Texas Manufactured Home Shipments in April 2020
April
Manufactured home shipments came in at their lowest April total in the last seven years as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic drastically reduced the run rates of the state’s factories. Both single-section and multi-section homes shipments were down -26.5% percent and -21.9% respectively from March, and were down a combined -12.8% from April of 2019.
The total of 1,135 homes shipped was 342 homes off of our model’s forecast of 1,477 homes last month. This over estimation was expected as the model only takes into account past totals and builds a forecast based off of seasonality and detected trend. To highlight just how drastic April’s contraction was though, the lower bound for the 95% confidence interval from last month’s forecast was 1,187, so the actual came in 52 homes below that.
Looking forward to May, it is interesting to note how the models forecast has changed over the course of the past two months. When we originally released our March forecast, the model projected 1,519 homes to be shipped in May. With March and April data now included, the point forecast for May has dropped to 1,372 homes, a reduction of 147 projected shipments.
May will be a critical month to see how the industry is navigating the current economic conditions. We know that factories came into this event with healthy backlogs, but as those orders were cleared through the past several weeks we don’t currently have a good line of sight into new orders.
TMHA’s Manufactured Home Builders Index finished May up 25.2% from where it closed at the end of April. The aggregate MH equity gains were higher than the broader construction market and much higher than the overall equity market, so investors certainly think the future is looking brighter for MH.
In the future, we will also have survey data in place to incorporate and help better judge whether our time-series model is too optimistic or not. If you are the GM or sales manager of an MH plant in the great state of Texas that has not agreed to participate in our project with the Texas A&M Real Estate Center, I encourage you to reach out to me at rob@texasmha.com and come on aboard.
| Shipments | Singles | Multis | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total for April: | 511 | 624 | 1,135 |
| Change from March (%): | -26.5% | -21.9% | -24% |
| Change from March (Units): | -184 | -175 | -359 |
| Change from April of 2019 (%): | -16% | -10% | -12.8% |
| Change from April of 2019 (Units): | -97 | -69 | -166 |
Annual Totals
| Shipments | Singles | Multis | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total for 2020 YTD: | 2,598 | 2,983 | 5,581 |
| Change from 2019 (%): | 7.5% | 15% | 11.4% |
| Change from 2019 (Units): | 181 | 389 | 570 |
Charts
Here are the annual totals for manufactured home shipments in Texas from 2012 through 2019.