Texas Manufactured Housing Sales in February 2023 and the March Early Read

March Preliminary Data

New manufactured home sales in March for titles issued to date remained elevated on the year coming in a seasonally adjusted +0.1% over the previous month. New home sales are up +9.2% from March of 2022, with both single-section and multi-section sales above March of last year.

The forecast for new homes sold in March based on sales titled to date is 1,595 (+/- 101). One year ago, new home sales for March ultimately came in just above the 1,600 homes mark, and 2023 has a good shot at hitting that level too.

With the additional sales data, the median age for new homes sold on the year moved down from where it was last month for both multi-section and single-section sales. That’s a good sign that elevated inventory levels are starting to decline.

February Data

New home sales titled to date for February are up a seasonally adjusted +0.8% from the previous month and are up +8.1% from February of 2022. Single-sections sales are on pace to beat multi-section home sales for the first month since February of 2021.

The updated forecast for total new homes sold in February moved down slightly with the additional titling data to 1,158 (+/- 100). The entire prediction interval for forecasted new home sales remains above shipments for the month, so if January doesn’t mark the first month for sales to beat shipments, February should.

Annual Totals

New home sales for 2023 are up +7.8% over 2022 for all retail sales titled through this point in the calendar year.

Install counties with the most additional new home placements over last year are currently Harris, Montgomery, Ector, Wise, Brazoria and Cameron.

Mailing address cities with the most new home placements over last year are Odessa, Houston, Conroe, Austin, and Brownsville.

The forecast for new home sales on the year moved up to 16,650 (+/- 1,700).

Because titles continue to come in for past sales months, here are all prior months for the year and what their current sales totals are at this report release.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2023-05-15. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

Charts

The first chart shows monthly sales totals for each year with only titles processed through 5-15.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2023-05-15. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

The second chart shows monthly totals at the official release date for each month. All of these totals have moved up since release, and the most recent totals can be seen in the chart below this one.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2023-05-15. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

The third chart is all sales data in the series to date with single-section and multi-section home totals plotted.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2023-05-15. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

This chart tracks the difference between shipments and sales each month. Because late title work pushes recent sales totals up, I’m including data through the previous officially released sales month. Retail sales have not beaten shipments in any month since July of 2021.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2023-05-15. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

Here are the 12-month moving averages for shipments and retail sales through January sales. Because late title work pushes recent sales totals up, I’m including data through the previous officially released sales month, but the last several months will move up as title work continues to be processed.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2023-05-15. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

This chart displays the annual median for the number of days between a home’s date of sale and it’s date of manufacture. Prior to 2/22/21 this chart included sales from manufacturers to communities, it now only includes sales from licensed retailers.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2023-05-15. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

The final chart is for all used monthly retail sales data. The outliers are typically the result of community purchases were titles move from the previous to the new MHC owner.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2023-05-15. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

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