Texas Manufactured Housing Sales in April 2024 and the May Early Read

May Preliminary Data

New manufactured home sales in May titled to date are currently down a seasonally-adjusted -8.5% from the previous month and are down -24.2% from May of 2023. The year-over-year comparison is going against the strongest May sales month in the post global financial crisis era, and the sequential comparison is going against the highest April sales total for titles processed to this point, but the monthly sales total is also trailing 2022, 2021, and 2019 sales.

We mentioned last moth that the heavy rainfall and flooding that occurred at the end of April and beginning of May in the north Houston area, would likely push down sales in May, and that appears to be the case. Harris and the surrounding counties have accounted for over 15% of new home installations so far on the year.

The forecast for total new homes sold in May based on sales titled to date starts at 1,349 (+/- 95). The upper bound of the prediction interval is well below the 1,625 shipment total for the month, so aggregate inventory looks to have expanded some more.

April Data

New home sales for April titled to date look much improved from the early release with the seasonally adjusted total now +0.4% from the previous month and the raw total up +19.5% from April of 2023.

The updated forecast for total new homes sold in April moved up with the additional titling data and is now at 1,477 (+/- 95). The upper bound of the prediction interval is below the shipment total for the month, so we expect there should be an increase in aggregate inventory for the month.

Annual Totals

New home sales for 2024 are now down -1.9% from 2023 for all retail sales titled through this point in the calendar. Single-section home sales are still running below 2023’s totals, while multi-section sales are still up.

At this point in the calendar for titles issued 2024 is only trailing last year’s sales total.

The forecast for new home sales on the year moved down for the third straight month to 15,789 (+/- 1,096).

The median age for multi-section homes sold in 2024 moved lower again.

Install counties with the most additional new home placements over last year are Parker, Bexar, Cherokee, Taylor, and Hutchinson.

Mailing address cities with the most new home placements over last year are Huffman, Tyler, Fritch, Abilene, and Midland.

Revised Monthly Totals

Because titles continue to come in for past sales months, here are all prior months for the year and what their current sales totals are at this report release.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2024-07-15. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

Charts

The first chart shows monthly sales totals for each year with only titles processed through 7-15.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2024-07-15. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

This chart is all sales data in the series to date with single-section and multi-section home totals plotted.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2024-07-15. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

This chart tracks the difference between shipments and sales each month. Because late title work pushes recent sales totals up, I’m including data through the previous officially released sales month.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2024-07-15. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

Here are the 12-month moving averages for shipments and retail sales through March. Because late title work pushes recent sales totals up, I’m including data through the previous officially released sales month, but the last several months will move up as title work continues to be processed.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2024-07-15. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

This chart displays the annual median for the number of days between a home’s date of sale and it’s date of manufacture. Prior to 2/22/21 this chart included sales from manufacturers to communities, it now only includes sales from licensed retailers.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2024-07-15. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

The final chart is for all used monthly retail sales data. The outliers are typically the result of community purchases were titles move from the previous to the new MHC owner.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2024-07-15. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

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