Though much less expensive to produce and purchase, manufactured housing is also much less common than site-built single-family homes in the U.S.
For this reason, wider adoption of manufactured homes has been identified as one among many proposals for alleviating the affordable housing shortage in the U.S.
An omnibus bipartisan housing bill passed by the U.S. Senate as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, now awaiting reconciliation with the House of Representatives, specifically calls for expanding financing and market access for manufactured and modular homes.
If passed, for example, one of bills bundled in the Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream (ROAD) to Housing Act of 2025 would direct the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to update its definition of “manufactured housing” to include modular and other prefabricated units not built on a permanent foundation or “chassis.”
A separate bill in the ROAD Act would direct HUD to expand eligibility for mortgage financing on factory-built housing through the HUD-administered Federal Housing Administration.
At approximately 7.9 million units nationwide, manufactured housing comprises just 5.4% of total U.S. housing stock. In certain markets around the country, however, manufactured homes play a disproportionate role in plugging the affordable housing gap.
The average new manufactured home sold for just over $123,000 in 2024 — less than half the national median home price, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data conducted by StorageCafe, a storage space listing platform operated by property analytics and technology provider Yardi Systems.
Mesa, Ariz., leads U.S. cities with 29,000 manufactured housing units. Phoenix is second with 20,000 units, followed by Jacksonville, Fla., with 15,000.
In Mesa, that represents 13% of the city’s overall housing stock, while in Phoenix and Jacksonville it represents just 3%.
Largo, Fla., and Hemet, Calif., have the largest share of manufactured housing among total housing stock at 28% and 21% respectively, followed by Yuma, Ariz., Lakeland, Fla., and Port Orange, Fla., all at 17%.
The common misconception that manufactured homes do not appreciate commensurate with site-built units, lending manufactured homes the illusion of being poor long-term assets that shed resale value, does not bear out in federal housing data.
According to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which regulates government-sponsored mortgage investors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, manufactured homes and site-built homes have appreciated at roughly the same rate from the first quarter of 2000 to the second quarter of 2025, up 219.1% and 219.9%, respectively.
A research note published in October by the Urban Institute, a national housing policy think tank, called this trend “strong evidence that this negative perception of home price appreciation is false,” underscoring how manufactured homes have seen higher annual appreciation than site-built homes “in nearly every quarter” over the past decade.
Urban Institute’s analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data revealed that mortgage applications for manufactured homes were rejected at a rate of 57.8% in 2024 compared to site-built denial rates of just 10%, highlighting barriers to financing expanded adoption.
At the state level, manufactured housing is prevalent in the South, including Florida, Texas and North Carolina.
At 824,000 units, manufactured homes make up slightly less than 8% of Florida’s total housing stock, according to the StorageCafe analysis. The 776,000 units in Texas make up 6.2% of that state’s total housing stock.
North Carolina has about 525,000 manufactured homes, representing more than 10% of the state’s housing stock. Around 12% of total housing stock in South Carolina and Alabama, and 7.4% in Georgia, is manufactured housing.
With more than 507,000 units in California, manufactured homes comprise just 3.4% of the state’s roughly 15 million housing units but provide the greatest sale-price savings nationwide. The average new manufactured home in California sold for $167,000 in 2024 compared to the overall average home price of $759,500, according to StorageCafe.
