This category covers establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing mobile homes and nonresidential mobile buildings. These units are generally more than 35 feet long, at least 8 feet wide, and often are equipped with wheels. Trailers that are generally 35 feet long or less, 8 feet wide or less, and with self-contained facilities are classified in SIC 3792: Travel Trailers and Campers. Portable wood buildings not equipped with wheels are classified in SIC 2452: Prefabricated Wood Buildings and Components.
321991 (Manufactured Home (Mobile Home) Manufacturing)
After a decade of unprecedented growth in the 1990s, manufactured homes builders entered the new millennium with a thud, struggling through their worst time since emerging from the recreational vehicle industry in the 1960s. As the new millennium dawned, the largest manufactured home builders all reported a decrease in sales and profits resulting in closure of factories, industry layoffs, reduction in retail outlets, as well as the drying up of executive bonuses. In 2000, shipments of manufactured homes declined 28 percent to 250,550 and were down another 41 percent in the first quarter of 2001 compared to the same period of the previous year. Ninety manufactured home factories, about one quarter of all such factories, closed in 1999 and 2000 and several manufacturers were in bad shape financially, with one leading manufacturer filing for bankruptcy.
A number of factors contributed to the downturn in the industry. The chief reason seemed to be the easy lending practices used to boost sales in manufactured homes. Lenders were allowing new buyers to acquire manufactured home with no money down and 20-30 year repayment periods, versus the traditional 12 to 15 years. This resulted in a plethora of unpaid debt and repossessions rose to an estimated 75,000 units in 2000. Repossessed homes went back on the market largely discounted, cutting deeply into new home sales, which plunged. Another factor was excess inventory, which at its height numbered 166,000 homes. The surge in growth in the late 1990s, which peaked with 373,000 shipments in 1998, caused a spurt of newly opened factories and retail outlets, which only added to the problem as demand lessened going into 2000. Finally, the tough economic climate in 2001 also affected the already beleaguered industry.
However, improved quality and design, increased size, low prices, and desirable financing continues to draw new customers to manufactured homes. More upscale consumers were attracted to mobile homes than ever, with one survey reporting that some 20 percent of mobile home owners were earning $60,000 or more. Some manufacturers reported increased sales in late 2002 and hoped sales would continue to pick up into 2003.
During the mobile home industry's beginning, its products answered the need of a small percentage of the American populace: temporary shelter primarily used by migrant farm workers and equally nomadic construction workers. Although these were not the only buyers of mobile homes, they did account for the bulk of the industry's sales and, consequently, limited the potential of the industry's future expansion. Because both of these market niches composed a negligible portion of the nation's consumer base and any significant increase in their size—at least in proportion to the rate of population growth—appeared unlikely, the mobile home industry seemed destined to remain a relatively small industry.
This restrictive quality inherent in the industry's market would not inhibit mobile home manufacturers for long, however. Once a product was made and marketed that could attract a more diverse clientele and fulfill a need overlooked by the traditional construction industry, sales would increase. But during the 1920s, when mobile homes were first emerging, and into the 1930s, as the industry began to take shape, sales figures remained unsubstantial.
The onset of World War II provided an unexpected boost for mobile home manufacturers, infusing the industry with production orders for military personnel shelters (essentially miniature barracks on wheels) and mobile housing for defense workers. By the conclusion of the war, mobile home manufacturers had several years of comparatively prodigious production levels, due primarily to defense contracts. As a consequence of this warrelated work, mobile homes had become familiar fixtures in many encampments across the country. Moreover, once the war ended, America had, in effect, a standing army: a new social class of military personnel subject to the sometimes itinerant demands of military life. Mobile homes afforded members of the armed forces—especially those with families—the housing flexibility that their frequent relocation orders required, supplying mobile home manufacturers with a new market niche for their products. Two years after the war, in 1947, the mobile home retail market neared $150 million in sales, garnered from the sale of 60,000 units.
The following year sales eclipsed $200 million and unit sales leapt to 85,000 as the mobile home industry began to show signs of dramatic growth. In 1949, however, optimism regarding the industry's growth potential faded. Retail sales for the year were a disappointing $122 million and unit sales plunged to 46,200.
