Texas Manufactured Home Shipments in May 2020
May
May manufactured housing shipments moved up slightly over April and the gains were better than the raw totals suggest. With the Memorial holiday and the month starting on a Friday, May had two less production days than April and two less than May of 2019.
The rate of homes shipped per day moved up to 57 homes after bottoming at 52 last month. Part of the run rate increase was due to an expansion in single-section homes shipped and the larger share of the total they represented. The raw total of multi-section shipments moved down from last month.
If we add two additional days of May’s run rate to the total homes shipped and then compare that to last month, May would have been up 10.7%, and the year-over-year decline from May of 2019 would have been -13.5% rather than the -21.3% we see in the raw totals. The short month is pulling the comparisons down and masking some of the improvement from last month.
Looking forward to June, we’re forecasting 1,233 shipments for this past month.
Seasonal trends tend to pull shipments down starting in June, but this year the month will have two additional production days over May and we’re hearing from several member manufacturers that their run rates were picking up, so take the over against the model.
In other positive news, the MHBI finished the month up over May, and from the demand side, the new homes titled per day rate moved up to 75, its highest total since it registered 78 in January to start the year. The title rate was above June of 2019’s 73 homes a day.
I’ve built out a new interactive chart below that gives a better since of where shipments are currently landing compared to past years.
COVID-19 cases have picked up in Texas over the past few weeks, so there is still a lot of uncertainty out there about where our economy is headed.
I hope you all stay safe, stay healthy, and have a great Fourth of July weekend!
| Shipments | Singles | Multis | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total for May: | 540 | 602 | 1,142 |
| Change from April (%): | 5.7% | -3.5% | 0.6% |
| Change from April (Units): | 29 | -22 | 7 |
| Change from May of 2019 (%): | -23.3% | -19.5% | -21.3% |
| Change from May of 2019 (Units): | -164 | -146 | -310 |
Annual Totals
| Shipments | Singles | Multis | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total for 2020 YTD: | 3,138 | 3,585 | 6,723 |
| Change from 2019 (%): | 0.5% | 7.3% | 4% |
| Change from 2019 (Units): | 17 | 243 | 260 |
Charts
Here are the annual totals for manufactured home shipments in Texas from 2012 through 2019.