder but honestly, the consumer couldn’t care less what it’s called if they can afford it.
For decades there has been a chasm between HUD code manufactured housing and IRC off-site modular housing. It has always been almost impossible to bridge it and both sides liked that situation.
But things have changed drastically since the 2008 housing recession. Before 2008 you probably couldn’t get a buyer that wanted a custom home to even look at a manufactured home. The word “trailer” or “double wide” were the best weapons modular home builders had to make a sale against a street dealer.
Today a new buyer has entered the new home market. They are the “affordable” home buyers. Basically they are the people with good jobs and decent credit that find site built and modular new single family homes unaffordable. It’s not their fault they can’t afford a new home built to IRC standards as state and local building codes keep getting harder to meet as well as more costly.
Even though they can’t afford a new IRC code home, they don’t want a double wide in a manufactured housing community either.
In 2019, the number of homes priced above $750,000 grew by 11 percent, according to Realtor.com, and the number of homes below $200,000 declined by eight percent. That chasm just got wider.
The average price of a new single-family, site-built home with land is quickly approaching $400,000 across the U.S.
According to the MHI, manufactured homes make up ten percent of all new single-family homes owned in America– a number that is projected to increase in the coming years as affordable housing becomes more critical.
Not only is the new CrossMod home looking to build that bridge, the manufactured home factories with the help of Dr Ben Carson, Sec of HUD, are gearing up to put them in every neighborhood in the US.
Modular home builders and factories may quickly see a loss of new home contracts to CrossMod builders that are about to snatch the low hanging fruit from the builders pool of prospective customers.
And have you actually seen the new CrossMod homes offered by Clayton and Skyline-Champion? I have and they are beautiful!
The bridge they are building is aimed at selling to an entirely new type of home buyer, yours! With HUD pushing to remove barriers for CrossMods allowing them into developments and neighborhoods where local zoning barred them for decades, look for new site built and modular home builders sales to begin to feel the pinch.
The CrossMod is not the enemy many in the housing industry think. No, it is just an evolution in housing created by MHI to give more homebuyers a real home at an affordable price, something modular and site builders can’t do when forced by the states to follow tough IRC regulations. It is unfortunate that MHI chose CrossMod as the name for this new type of product but this a marketing game after all and the manufactured housing people know how to play it very well.
CrossMods are a HUD code product and as such follow the Federal guidelines. Not only that, they are financed like your modular home.
If you are in the modular housing industry in any capacity, you have to get the facts about CrossMod and the other new significant regulations, including 4 module 2 story homes, coming from HUD that may have a huge impact on your business.
Join me on March 25th in Lewisburg, PA to learn about all the new things MHI and HUD have planned for the housing industry. It could be the best thing you’ve ever done for your business.
CLICK HERE for details and registration.