As the industry entered the 1950s, it affected a recovery from the dismal showings of 1949, posting successive gains in annual sales until 1956, a year that would mark the beginning of a new era in the mobile home industry. Originally, the size of mobile homes varied in length, but always measured 8 feet in width to conform to the maximum width permissible by law for vehicles on highways. These homes, after all, were intended to be mobile. But in 1956, manufacturers first introduced 10-foot-wide models, or "10 wides," which quickly became the industry standard. By 1958, 10 wides accounted for 65 percent of the industry's shipments and two years later, represented more than 85 percent.
It rapidly became apparent to manufacturers that mobility was not the primary asset mobile homes offered consumers. Instead, consumers were attracted by their affordability. To be sure, mobility was still an important feature, but mobile home owners moved their units on average only once every two and a half years, becoming for many a semi-permanent dwelling, and for some a house on wheels that never moved. Further, mobile homes came from the factory equipped with all the basic domestic appurtenances homeowners or renters of conventional houses ordinarily would have to buy separately, a total package for the mobile home customer that came with a significantly lower price tag than a bare conventional home.
The size of the mobile home industry had reached respectable proportions by relying solely on the production of 8-foot-wide models, reaching $462 million in sales from the sale of 111,900 units in 1955, the last year in which 8-foot-wide models represented 100 percent of the mobile home market. Although 10 wides quickly dominated the market, their introduction did not initially spark an exponential increase in unit production or in the industry's overall revenues. They did, however, provide the industry with a more stable and potentially rewarding foundation on which to build. Newly married couples and those over 50 years of age became two of the industry's largest market segments, attracted by the affordability and flexibility mobile home housing offered at a time when both these components of the American populace were growing faster than the rate of population growth as a whole.
Along with these developments came the ills suffered by any industry whose target market has transformed into a more lucrative audience. For the mobile home industry these growing pains came in the form of increased competition during the late 1950s, as the low initial investment required to establish a mobile home manufacturing facility enabled hopeful entrepreneurs to enter the industry, causing the market to become saturated. This influx of small, single-plant manufacturers created considerable turmoil in the mobile home market in 1960 and 1961, when a number of small manufacturers failed and their inventories entered the market at panic prices. Units shipments for the industry fell from 120,500 in 1959 to 90,200 in 1961, and industry revenues dropped by roughly $100 million to $505 million.
The subsequent anxiety led to a period of industry consolidation during the early 1960s, as a handful of publicly owned conglomerates wrested control of the market from a scattered group of small, privately owned manufacturers through mergers and acquisitions. On the whole, however, the industry continued to be populated primarily by small, independent companies (the high cost of shipping mobile homes made large, centralized manufacturing consortiums impractical), but for the first time the industry's leaders were primarily comparatively larger, publicly held companies, such as Elkhart, Indiana's Skyline Homes; Dryden, Michigan's Champion Home Builders; New York's Divco-Wayne Corp.; and Redman Industries.
By 1963 the mobile home industry had recovered. Retail revenues stood at $862 million and unit sales topped 150,000, surpassing for the first time the figures recorded in 1959. By the following year, mobile homes accounted for one of every nine housing starts, with approximately 220 companies competing for the burgeoning business occasioned by the advent of 10 wides, which was finally coming to fruition six years later. Twelve-foot-wide mobile homes had been introduced two years earlier, in 1962, as the inevitable offshoot of 10 wides, garnering an encouraging 10 percent share of the industry's 1964 sales. "Double wides," the joining of two 10 wides to form a single unit, were also widely popular as the industry entered the mid-1960s, giving owners up to 1,000 square feet of living space.
The consolidation of the previous years left the five largest companies controlling 30 percent of the market, the demographics of which had changed considerably in the previous 20 years. Families in which the head of the household was older than 51 years of age represented 35 percent of all mobile home residents, but only 8 percent of these owners were retired. Nomadic construction and factory workers, once the mainstays of the mobile home market, accounted for 19 percent of mobile home ownership, yet were surprisingly outnumbered by professional and business people, who represented 25 percent of all owners.
Added to these changes in the composition of the mobile home market was the emergence of an entirely new market segment in the early 1960s—commercial and industrial customers. Businesses such as banks used mobile "offices" as temporary branch outlets, manufacturing companies requiring temporary additional space to execute contract work used mobile home structures, and school systems used mobile homes as portable classrooms. These mobile "home" structures were custom built or converted from existing mobile home units, requiring the retooling of production machinery that many of the larger mobile home manufacturers found disruptive to their assembly lines. Consequently, the smaller manufacturers in the industry benefited from the majority of the commercial and industrial business, building each structure according to the specifications required for its particular application. Although industrial and commercial business accounted for only 5 percent of the industry's total sales during the early and mid-1960s, the market was just opening up and promised to develop into a lucrative component of the mobile home industry.
