Texas Manufactured Home Shipments in May 2024
May Shipments
Manufactured home shipments to Texas retailers squeaked by the previous month to hit their highest monthly total so far this year. The 1,625 homes shipped was just four units higher than last month and represented a +25.2% increase over May of 2023. The shipment total for the month once again is only trailing 2022 shipments. The seasonal-adjusted total is showing a -1.2% decline, but that’s because May has on average had higher totals than April, and so the adjustment was expecting a higher number.
| Shipments | Singles | Multis | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total for May: | 674 | 951 | 1,625 |
| Change from April (Raw %): | -9.3% | 8.3% | 0.2% |
| Change from April (Raw Units): | -69 | 73 | 4 |
| Change from April (SA %): | -9.2% | 5.4% | -1.2% |
| Change from May of 2023 (%): | 13.3% | 35.9% | 25.5% |
| Change from May of 2023 (Units): | 79 | 251 | 330 |
May Production
Texas manufactured housing plant production expanded more so than shipments in May with the raw total moving up +3% over the previous month for total number of homes, and +3.8% in the min number of floors. I’m focusing on the raw totals because both April and May had the same number of weekdays, so the seasonally-adjusted total declining by -2.5% for total home production is masking what was an actual increase in run rates to their highest rate on the year. The raw total of 2,079 homes was a +19.6% increase over May of 2023.
Shipments to out of state retailers moved up +14% sequentially.
| Texas Plant Production | Total | Shipped Out of TX | Min Floors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total for May: | 2,079 | 585 | 2,925 |
| Change from April (Raw %): | 3% | 14% | 3.8% |
| Change from April (Raw Units): | 61 | 72 | 108 |
| Change from April (SA %): | -2.5% | NA | -1.8% |
| Change from May of 2023 (%): | 19.6% | 18.2% | 21.9% |
| Change from May of 2023 (Units): | 340 | 90 | 525 |
June Outlook
The forecasting models have June shipments at 1,520 (+/- 222) and Texas factory production at 1,878 (+/- 229) homes.
The Texas Manufactured Housing Survey (TMHS) for June still indicated an overall increase for the state’s aggregate production, but June will have one less weekday than usual.
The forecasting model for production weighs the number of weekdays more heavily than the shipment model does and for that reason I’ve got production at a coin flip but the under for shipments.
Annual Totals
The shipment total for 2024 is currently up +36.2% over 2023 and Texas plant production is up +32.3%.
The forecast for annual Texas shipments in 2024 moves up to 18,719 (+/- 1,895) and forecasted Texas plant production moved up to 23,409 (+/- 2,217).
The annual models do not account for production days, so I expect these forecasts to move down next month after the June numbers get incorporated.
| Shipments | Singles | Multis | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total for 2024 YTD: | 3,541 | 4,243 | 7,784 |
| Change from 2023 (%): | 33.3% | 38.8% | 36.2% |
| Change from 2023 (Units): | 884 | 1,186 | 2,070 |
| Texas Plant Production | Total | Shipped Out of TX | Min Floors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total for 2024 YTD: | 9,809 | 2,560 | 13,683 |
| Change from 2023 (%): | 32.3% | 31.1% | 32.9% |
| Change from 2023 (Units): | 2,397 | 608 | 3,391 |
Charts
In this chart you can see that when the shipment moving-average crosses the retail sales moving-average a trn in shipments usually follows. The last downward cross occurred in June of 2019 and it’s not too hard to see that shipments were headed back up for the upward cross in March of 2020, right when COVID-19 hit and strangled production for several months. It is that unprecedented stretch of retail sales above shipments from June of 2019 through August of 2021 that I think best explains the huge expansion in shipments we see after that point that peaked in August and September of 2022.