() – When Julie Johnson and her husband decided to buy their own home, they turned to an unexpected place: Facebook Marketplace.
One month and US$52,000 later, a second-hand prefabricated house, approximately 670 square meters, with four bedrooms and two bathrooms, was cut in half and delivered in two parts on the back of a truck to his address, in central North Carolina.
Manufactured homes, sometimes called mobile homes, are homes made in a factory rather than built on site, and have been gaining popularity this year amid the US housing crisis.
High mortgage rates and a chronic housing shortage in the US have made homeownership increasingly unattainable for many Americans, fueling their economic distress. A poll conducted by SSRS in September found that the cost of housing was the most important economic issue for nearly a quarter of likely voters who rent their homes. In September, the median sales price of existing homes in the United States was $404,500, marking the 15th consecutive month of year-over-year price increases, according to the National Association of Realtors.
President-elect Donald Trump has said his economic plan will help make housing more affordable, but some Americans aren’t waiting to find out. Instead, they’re turning to the internet for lower-cost options, whether it’s a pop-up folding house kit, a tiny house, or a traditional mobile home.
About 6% of the US housing stock is manufactured homes, primarily in rural areas. More than 77,000 new manufactured homes were shipped in 2024 through September, a 16% increase from the same period last year, according to data from the US Census Bureau.
Recent prefabricated homes available on Amazon, including a folding house that sells for less than $25,000 and a multi-story home made from recycled shipping containers for $29,000, have gone viral on TikTok and YouTube among young people. seek an affordable path to homeownership. Amazon did not respond to a request from for more information about its prefabricated home offerings.
Amazon is not the first major retailer to sell prefabricated homes. More than 100 years ago, American retailer Sears, Roebuck and Co began selling kit homes from its catalog, with some for less than $1,000. Pre-cut lumber, wall boards, and other materials were shipped by rail to the buyer to be constructed with minimal labor. Sears said 75,000 of the homes were sold between 1908 and 1940.
But the path to manufactured home ownership isn’t as simple as clicking the “Buy Now” button.
Marc Norman, associate dean of New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate, said Sears’ bid was successful because it preceded many modern local zoning laws in the U.S., which can restrict the types of housing allowed. they build
“At that time, you could just buy land and build a house. Most cities don’t allow this anymore,” Norman said. Those interested in purchasing a manufactured home today should make sure their home complies with local regulations in their area.
“Literally every jurisdiction has its own zoning, its own building codes and its own regulations,” Norman said. “Down to the city level there could be a completely different set of codes that don’t match the neighboring city.” Some cities don’t allow manufactured housing at all, Norman said.
Johnson, who is 24, said she and her husband spent about $10,000 to lay bricks in the foundation of their mobile home, a requirement in their area. At the same time, they couldn’t move into the house until they paid for the installation of a septic tank and water well. After failing his first inspection, Johnson also had to pay a structural engineer to evaluate the house.
“The biggest challenge was figuring out a code we had to comply with. Other than that, we already knew everything about it through research and talking to the county,” Johnson said.
For decades, the federal government has required that new manufactured homes be built on a permanent foundation, which means “mobile home” has become a misnomer. However, this type of housing can carry greater safety risks amid more frequent and intense climate-related weather events.
A 2023 Urban Institute paper argued that mobile homes were “uniquely vulnerable” to natural disasters compared to other housing. Mobile home parks are often built on less expensive land prone to hazards such as flooding and wildfires, the document argued.
Johnson has posted on TikTok about her experience owning a second-hand, low-cost manufactured home. His videos have accumulated millions of views.
“My grandmother and my aunt had just built a house, and I think my grandmother paid about $400,000 or $500,000 for her house. “We knew that was going to be out of our price range, so we started looking at these mobile homes,” Johnson told .
Johnson’s manufactured home sits on property his family owns, but most manufactured home owners rent the land on which their homes sit. Homeowners who don’t own the land beneath their homes are less likely to qualify for traditional mortgages and instead rely on more expensive personal property loans. In a September letter, Patrick Harker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, expressed concern that a growing number of investors are purchasing land leased from owners of hard-to-move manufactured homes and raising their rents.
“For individuals and families who saw these homes as an affordable path toward homeownership… these new underlying rent increases are becoming a threat to their financial well-being,” Harker wrote. “For some, that creates a perfect storm of unaffordability in a segment that was traditionally noted for its affordability.”
Johnson said he tries to educate his followers through his TikTok videos about the benefits and challenges of owning a manufactured home, whether new or secondhand. It also attempts to dispel the notion that owning a mobile home means sacrificing certain amenities or space that more traditional homes offer.
“I think it inspires people,” he said. “I get a lot of questions like ‘how did you do it?’ and ‘how much does it cost?’ “People want to do it.”
‘s Chris Isidore contributed reporting.
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