By 1965 mobile homes accounted for one out of every 6.5 housing starts, representing 324,050 unit sales for the year, and total revenues for the industry exceeded $1.2 billion. The industry also demonstrated encouraging independence from the traditional housing market in the mid-1960s as it matured and began to stand on its own, rather than exist as an adjunct to the construction industry. With the end of its dependence on the cyclical housing market, the mobile home industry was buoyed by the deleterious economic conditions. Mobile home manufacturers reaped business from prospective home buyers unwilling to spend the amount of money required to build homes.
Toward the close of the 1960s, the optimism pervading the industry grabbed the attention of those outside the industry, leading to some fantastic and, in retrospect, starry-eyed predictions for the industry's future. Some of these futuristic visions were extrapolations of the diverse applications for which mobile homes were used during the late 1960s. One such use was as an alternative to low-cost housing, a housing need particularly well-suited for mobile homes, considering their affordability and mobility. In 1968 alone, three cities (Atlanta, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.) began employing mobile homes as temporary housing for individuals forced from their homes as a result of rehabilitation or redevelopment projects. Mobile homes, with their wheels removed, were also stacked on top of each other to form low-rise apartment complexes in Baltimore; Amherst, Massachusetts; and Michigan City, Indiana. From these utilizations, plans for mobile home "skyscraper" structures were born. Architects were swept up by the enthusiasm surrounding the industry, envisioning the creation of mobile modular homes that could be removed and reinserted into high-rise structures, trailing the migratory travels of the owner. Although such structures never materialized, their creation, at least on paper, was indicative of the promising conditions characterizing the mobile home industry in the late 1960s.
Entering the 1970s, the industry had enjoyed a decade of prodigious growth, expanding at an annual rate of 20 percent throughout the 1960s and at 30 percent in the last two years of the decade. Unit shipments in 1970 topped 400,000, representing one mobile home for every 4.5 conventional housing starts, and revenues for the industry approached $3 billion.
At this point in the industry's history, several characteristics demonstrated by the industry augured increased growth for mobile home manufacturers, although some potentially hazardous market conditions loomed in the near future. On the favorable side, the average price for a mobile home had increased only negligibly, from $5,600 to $6,000, throughout the 1960s, whereas single-family housing construction costs had risen sharply. This disparity was primarily due to the cheaper labor costs incurred by mobile home manufacturers than the wages construction contractors were obliged to pay, increasing the industry's grip on the under-$20,000 housing market. In fact, considering that mobile home units had increased in size since the introduction of 10 wides in 1956, yet had increased only marginally in price during the intervening years, the price per square foot had actually declined. Additionally, financing a mobile home, a process resembling the financing of an automobile, was made easier through the enactment of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, which permitted savings and loan associations to finance mobile home purchases.
The negative factors affecting the industry's future, however, were numerous. The most pressing was the decreasing space available for mobile homes. For the 400,000 units that entered the market in 1969, there were only an estimated 118,000 new mobile home park sites available, and the number of sites for future mobile home parks was scarce. Almost entirely relegated to rural areas, mobile home parks, in which roughly 80 percent of all mobile homes were parked, were generally not well respected by urban residential neighborhoods and were often banned from existing alongside conventional houses through zoning restrictions. This left mobile home manufacturers unable to respond to the urgent need for low-income housing—a large segment of the under-$20,000 housing market from which manufacturers derived almost all of their earnings—during the early 1970s. This additional business could have offset, in part, the mounting competition that continued to plague the industry, making market saturation an imminent reality. In 1969 alone, 110 new manufacturers joined the industry, attracted by the robust growth demonstrated by the industry and the low capital investment required to establish a mobile home manufacturing facility.
Despite the development of these conditions, the industry posted the most successful year in its history in 1972, recording remarkable production and sales volumes that would stand as benchmark figures for the rest of the decade. Unit shipments totaled 575,940 for the year and sales reached the $4-billion plateau, quelling observations that the industry was headed for less prosperous years. Two years later, the two decades of solid growth that had been marred only by several minor economic glitches came to a halt.
