“Homes built in factories have long been stuck at the fringe of the U.S. housing market. Now, supporters are cheering a new federal housing law that should make it easier and cheaper to build modular and manufactured homes.

Modular homes are built in pieces at a factory and assembled on site, and they often appear quite similar to traditional, stick-built houses. Manufactured homes—often referred to as mobile homes or trailers—are built entirely at a factory and shipped whole to their destination.

The new law aims to slash some of the red tape associated with both these alternative housing types.

One provision, which removes the requirement that manufactured homes come with the permanent steel frame used for transporting the houses, means that they can be built for roughly $5,000 to $10,000 less than before, according to Andrew Justus, a housing policy researcher at the Niskanen Center.

For some homes, those savings to home buyers could equal more than 10% of the original cost.”

From Wall Street Journal.

“Here’s the state of play for housing heading into the latter part of 2026. The two weakest states coming into the year – Florida and Texas – have signs of life. In Florida, inventory is down and sales are up. In Texas, inventory is stable and Austin is quickly getting “less bad.”

Nationally, inventory levels are stable. There are still fewer homes for sale now than there were prior to the pandemic. Most of the North and Midwest never even had a slump and still don’t have enough homes. The rise in mortgage rates is holding back improvement but generally not making conditions worse.

Both homebuilders and apartment managers showed more optimism this quarter than they have in years. Builders have reason to believe incentives have finally peaked and profit margins have bottomed. For apartments, occupancy is up and there’s no glut of supply coming any time soon.

And at the high end of the market, stock market wealth means it doesn’t matter where mortgage rates are.

But pockets of weakness remain. Cities like Seattle are still struggling. The entry-level market remains tough. Some metros and submarkets have a glut of inventory. Affordability obviously remains challenging for people who aren’t already rich.

But the housing recession that began in early 2022 is over.”

From The Housing Frame.

“Washington state continues to lead the pack with measures to lower the cost of homebuilding and make it easier to build more homes, in all shapes and sizes, in more places. The state reformed building codes to allow single-stair apartments in 2023, to extend residential code to middle housing in 2024, and in 2026, to legalize smaller elevators, as well as—the focus of this article—scissor stairs.

Scissor stairs are a design feature common in other countries but rare in most US cities. They help save more of a building’s interior square footage for homes, while still providing two fire-safe staircases for residents and emergency responders. What’s more, scissor stairs make it possible to design for more light and cross-breeze in every apartment, plus accommodate narrow or oddly shaped lots for more infill opportunities.”

From Sightline Institute.

“Idaho, one of the most sparsely populated states, is known for its vast stretches of open land. And yet a new Idaho law has imposed the country’s smallest minimum lot size requirements for houses.

The law requires that cities approve housing on lots starting at 1,500 square feet, if certain conditions are met. That’s just a bit more than half the playing area of a doubles tennis court.”

From Washington Post.