The Biloxi Home Show gave everyone a lot to celebrate. With almost 50 homes on display (set up in a matter of days, instead of months), and over 90 exhibitors, 2200+ registrants found a lot to be excited about. Kicking off the Show was a 6 member lender panel with representatives from Triad, 21st, Credit Human, Land-Home, Cascade, and CSL, more than 250 people in the audience heard VERY positive outlook for our industry. Every one of the lenders stated they had an increased number of apps over last year, during the same period. Some mentioned as high as a 40% increase. And when asked about approval ratios, they claimed these have improved as well; again, well over 50%. Better credit, fewer delinquencies and much lower foreclosures. When you look to the approvals as an early indicator of future sales at the retailer/community level, it promises a strong Q2 and Q3, 2024.
A strong reception followed on Day 1 with soooo many people catching up, enjoying great food, and taking advantage of the single best opportunity to network.
The follow up panel on Tuesday (Day 2) with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gave another large audience details of the continued support and aggressive education for traditional lenders, and the housing market in general, on programs designed specifically for manufactured housing. This attention to MH, started with the MH Advantage and CHOICEHome programs for CrossMod™ and is every bit as strong today. Opening doors and giving MH an opportunity where previously it was blocked.
Later, Darren Krolewski from DataComp spoke about AI and its growing application in the workplace on so many levels. But a tool that must be directed intelligently by human input.
The manufacturers expressed excitement too as, Monday afternoon and evening as well as Tuesday had strong traffic at the display homes.
THE BOTTOM LINE: All indications suggest that the middle of 2024 will be extremely strong. With January manufactured housing shipments up almost 10% and sharp increases in applications AND approvals, it promises to be strong. The underlying need is at crisis levels in our country, and demand with over 80 million Millennials finally entering the housing market to BUY will reinforce housing demand by other population segments. In additional, research suggests that 98% of the Millennials still maintain the dream of home ownership (https://fortune.com/2023/11/13/housing-market-millennials-homebuying-age-boomers-home-prices-affordability/) , and have an open opinion to manufactured housing. With a constant rate environment or even a slight decline (it is an election year, you know) the market is here for the beginning of a decade of strong demand.
