Texas Manufactured Home Shipments in November 2020
November
Texas Manufactured home shipments for November moved down a seasonally adjusted -3.9% from October and were down an unadjusted -9.2% from November of last year. The declines were driven by a reduction in single-section home deliveries, an expansion of homes shipped to neighboring states by Texas plants, and a decline in homes coming into the state from out-of-state factories.
Multi-section home shipments for the state increased over 2019 by 5.3% and they comprised 57.2% of total shipments. This is their second highest share of the market in our series. The average for multi-section shipments since 2012 has been 45.4%, and we haven’t been below that mark since April of 2018.
Texas plant production was down only -2.9% from 2019, and while I don’t get data on the single to multi-section makeup of shipments out of Texas, if I count the 456 homes sent out-of-state as single-section units, the minimum number of floors produced by Texas plants ran even with 2019, but 9.4% more homes were shipped out of the state this year.
Meanwhile only 28 homes were shipped into the state which is the second lowest November total on record and was 38 less homes than what came in for the month in 2019.
The increased outflow of homes coupled with the decreased inflow helps explain why shipments did not beat last month’s forecast despite Texas plants continuing to increase run rates as reported by TMHA and the Texas A&M Real Estate Center’s Manufactured Housing Survey.
The forecast for December is 1,187 (+/- 234) shipments.
Finally a note on shipments compared to sales. I’m tracking the difference between shipments and final retail sales totals with a 12-month moving average that is currently indicating that just a single additional home has been shipped than has been sold for the 12-month period ending in August. Moving averages are lagging indicators and the slow trickle of retail sales titles that continue to get issued adds more delay to this analysis, but I thought this was a useful metric on gauging retailer inventory pressure. The average of the average of the data back to 2012 is 85.4 more homes shipped than sold over a 12-month period. I’ll continue refining this indicator and will start publishing it in 2021.
Given that new titles issued by TDHCA hit their second highest total in our series in December at 1,833 new homes and the increased level that retail sales and consumer interest in mobile homes for sale searches have been coming in at for the last third of 2020, there should be continued downward movement of the shipments less sales moving average as we move into 2021.
Happy New Year to all of you, the last 12 months were not at all what any of us expected. I hope all of you and your families are happy and healthy, and I look forward to what 2021 has in store for the industry. The view from here looks very good!
| Shipments | Singles | Multis | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total for November: | 534 | 714 | 1,248 |
| Change from October (%): | -16.4% | -10.5% | -13.2% |
| Change from October (Units): | -105 | -84 | -189 |
| Change from November of 2019 (%): | -23.3% | 5.3% | -9.2% |
| Change from November of 2019 (Units): | -162 | 36 | -126 |
Annual Totals
| Shipments | Singles | Multis | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total for 2020 YTD: | 6,762 | 7,850 | 14,612 |
| Change from 2019 (%): | -0.7% | 4.2% | 1.9% |
| Change from 2019 (Units): | -51 | 319 | 268 |
Charts
Here are the annual totals for manufactured home shipments in Texas from 2012 through 2019.