October 2018 Shipment Report

Manufactured home shipments for October moved up 17.3% from September to a total of 1,593 homes riding an increase in production days. Single-section homes were up 24.2% over the previous month and multi-section homes were up 11.1%.

Compared to 2017, there was a decrease of -5.2% for homes shipped in October. Single-section shipments were -27.9% below last October when FEMA units began coming into the state to support the Harvey relief effort. Multi-section shipments were up 39% over last October though and the state’s manufacturing plants built 2,008 total homes, marking the second highest total for the year, surpassed only by March’s 2,011 homes.

All in all, the FEMA units from last year obscure what is otherwise a very solid report. So far MH has not followed the national slowdown in sales of existing site-built homes that is also ocurring in Texas, but the state through September only had 2.8 months of inventory for existing homes under $200k.

With interest rates steadily rising we’ll continue to watch for signs of softening, as we reported last month new titles in September were tracking -26.9% below September of 2017, but the titles processed through last week show annual growth thus far for October.

The price of oil is also something to watch, WTI peaked for the year in the beginning of October at $76.41, and then fell to the lowest price this year of $50.29 at the end of November. Rig count in the Permian however continues to slowly expand.

View the Annual Manufacturer Shipment Report.