Unit shipments in 1974 plunged 42 percent and an additional 35 percent the next year to 212,690. Revenues in 1975 were $2.4 billion. The dramatic revenue spiral, however, did not reflect the actual extent of the losses incurred by the industry during these two years; artificially buoyed by soaring inflation, revenues in reality were lower than they appeared.
The losses suffered by the industry were severe and the reasons for the decline were manifold. Perhaps the single greatest contributing factor to the industry's demise was the economic downturn affecting the nation during this time. Unemployment rose and consumer income dropped, which threw a surfeit of repossessed mobile homes, more than 100,000, on the market. This, in turn, made financing a mobile home purchase more difficult, as the tight money conditions combined with the increasing size and price of mobile homes extended loan payback terms from 5 to 10 years, to 10 to 20 years. Because mobile homes depreciated in value, rather than appreciating like conventional houses, lenders were reluctant to provide loans, rejecting 60 percent of all mobile home loan applications during the two-year slump. Compounding these difficulties was the growing popularity of condominiums, which impinged on the mobile home market, eroding manufacturers' customer base further.
As a result of the losses sustained during this period, the proliferation of manufacturing facilities that preceded the recession (a net total of 295 plants had sprouted up between 1969 and 1973) was halted, then reversed, when more than 40 percent of the 550 firms involved in the market went bankrupt. Production capacity dropped by 43 percent from 1973 levels, nearly matching the increase in capacity during the four years leading up to the downturn.
To affect a recovery, several measures were taken—some which were initiated by the mobile home industry itself, whereas others came through federal intervention. Internally, mobile home manufacturers increased their output of larger mobile homes, concentrating on 14-foot-wide models and double-wides. Quality control was also a problem, engendered, in part, by unscrupulous manufacturers entering the field in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Many of these companies failed during the recession, solving part of the problem, but the more reputable companies also intensified their efforts toward producing higher-quality mobile units. To increase consumer confidence further, the federal government established uniform building codes and warranty standards, mandates that made entry into the industry by unethical manufacturers more difficult.
The federal government also eased mobile home financing by permitting federally chartered credit unions, which historically were short-term lenders, to provide longer-term credit to mobile home buyers. Also, the Veterans Administration increased the loan guarantee limits for mobile homes from 30 percent to 50 percent.
These ameliorations led to a slow recovery of the mobile home industry. Because of their expanded size and better workmanship, mobile homes began to appreciate in value after the mid-1970s, and began to increase their presence in conventional housing neighborhoods, as zoning restrictions eased. In 1976 unit shipments increased 16 percent to 246,120, still far below the level recorded in 1972, but, nevertheless, an improvement from the successive, precipitous drops suffered during the previous two years.
Also aiding the industry's recovery was the escalating price of conventional housing. Between 1974 and 1978, the average price of a new house rose 61 percent from $38,900 to $62,500, and the average price of a mobile home in 1978 was $15,900. Mobile homes had actually increased at a greater rate than conventional houses during this period, leaping 71 percent from 1974's average price of $9,300, but the price disparity between the two housing choices was great enough to invigorate sales for mobile home manufacturers. In fact, the soaring costs of conventional houses attracted a new breed of mobile home customers by the end of the decade—middle class consumers.
Although these developments provided enough of an impetus to pull the industry out of its doldrums, a complete turnaround was not achieved, and growth of the industry remained stunted as it entered the 1980s. Unit shipments in 1980 were still well below half the total recorded in 1972 and even below the number of units shipped in 1976, the first year of the industry's recovery. After a 23 percent increase in 1983, unit shipments rose to 295,000, and topped 300,000 by the following year. Revenues during this period eclipsed the record year of 1972, peaking at $4.78 billion in 1983, and then dwindling down to slightly more than $4 billion a year for the rest of the decade.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, mobile homes were the fastest-growing type of housing during the 1980s, a distinction earned primarily from robust sales in the first half of the decade. The late 1980s were marked recessive conditions once again, causing unit shipments to decline, but mobile home manufacturers avoided significant losses as mobile homes continued to be the only housing alternative for many consumers.
In the 1990s, the once-threatened industry was finding its new direction. Manufacturers were negatively affected, though, by zoning codes that restricted where owners could locate their mobile home for permanent residence. However, by 1992, 22 states had outlawed "anti-mobile home" zoning restrictions, declaring them discriminatory. In the mid-1990s, there were 7.3 million manufactured homes in America, housing 18 million people, or about 7 percent of the nation's population. By the late 1990s, some 10 percent of the population lived in mobile homes. More than half of the owner-occupied homes were on rented land (in manufactured housing parks).
