Manufactured housing may be the next business line for brokers
What brokers should watch
Marina Walsh, MBA’s head of industry analysis, said chattel lending is drawing interest, though it remains a small corner of the market.
“Lots of conversation around them. It’s a niche product,” Walsh said. “There are about five lenders that are really big in this space. But yeah, there’s certainly potential there for sure.”
Census Bureau data show the market for new manufactured homes is roughly flat. Shipments totaled 67,800 through August, about 4% fewer than in the same months of 2025, so the gain in Freddie Mac’s purchases is not coming from more new homes.
The seasonally adjusted annual pace has risen from 95,000 in January to a preliminary 104,000 in August, near the 103,300 and 102,700 homes shipped in 2024 and 2025.
New manufactured homes shipped in May sold for an average of $130,500, up from $126,800 a year earlier, according to the Census Bureau. Freddie Mac puts the average price of a newly placed home, land included, at about $200,000, against more than $500,000 for a typical site-built home.
