Factory Built Housing Facts

The century-old manufactured-housing industry and the facory built still competes with prices estimated at 20 percent to 25 percent lower than building on site and faster move-in time. And its housing remains a fixture of the highways, where trucks haul their wide loads -- half a home at a time -- to their locations. But the nation's housing slump and tighter lending standards for factory-built homes are forcing some changes that tilt toward more upscale buyers.

Fans of what's variously called "prefab" or "modular" or "manufactured" housing say the industry is poised for new growth as architects explore fresh designs and more people associate the housing style with higher standards, better energy efficiency and less construction waste. If so, benefits could spill over regionally, where four home-building factories -- three in Woodland and one in Sacramento -- are among California's 10 house manufacturing plants.

Definitions abound for this type of housing and can be confusing to buyers. "Manufactured" homes - the majority - are built to a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development code that industry experts say makes "a well-built" house. "Modular" or "prefab" homes are fewer in number but tend to be higher end, more expensive and conform to the state's stricter Uniform Building Code. It's the modular sector that's grabbing the most attention for cutting-edge design.

Behind the move are harder-to-get home loans for manufactured houses produced in California. (Last year, nearly 8 percent of the 107,000 new single-family houses built in the state were produced in factories.) Lenders are skittish about loaning to buyers of mobile homes and manufactured homes because so many defaulted in the 1990s after a run of easy credit. The lending crackdown has shrunk the industry nationally to about a third of its former production -- to about 117,000 houses a year from 350,000 -- said Lemley. Indeed, the industry's big publicly traded companies have seen their stock prices hammered just like the nation's biggest home builders.

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