Texas Manufactured Housing Sales in February 2021 and March Early Read

Tuesday, May 18, 2021 1:03:38 PM

March Preliminary Data

New home sales for March titled to date are running just -3% behind the 10-year series high posted in 2019, so retailers appear to have had a very good March much like the manufacturers did. The comparison to 2019 is informative as the percentage change from February of 2021 and from March of 2020 are both impacted by the Uri and COVID-19 titling and sales impacts that occurred in those months.

Sales of new single-section homes appear to have beaten multi-section sales in February for the first time since January of 2020, and March is following suit with single-section sales making up 53.3% of sales so far.

Unprecedented consumer interest, elevated materials prices, and supply-chain disruptions continue to cause upward price pressure, but manufacturers are reporting that improved productivity should bring their backlogs lower.

The first forecast for new manufactured home sales in March is 1,582 +/- 185.

New SalesSinglesMultisTotal
Total for March: 565 496 1,061
Change from February (Raw %): 76% 72.2% 74.2%
Change from February (Raw Units): 244 208 452
Change from February (SA %): 20.6% 28.8% 28.6%
Change from March of 2020 (%): 40.5% 5.1% 21.4%
Change from March of 2020 (Units): 163 24 187
Used SalesSinglesMultisTotal
Total for March: 170 92 262
Change from February (Raw %): 73.5% 91.7% 79.5%
Change from February (Raw Units): 72 44 116
Change from February (SA %): 28.8% 16.6% 20.1%
Change from March of 2020 (%): 33.9% 43.8% 37.2%
Change from March of 2020 (Units): 43 28 71

February Data

The impact of Winter storm Uri brought February new home sales down a seasonally adjusted -15.5% from January, and a -19.6% non-adjusted decline from last year’s all-time February peak.

The final forecast for new home sales in February moved up to 956 +/- 93.

New SalesSinglesMultisTotal
Total for February: 393 376 769
Change from January (Raw %): 6.2% -12.6% -3.9%
Change from January (Raw Units): 23 -54 -31
Change from January (SA %): -3.8% -21.8% -15.5%
Change from February of 2020 (%): -13.2% -25.4% -19.6%
Change from February of 2020 (Units): -60 -128 -188
New Home Characteristics for FebruarySinglesMultisTotal
Median Age of Home (Days): 109 108 109
Average Square Feet: 1,119 1,766 1,435
Top Five Counties for New InstallsTotalChange (MoM%)
Montgomery 38 26.7%
Liberty 37 -15.9%
Travis 36 -30.8%
Harris 29 45%
Bastrop 27 8%
Used SalesSinglesMultisTotal
Total for February: 141 73 214
Change from January (Raw %): -0.7% 12.3% 3.4%
Change from January (Raw Units): -1 8 7
Change from January (SA %): -21% 0.1% -16.1%
Change from February of 2020 (%): -31.9% 23.7% -19.5%
Change from February of 2020 (Units): -66 14 -52

Annual Totals

On the year new home sales are beating 2020 by 4.4% with most of the gains coming from an expansion in singe-section home sales. Using 2019 as a baseline without either a pandemic or a statewide artic freeze disruption, and 2021 is running -8.3% behind where sales were running back then.

The current forecast for new home sales for 2021 moved up to 15,551 +/- 1,387 after the inclusion of March sales to date.

New SalesSinglesMultisTotal
Total for 2021 titled to date: 1,627 1,624 3,251
Change from 2020 (%): 8.9% 0.2% 4.4%
Change from 2020 (Units): 133 3 136
New Home Characteristics for 2021SinglesMultisTotal
Median Age of Home (Days): 103 101 102
Average Square Feet: 1,108 1,778 1,443
Top Five Counties for New InstallsTotalChange (YoY%)
Liberty 162 21.8%
Travis 160 61.6%
Montgomery 144 -5.9%
Harris 132 -3.6%
Bexar 111 35.4%
Used SalesSinglesMultisTotal
Total for 2021 titled to date: 542 268 810
Change from 2020 (%): -2.7% 26.4% 5.3%
Change from 2020 (Units): -15 56 41

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.

New Sales MonthSinglesMultisTotal
January 416 497 913
Used Sales MonthSinglesMultisTotal
January 171 79 250

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2021-05-17. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

Charts

This first chart shows what monthly sales totals look like for each year in the series for titles processed through 5-17.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2021-05-17. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

The second chart shows monthly totals at the official release date for each month. All of these totals have moved up since release, and the most recent totals can be seen in the chart below this one.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2021-05-17. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

The third 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 2021-05-17. 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 2021-05-17. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

The fifth chart is the annual median for the number of days between a homes 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 2021-05-17. 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 2021-05-17. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.