The need for quality, affordable housing has never been greater. Today’s manufactured homes can
deliver outstanding quality and performance at prices ranging from 10 to 20 percent less per square
foot than conventional site-built homes. These savings allow more and more Americans to own their
own home, even in the face of an ever-widening housing affordability gap.

The affordability of manufactured housing can be attributed directly to the efficiencies emanating from
the factory-building process. The controlled construction environment and assembly-line techniques
remove many of the problems encountered during traditional home construction, such as

poor weather, theft, vandalism, damage to building products and materials, and unskilled labor. Factory
employees are trained and managed more effectively and efficiently than the system of contracted labor
employed by the site-built home construction industry.

Today’s manufactured homes have experienced a major evolution in the types and quality of homes
being offered to buyers. Technological advances are allowing manufactured home builders to offer a
much wider variety of architectural styles and exterior finishes that will suit most any buyer’s dreams,
all the while allowing the home to blend in seamlessly into most any neighborhood. Two-story and
single-family attached homes are but two of the new styles being generated by factory-built innovation.
As a result, today’s manufactured homes are offering real housing options for the neglected suburban
and urban buyers.

At the same time, greater flexibility in the construction process allows for each home to be customized
to meet a buyer’s lifestyle and needs. Interior features now include such features as vaulted ceilings
and working fireplaces to state-of-the-art kitchens and baths, giving the homebuyer all the features
found in traditional, site-built homes. Enhanced energy efficiency in manufactured homes, achieved
with upgraded levels of insulation and more efficient heating and cooling systems, provide another
source of savings for homeowners, especially in this era of rising energy costs. Smart buyers are turning
to EnergyStar-labeled manufactured homes for substantial savings in many aspects of owning and
operating a home.

Technological advances, evolutionary designs, and a focus on delivering quality homes that families
can afford are the driving forces within the manufactured housing industry. That’s why more people are
turning to manufactured housing to deliver homes that fit their needs and wants, at prices they can
afford!

Mobile Homes Communities

Understanding Today’s Manufactured Housing

IMPACT OF MANUFACTURED HOUSING ON LOCAL COMMUNITY SERVICES

Some local government officials have discouraged the use of manufactured housing in their community
because of the belief that the tax revenue from manufactured housing is less than site-built homes and
therefore will not be enough to offset the cost of additional local government services (e.g. schools,
roads, sewers, etc.). Obviously, all housing developments, whether they are site-built or manufactured,
have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis as to their impact on services, but it is unfair to
characterize manufactured housing as not paying its fair share.

Where manufactured homes are titled as real property, those homeowners are assessed property taxes
at the same rate as the owners of site-built homes,so they are paying their fair share. And many people
also do not understand that in the case of land-lease communities, the homeowners pay taxes on the
house and the community owner pays property taxes on the land. Some community owners also pay
taxes to the local government on the rental income derived from the community. Also, since most streets
and utilities in land-lease communities are installed and maintained by the developer, local governments
are spared the cost of installation and maintenance of this infrastructure.

The bottom line is that manufactured housing gives many people the chance to join the ranks of
homeowners for the first time and therefore increases the overall home ownership rate in the community.
That translates into more tax revenue and economic vitality for local governments.