| The U.S. House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed a revised housing package by a vote of 396-13, marking a significant step forward in Congress’ efforts to address the nation’s housing supply and affordability challenges. Consistent with the Senate-passed bill in March, the legislation includes several key provisions that directly support the expansion of manufactured housing, including a full title dedicated to manufactured housing called “Manufactured Housing for America.” This reflects strong and growing bipartisan recognition of manufactured housing as essential to expanding housing supply and delivering attainable homeownership opportunities for American families.
Key Provisions Advancing Manufactured Housing:
• Modernizes home construction standards. The bill allows manufactured homes to be built with or without a permanent chassis, updating outdated statutory requirements and enabling greater innovation, design flexibility, and production scale.
• Reinforces HUD as the sole federal regulator. The legislation reaffirms HUD’s authority over manufactured housing construction and safety standards, ensuring a consistent national framework and avoiding duplicative or conflicting requirements that can increase costs and limit affordability.
• Advances zoning solutions to support manufactured home placement. The bill establishes a program for HUD to publish guidance and best practices for state and local zoning frameworks, with a focus on reducing regulatory barriers to a full range of housing types, including manufactured housing.
• Improves financing tools for new developments utilizing manufactured housing. The bill directs HUD to examine alternative construction financing draw schedules for manufactured and modular housing developers—helping align financing with factory-built housing, improve access to capital, and support increased production.
• Builds on the proven HUD Code model to support innovation. The bill authorizes a study on standardization in modular housing, reflecting the value of consistent, uniform construction standards, which is an approach already successfully demonstrated by the HUD Code. This study reinforces the cost, quality, and scalability advantages of manufactured housing and supports future policy improvements.
• Expands and modernizes FHA Title I financing for manufactured housing. The bill updates FHA’s Title I loan program, which provides federal insurance for personal property manufactured housing loans, to increase loan limits, expand eligible uses, and provide greater flexibility over time.
• Supports repairs and preservation of manufactured housing through direct homeowner assistance. The bill establishes a pilot program that provides grants directly to low-income homeowners, including manufactured housing homeowners, to fund critical home repairs, while also offering loans to small landlords. This helps preserve existing affordable housing stock and improve living conditions for residents.
• Incentivizes policies that expand housing supply, including manufactured housing. The bill creates a competitive “Innovation Fund” to reward states and local governments that increase housing production and reduce regulatory barriers, including those affecting manufactured housing, encouraging policies that support greater placement and supply.
• Addresses barriers to small-dollar mortgage lending. The bill directs federal regulators to evaluate and address barriers to originating smaller mortgage loans, aiming to improve access to financing for lower-cost homes and support more efficient loan origination. Because manufactured housing often falls within lower loan amounts, these efforts could help more buyers secure affordable financing and expand pathways to homeownership.
• Exempts manufactured housing from institutional investor restrictions. The bill explicitly exempts manufactured housing from the institutional investor ban provision, preventing policies aimed at other segments of the housing market from disrupting the unique financing and ownership structure of manufactured housing. This outcome protects access to capital and supports the continued growth and stability of the industry
The inclusion of these provisions reflects growing bipartisan alignment around the role of manufactured housing as a scalable, proven solution to the nation’s housing affordability challenges. Read MHI’s letter to House leadership and letter of support sent prior to House debate and vote. Full bill text, a one-pager from the House Financial Services Committee, and a section-by-section summary of the package from the House Financial Services Committee are available online.
MHI is grateful to House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill (R-AR), Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-CA), Housing and Insurance Subcommittee Chairman Mike Flood (R-NE), and Ranking Member Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) for their leadership and continued support of manufactured housing. During House floor consideration of the legislation on Tuesday, Chairman Flood and Ranking Member Cleaver talked about the provisions in the package to advance manufactured housing as a critical solution to expanding housing supply and improving affordability.
Following the House debate, the Trump Administration issued a Statement of Administration Policy which reiterates the Administration’s support for the amended 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act and urges the Senate to take up and pass this bill. The legislation now returns to the Senate for consideration where it stands a strong chance of passage. MHI will continue working with Congress and the Administration to enact a final package that strengthens the role of manufactured housing in expanding housing supply and delivering affordable homeownership opportunities for American households. |
