Texas Manufactured Housing Sales in January 2021 and February Early Read

Tuesday, April 20, 2021 12:07:43 PM

February Preliminary Data

February new manufactured home sales took an unusual decline due to Winter Storm Uri with a seasonally-adjusted drop of -14.5% from January, and a similar -14.4% decline from February of 2020. Sales typically move up from January to February which is why the seasonal-adjustment pulled the raw -7.4% change lower.

With next month’s release we’ll have moved into year-over-year comparisons against pandemic lockdown months so those numbers will look quite inflated, but if we look back at 2019, March sales for 2021 titled so far are trailing that year by -17.2%.

March of 2019 is the series peak for the month in now our tenth year of title tracking.

The year-over-year comparisons are highly sensitive to the number of business days that TDHCA has been open to process titles when looking this early, so we’ll have a clearer picture of how 2021 really compares in a month’s time.

The first forecast for new manufactured home sales in February is 925 +/- 179. The point forecast marks a -24% decline from where February of 2020 ended up.

New SalesSinglesMultisTotal
Total for February: 323 288 611
Change from January (Raw %): 5.2% -18.4% -7.4%
Change from January (Raw Units): 16 -65 -49
Change from January (SA %): -3.1% -19.6% -14.5%
Change from February of 2020 (%): -11.5% -17.5% -14.4%
Change from February of 2020 (Units): -42 -61 -103
Used SalesSinglesMultisTotal
Total for February: 98 48 146
Change from January (Raw %): 21% 2.1% 14.1%
Change from January (Raw Units): 17 1 18
Change from January (SA %): -9.9% -5% -9.7%
Change from February of 2020 (%): -38.4% 9.1% -28.1%
Change from February of 2020 (Units): -61 4 -57

January Data

January new home sales moved up a seasonally-adjusted 6% from December, but were down approximately -9.7% from January of 2020.

The final forecast for new home sales in January is 994 +/- 91.

New SalesSinglesMultisTotal
Total for January: 370 432 802
Change from December (Raw %): -10.4% -18.8% -15.1%
Change from December (Raw Units): -43 -100 -143
Change from December (SA %): 12.6% 1% 6%
Change from January of 2020 (%): -17.8% -1.4% -9.7%
Change from January of 2020 (Units): -80 -6 -86
New Home Characteristics for JanuarySinglesMultisTotal
Median Age of Home (Days): 110 106 109
Average Square Feet: 1,098 1,770 1,460
Top Five Counties for New InstallsTotalChange (MoM%)
Travis 53 -1.9%
Liberty 44 -2.2%
Montgomery 31 -18.4%
Bexar 26 -38.1%
Bastrop 25 -13.8%
Used SalesSinglesMultisTotal
Total for January: 142 66 208
Change from December (Raw %): -15% -24.1% -18.1%
Change from December (Raw Units): -25 -21 -46
Change from December (SA %): -4.4% 3.8% -1.8%
Change from January of 2020 (%): -6.6% -1.5% -5%
Change from January of 2020 (Units): -10 -1 -11

Annual Totals

The annual sales totals include March sales that have been titled thus far, so despite two down months compared to 2020, March will pull Q1 2021 over 2020.

The current forecast for new home sales for 2021 is being pulled down by the lowered sales of the first two months of the year and is at 14,553 +/- 1,885. That should move upwards after March data begins to be incorporated into the model next month.

New SalesSinglesMultisTotal
Total for 2021 titled to date: 1,019 944 1,963
Change from 2020 (%): 1% 0.5% 0.8%
Change from 2020 (Units): 10 5 15
New Home Characteristics for 2021SinglesMultisTotal
Median Age of Home (Days): 109 100 105
Average Square Feet: 1,109 1,771 1,428
Top Five Counties for New InstallsTotalChange (YoY%)
Travis 111 79%
Liberty 94 34.3%
Montgomery 93 -14.7%
Harris 79 -14.1%
Bexar 71 47.9%
Used SalesSinglesMultisTotal
Total for 2021 titled to date: 314 147 461
Change from 2020 (%): -14.7% 13.1% -7.4%
Change from 2020 (Units): -54 17 -37

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2021-04-19. 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 4-19.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2021-04-19. 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 2021-04-19. 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 2021-04-19. 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 2021-04-19. 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 2021-04-19. 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 2021-04-19. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.