The Biden Administration’s regulatory onslaught continues, with almost no media coverage about the costs or consequences. A case in point is a new Department of Energy rule due to hit on May 31 that will make manufactured homes less affordable.
Some 22 million Americans live in manufactured homes, often called mobile homes, and their median household income is $35,000 a year. The average cost of a manufactured home ranges from $72,000 to $132,000, compared to $365,000 for a traditional house. Manufactured homes were about 9% of new single-family home starts in 2021, providing more than 100,000 affordable homes.
Yet they are also the only single-residence housing entirely regulated by the federal government, in part because they are transported around the country after factory production. The Department of Housing and Urban Development for decades oversaw construction, safety and efficiency standards for the units, but in 2007 House Democrats gave the Energy Department power to impose energy-efficiency mandates.