Weekly Real Estate News
Summary
New October 26 Realtor.com research, drawing on Land Use Labs data covering roughly two-thirds of U.S. jurisdictions, estimates 17% of zoned land explicitly allows manufactured-home parks. Study ranks Hartford, Denver and Allentown highest for potential manufactured-home opportunity. The enacted 2026 housing law removes the permanent-chassis requirement, but local zoning remains decisive.
Only about 17% of zoned land in the areas covered by a national land-use dataset expressly permits manufactured-home parks, according to a new housing analysis released Monday. The finding exposes a local obstacle to a federal push to make factory-built homes cheaper and easier to finance.
The October 26 Realtor.com study examines where manufactured homes could help replenish the shrinking supply of entry-level houses. Its conclusion is qualified: the 17% estimate comes from Land Use Labs data covering roughly two-thirds of U.S. jurisdictions, rather than a complete parcel-by-parcel survey of the country. The measure concerns land explicitly zoned for manufactured-home parks; it does not establish that manufactured homes are prohibited on every other parcel.
That distinction matters as federal policy changes. The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, enacted in July, removed the permanent steel chassis requirement from the federal definition of a manufactured home. The change can allow a factory-built home to be installed with a different appearance and design. It does not automatically override local zoning, subdivision requirements or land-use approvals.
Realtor.com senior economist Joel Berner argues that the chassis change may make manufactured homes more acceptable in communities that have traditionally treated them as a separate, lower-status housing type. Whether cities will revise their rules remains an open question.
Where the potential is greatest
Realtor.com ranked 100 metropolitan markets using three factors: the share of listings priced at or below 80% of the metro’s median listing price, the median price of land per acre, and the price premium for new site-built construction compared with existing homes. The ranking is an assessment of potential opportunity, not a forecast of actual manufactured-home deliveries.
| Metro | Starter-home share | New-construction premium per square foot |
|---|---|---|
| Hartford, Connecticut | 17.9% | 29.1% |
| Denver, Colorado | 8.4% | 2.2% |
| Allentown, Pennsylvania–New Jersey | 22.9% | 33.6% |
| Albuquerque, New Mexico | 19.0% | 9.9% |
| Colorado Springs, Colorado | 13.7% | 8.1% |
Hartford ranked first, followed by Denver, Allentown, Albuquerque and Colorado Springs. The full top 10 also included Albany, Rochester, Syracuse, Spokane and Worcester. The list is dominated by smaller Northeastern and Western markets where site-built homes can be expensive relative to available land or entry-level supply is thin.
Some of those markets already allow manufactured homes in ordinary residential settings. Others impose minimum building dimensions or limit placement to designated parks. Realtor.com cites Albany’s broad restrictions and certain Colorado municipalities’ minimum footprints as examples of rules that may constrain smaller factory-built houses.
Local governments can raise legitimate questions about utility connections, street access, foundations and neighborhood design. But those concerns must be assessed against the specific homes proposed and the standards governing them. A blanket exclusion based on the appearance of older mobile homes may not describe the new chassis-free designs contemplated by federal law.
The price difference comes with financing qualifications
Realtor.com’s study cited an April median price of $134,800 for new manufactured homes and a September median of $150,000 for mobile-home resale listings that include land and improvements. Those are different product groups and should not be compared as a clean new-versus-used price series.
The report offered an illustrative $200,000 manufactured-home purchase with 3% down and a 7.4% interest rate. The estimated monthly principal-and-interest payment was $1,343. The example assumes mortgage-style financing for a home on owned land; it does not include every ownership expense and does not describe what every buyer will qualify for.
Buyers purchasing only the manufactured unit, without the land beneath it, may instead need a personal-property or chattel loan. Those loans can carry different interest rates, terms and consumer protections. That financing divide can erode part of the headline cost advantage.
By comparison, the study estimated a $2,715 monthly principal-and-interest payment for a site-built home priced at $419,250 with a $27,100 down payment at the same assumed rate. The scenarios illustrate the scale of possible savings, although differences in home size, land ownership, taxes and insurance prevent a like-for-like comparison.
Federal standards are still being developed
The enacted federal housing law requires additional work on standards and state treatment of homes without permanent chassis. HUD has scheduled its Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee to meet October 27–28 to discuss chassis-removal requirements and state certifications, according to an October 14 Federal Register notice. A committee discussion is not itself a final construction standard.
The White House’s October 22 housing-cost order also established a task force intended to coordinate manufactured-housing policy across agencies. WRE previously reported the broader mortgage-cost executive order and an early chassis-free manufactured-home development. Monday’s Realtor.com research adds a separate question: where could homes built under the evolving standards actually be placed?
The answer will depend on local ordinances and state implementation as much as factory production. For builders, lenders and housing agencies, the practical next step is to examine whether zoning and mortgage eligibility rules match the homes now permitted under federal law. The 17% figure identifies a potentially large restriction in the surveyed jurisdictions, but it does not measure how quickly any community will change its rules or how many new homes those changes would produce.
