Texas Manufactured Housing Sales in September 2021 and the October Early Read

October Preliminary Data

New manufactured home sales titled to date moved down sharply in October falling -14.2% from September in raw terms and down -11% after seasonally-adjustment. Compared to October of 2020, sales for the month were down -23.2%, but 2020 sales were supercharged as the economy picked up steam after the COVID-19 induced lockdowns and consumers had received stimulus funds.

The forecast for new home sales in October based on the sales titled to date is 1,207 (+/- 179). That would be the lowest October sales total since 2016.

As titles continue to come in we will see how sales ultimately ended up, but with google search trend data for “mobile homes for sale” spiking in October and November it’s possible that lack of inventory was the issue as opposed to a softening of consumer demand.

September Data

September new home sales titled to date moved up a seasonally-adjusted 6.4% over the preceding month with single-section sales leading the way with a 13.6% increase over August.

Sales did not keep pace with 2020’s total and were down -5.3% from September of last year.

The updated forecast for total new homes sold in September moved up to 1,420 (+/- 95).

Annual Totals

New home sales for the year have officially moved under 2020 levels as the last month of title work has been incorporated into the dataset.

The current forecast for new home sales on the year moved down to 15,958 (+/- 316).

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 2021-12-15. 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 12-15.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2021-12-15. 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 2021-12-15. 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 2021-12-15. 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 2021-12-15. 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 2021-12-15. 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 2021-12-15. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

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