The $32-billion industry declined since its peak in unit shipments was reached in the 1970s, but it made a resurgence in the last half of 1990s. In 1999, there were only 88 manufactured home corporations, compared to 261 companies in 1982. However, those manufacturers were approaching the 400,000 mark in shipments exceeded in the 1970s. Unit shipments increased 7 percent between 1995 and 1996 and 5 percent between 1997 and 1998. In 1998, manufacturers shipped a total of 372,843 homes—only 197,000 units were shipped in 1992. Large multi-section homes (some with three bedrooms) accounted for 15 percent of shipments in the early 1970s. January through August 1999, they accounted for 64 percent of industry shipments, compared with just over 60 percent through August 1998.
Yet, the industry showed signs of slowing. In 1998, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 22.7 percent of single-family housing starts and 29.6 percent of new single-family homes sold were manufactured homes. These figures were down slightly from 23.8 percent and 30.5 percent, respectively, in 1997. Unit shipments January through August 1999 decreased 1.4 percent from the same period in 1998, mainly due to excess inventory.
The industry had been able to resurge in the mid- to late 1990s because it had virtually redefined its product. The old image of trailer parks, with metal-walled mobile homes and flat roofs, has been replaced, more or less, by an image of manufactured homes. Like the old mobile homes, a manufactured home is made in a factory and comes on its own chassis, with removable wheels that are taken off after it is trucked to its destination. But as Carlos Tejada reported in the Wall Street Journal, "Today's multi-section manufactured home takes pains to hide those origins, with wood exteriors, wood-framed windows, porches, and shingled, peaked roofs." Many manufactured homes are indistinguishable from site-built homes. In pricing, too, the industry has gone farther upscale. Where mobile homes sold for less than $10,000 a couple of decades ago, in 1997 a single-section manufactured home sold for an average of $29,000 and a multi-section home sold for an average of $49,500. Indeed, even the name "mobile home" is something of a misnomer, because more than 90 percent of manufactured homes are never moved from their original site. In fact, the term "mobile home" only applies to manufactured housing units built before the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) passed quality-assurance standards for this type of factory-built home in 1976.
Economics and demographics have played a part in the growth of manufactured housing. Manufactured homes typically cost just 20 to 50 percent of what traditional site-built homes do. This price advantage helped to attract first-time buyers, as well as retirees and "empty-nesters," who view the homes as an attractive option, either for a second vacation home or as a year-round residence. The availability of financing for manufactured homes, including longer loan terms, helped buyers. According to the Manufactured Housing Institute, other trends that contributed to industry growth included increased service-sector job creation in the Southeast and Southwest, improved construction quality and appearance, a population shift toward suburban and rural areas, and an increased ability to site homes in subdivisions. For all of these reasons, the surviving enjoyed solid financial performances in the late 1990s.
Due to the high costs associated with shipping mobile homes, manufacturing plants are generally located close to the market. Consequently, the industry's facilities dot the nation's landscape, with each manufacturing plant wedded, to a certain degree, to its surrounding market. The top five shipment states are Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina.
According to the Manufactured Housing Institute, "an average of 90 percent of manufactured home buyers would either recommend a manufactured home to their friends and family or would themselves buy another manufactured home." Despite this endorsement by homeowners, the industry's future growth requires shedding some of the stigmas still associated with mobile homes in the eyes of potential customers and, more importantly, in the perceptions held by American society. These stigmas include the perception that manufactured housing brings down the value of nearby site-built houses and that manufactured houses are of poorer quality and less safe than traditional houses. Although this may prove impossible, some headway had been made through legislation that has opened up more areas to placement of manufactured houses and, in 1999, the industry was involved in three initiatives to address the other issues. First, the industry supported federal legislation that would update the Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974 (HUD code) governing building technologies and safety features. Second, because "improper installation is thought to cause many of the problems and defects that are reported in manufactured homes," the industry was working with "states to pass laws that would require installation standards, training and licensing of installers and inspections." It also was developing installation systems. Third, the industry was working with several federal agencies "to improve manufactured home safety in natural disasters." Progress achieved in these initiatives should provide additional business to mobile home manufacturers in the twenty-first century.
