Texas Manufactured Housing Sales in January 2020

January

New home sales in January started the year with the highest total in our nine-year data set. Single-section sales were up 13% over 2019 while multi-section sales were essentially flat.

The decline from December was not unexpected, as January is typically the lowest sales month of the year.

As we progress through these unprecedented times, the impact of the statewide lockdown is certainly effecting sales. Auto dealers and parts stores saw their March sales decline 26.5%, unemployment claims in Texas reached 374,656 at the end of March, and Fannie is projecting a 15% decline in existing home sales for 2020.

The impact is also effecting market data sources. The census has delayed their average MH sales price releases that we build our average new home pricing report from.

We have also seen the amount of titles issued per day drastically decline from TDHCA.

Titles issued per day from December through February were averaging 107 a day. In March that metric fell to 72, a level it hadn’t been at for a March since 2016.

April is currently tracking at 70 titles per day, which is the lowest for April on record and an ominous sign for March sales. In a typical year, roughly 50% of the titles for new home sales in March are issued by the end of April, and while it’s very early, new home sales in March are tracking well below their nine-year average for titles issued through April 16th.

These are not typical times, so there is certainly additional noise when making these year-over-year comparisons. We will continue to monitor, model, and report on the titles issued rate coming from TDHCA to help gleam anything we can about retail sales.

We have also built the Manufactured Home Builders Stock Index (MHBI) to help provide another leading indicator for the state of the market and will update it with each title and shipment release.

The median age for a new single-wide home sold in January was still historically high coming in just below last year’s median of 110 days. Multi-sections were a half day higher.

Montgomery County had a solid December to place it at the top of new home installations, while Hidalgo and Tarrant counties hopped into the top five with some large growth over December.

Used home sales were up year-over-year.

February Preliminary Data

The early look at February has new home sales down slightly from January and down -11% from February of 2019, which was the highest February total since reporting began in 2012.

December Revisions

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2020-04-16. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

Charts

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2020-04-16. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2020-04-16. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

Note: These calculations are based on titles processed by TDHCA through 2020-04-16. Late submissions will impact these figures going forward.

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