Time Is Right for Manufactured Housing Reform, Experts Say
The final two years of the Trump administration could be pivotal for the manufactured housing industry, experts say, as political pressure mounts to address the nation’s massive housing shortage.
Manufactured housing—a category ranging from prefabricated materials to factory-built housing—has for years struggled to expand beyond a niche building type. But 2026 has brought the bipartisan housing reform package, the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, which includes reforms to encourage manufactured housing.
“That’s a response to an affordability crisis,” Suzanne Garwood, a managing director and associate general counsel for JPMorgan Chase, said last week at a conference held by the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization.
For years, manufactured housing has not been a very robust product for lenders, Garwood said. But the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which governs manufactured housing policy, has signaled an appetite for change.
“HUD is uniquely tasked with overseeing the manufactured housing code,” Garwood said. “So I think now’s the right time for HUD to be looking at manufactured housing. And if I were predicting what HUD could accomplish in the next two years, I think manufactured housing is a space where they could make some changes.”
JPMorgan itself has called for regulators to find ways to legalize more manufactured housing product types around the country, part of a broader strategy of banks advocating for reform that encourages homeownership.
The definition of manufactured housing and changes such as the removal of the chassis requirements to potentially allow multistory manufactured homes are on the agenda, Garwood said, amid a broader housing deregulation push.
Product evolution
New methods and techniques have been a key aspect of the evolution of manufactured housing.
The industry was long plagued by the idea that “manufactured” meant low-quality construction and mobile homes. But that’s changing, says Bryan Henson, president and CEO of factory builder BevyHouse, which just installed a home in the wildfire-ravaged Altadena, CA.
Henson’s company is rebuilding homes that often are modern redesigns of decades-old properties. He says the process of building in-factory lets site preparation and vertical work happen at the same time. The home took six months to assemble, while a custom home is closer to 18.
“We’re not cutting 40% or 50% off the price of a custom home, but we can do it for a cost that is easier,” Henson says. “If we can do it for a price that is less expensive and has more guarantees, why don’t we?”
That change isn’t limited to single-family development, either. Florida investment and development firms PTM Partners and Peacock Capital recently launched a vertically integrated workforce housing developer, Inception Housing. They use cold-formed steel, which cuts down on welding time, and directly procure 90% of materials.
They’re already building two complexes in the state, which will benefit from faster development time.
Michael Tillman and Nicholas Pantuliano, PTM’s CEO and COO, say the fast assembly time of their 24-to-30-unit module-type buildings helps speed inspection time.
“The promise of modular is the most exciting, because you’re shipping something over that’s nearly fully built,” Tillman says. “But every city will pull it apart differently.”
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Wave of manufactured housing legalization
Housing advocates cheered the bipartisan 21st Century Road to Housing Act for removing the requirement that a manufactured home sit on a permanent chassis. That can cut up to $10,000 off the cost of one.
Meanwhile, states are following with their own new laws.
Virginia and North Carolina both recently legalized manufactured homes within single-family zoning for much of the state. Builders now don’t have to jump through the extra zoning hurdle to build. California considered backstops to the industry that could help incentivize new startup factory builders.
The main barrier, experts say, remains local zoning. Minutae in various zoning codes make it very difficult to build one panel or module for many projects in different cities. A more standardized zoning code is key to scaling the business, Tillman says.
The federal bill “doesn’t necessarily pass anything in terms of offsite prefab, but it legitimizes the conversation when it comes to financing,” Tillman adds.
