Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/112125
MHARR VIEWPOINT Time for a Removable Chassis Option -- Part Two BY DANNY GHORBANI The February 2013 edition of the ���MHARR Viewpoint��� began an examination of the urgent need for a new class of manufactured homes with a purchaser-determined removable chassis option that would offer greater affordability, quality and overall value to homebuyers than other comparable types of housing. That analysis also addressed the history of past efforts to remove the outdated ���permanent chassis��� requirement while refuting (once again) the selfserving, predominately political arguments advanced by industry competitors, regulators and opponents to preserve that anti-consumer mandate ��� a mandate that excludes manufactured homes and manufactured housing consumers from the broader housing market while it stifles the superior technology and know-how the industry could use to provide outstanding, non-subsidized, affordable homes to an even larger segment of the American home buying public than it does today. Indeed, with the benefits (detailed below) that such an expanded choice of manufactured home types and designs would provide for consumers, it is difficult to fathom why any regulator, or other government decision-maker would want to deny homebuyers a class of removable chassis-optional manufactured homes that would face fewer challenges to purchase, site, install and finance than any of the alternatives currently available from any segment of the housing industry. Very simply, if the HUD Code, with the strong pillars and underpinnings provided in federal law to ensure both quality and affordability, combined with factory construction techniques, can offer consumers anywhere in the nation a safe, high-quality home MARCH 2013 12 THE JOURNAL at a better price than other types of housing ��� and there is no doubt that it can ��� then there is simply no legitimate policy argument for keeping such a home off the market. But refuting already discredited arguments (yet again) is only part of the story. The other, and more important part, involves showing all relevant stakeholders, including government decision-makers, homebuyers and industry members themselves, that an enhancement of the existing federal law to finally permit such a long overdue class of consumer-option removable chassis homes ��� homes that would unleash the pent-up design ingenuity and technological innovation that has been repressed for decades, homes that would open all the benefits and advantages of non-subsidized home ownership to a new group of Americans currently excluded or absent from the market, homes that would expand the range of homeownership choices for all Americans, and homes that would allow the industry to expand its market to encompass the entire spectrum of potential homebuyers -- is worth pursuing and achieving. Fortunately, in that regard, the benefits of consumer-option removable chassis manufactured homes -- for home buyers and ultimately the industry -- are too numerous to fully list and detail but, to provide just a few examples, a removable chassis option would: ��� Save homebuyers from $2,300 to $3,500 (net) on the cost of a new single-section manufactured home leaving the factory over the cost of the same home with a ���permanent��� chassis that, after installation, becomes at best a wasted, useless, non-functional appendage to the home, and from $5,000 to as much as $7,000 (net) on the cost of a double-section home leaving the factory, depending on whether the traditional chassis would have been factory-fabricated by the home manufacturer or purchased from a third-party fabricator; ��� Provide greater placement flexibility and value for homebuyers by making it easier and less costly to install a basement under a HUD Code home through reduced design and construction costs; ��� Expand the potential market for manufactured housing by opening it to new buyers who otherwise might not have considered a HUD Code home. This will become increasingly important in a market environment where rural ���scatter-lot��� sitings are experiencing strong growth and inner-city applications could (and should) become increasingly relevant as well (see below); ��� Establish manufactured housing as the only sector of the housing industry able to deliver a wide range of home designs and models, from the most basic single-section design to the most advanced multi-section home, conveniently, where needed, in the shortest period of time and at an affordable price;