According to the Census 2000 Supplementary Survey, the number of mobile homes in the United States grew 16 percent from 1990 to 2000, reaching some 9 million—double the amount of mobile homes in existence in 1980. The reasons included the improved quality and designs of manufactured homes. These mobile homes were now being built to resemble site-built homes, and the more attractive designs prompted many communities that once banned the structures to relax restrictions. Some of the newer designs incorporated features like a two-story structure, skylights, fireplaces, and some even had attached garages. Desirable financing and low cost also were reasons for popularity in mobile homes over the past decade.
As the result of such growth, however, the industry began to run into problems in late 1999. Shipments of manufactured homes dipped 28 percent in 2000 to 250,550 and showed a 41 percent decrease in the first quarter of 2001 from the same period one year ago. With lenders offering easy credit terms—some with no money down and payment spread over a 20- to 30-year period—some unqualified buyers were suddenly faced with repossession. Repossessions shot to 75,000 in 2000 and put all those mobile homes back into the market at greatly reduced prices. The glut of these used mobile homes appeared on the market as manufacturers already had an excess of new mobile home inventory of up to 166,000 homes from lenders eager to finance new homes in the booming industry. Together, these factors caused dealers to go out of business and manufacturers to lose money, close factories, and lay off workers.
The state with the largest percentage of mobile homes is South Carolina, claiming nearly one-fifth or 19 percent of the state's 1.7 million housing units in 2000 and nearly double the national average. South Carolina's 326,000 mobile homes were up by some 91,000 from 1990. North Carolina, Texas, and Georgia added more manufactured homes during the 1990s, but all had more than double the population of South Carolina. Poverty and the need for affordable housing accounted for the state's reliance on manufactured homes. The growing population was also a factor.
The industry leader in 2002 was Champion Enterprises, which had sales of $1.37 billion that year, an 11.4 percent decrease over the previous year. Coming back from near-bankruptcy several years ago, the company overtook Fleetwood Enterprises through acquisitions and internal growth. Champion closed seven acquisitions of competing firms between 1994 and early 1997, including a merger with Redman Industries. In 2002, the company was hoping to boost sagging sales by teaming up with National City Mortgage Co. of Cleveland to offer manufactured home and property loans through its Champion Home Center showrooms in the United States. The company manufactured homes at 40 plants in the United States and Canada and employed 10,600 people. It sold homes that ranged in cost from $15,000 to $150,000 and in size from 400 to 4,000 square feet, under the trade names A-1 Homes, Homes of America, and USA Homes.
Number-two Fleetwood Enterprises, which is also the leading maker of recreational vehicles in the United States, had total sales of $2.28 billion, and number-three Oakwood Homes Corporation had $926.6 million. Fleetwood's housing featured vaulted ceilings, walk-in closets, and porches. Oakwood sold single- and multi-section homes, with the brand names of Freedom, Golden West, Villa West, and Peachtree. The least expensive model was $15,000. The company's financial services subsidiary provided financing for some 85 percent of company sales. In 2003, the company announced that Fleetwood Homes of Arizona had built its ten thousandth home. By that year, Fleetwood Homes had sold more than 1 million homes in the United States.
Rounding out the top five manufactured home builders are Clayton Homes, with 2002 sales of $1.12 billion, and Cavalier Homes, with 2002 sales of $387.3 million. Clayton homes ranged in price from $10,000 to $90,000 and in size from 500 square feet to 2,400 square feet. The company sells more than 28,000 homes a year in 31 states and also provides financing and operates 75 manufactured home parks. Cavalier markets its low- to medium-priced homes mainly in the Southeast, Southwest, and Midwest, and it also provides financing services.
Bott, Jennifer. "Auburn Hills, Mich.-Based Manufactured Housing Maker Adds Financing Arm." Detroit Free Press, 15 August 2002.
Fetto, John. "Going Mobile." Forecast, 21, 3 September 2001.
"Fleetwood Homes of Arizona Celebrates the Building of Its 10,000th Home." PR Newswire, 17 February 2003.
Grey, Joseph. "Construction & Building Materials." Hoover's, March 2003. Available from http://www.hoovers.com .
Roberts, Chris. "South Carolina Tops List in Number of Manufactured Homes." State, 7 August 2001.
Stringer, Kortney. "How Manufactured-Housing Sector Built Itself Into a Mess—Easy Credit Led to Repossessions and Oversupply, As Lenders Then Shied Away." Wall Street Journal, 24 May 2001.
Tejada, Carlos. "Today's Mobile Home May Have a Hearth." Wall Street Journal, 14 June 1996.
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