UMH CEO Sam Landy needs to be thanked for sharing through HousingWire his latest op-ed which weaves collectively what’s arguably a delicate name for the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) to do what the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) called for amendments to the ROAD to Housing Act 2025. Take into account fastidiously what Landy did and didn’t say in: Manufactured housing is the future of affordable housing. Landy asserts: “Manufactured housing presents a confirmed, scalable path to inexpensive homeownership—if policymakers take away outdated limitations.” Landy’s fact-laced argument contains the factors that manufactured properties permit households to purchase with lower than half the revenue and for probably tons of of hundreds in decrease complete prices than typical ‘website constructed’ housing.
Landy particularly cited the “Road to Housing Act.” He laid out factors the well-informed would know that the ROAD invoice – except amended as MHARR encourages – gained’t repair.
Examples, quoting Landy.
“Federal mortgage company mortgage applications (FHA, RHS, VA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac) may also assist. These applications fund 65% of all new mortgages (Page 8, Urban Institute Mortgage Chartbook). However, mixed, they didn’t fund a single private property manufactured dwelling final 12 months. This disconnect comes at the same time as private property properties represent some 70% of the manufactured housing market.
Native communities throughout the nation may also assist with inexpensive manufactured housing. Sadly, all too typically, communities undertake discriminatory zoning ordinances that unfairly exclude manufactured housing. This wants to vary.”
For instance, UMH has skilled this in Coxsackie, New York, the place Village officers repeatedly rejected well-planned designs for a neighborhood, and ultimately resorted to re-writing the Village zoning code to forestall UMH from constructing any manufactured dwelling neighborhood on the property that it had bought for that function.
Among the many details or phrases not particularly talked about in Landy’s op-ed? The phrases “Manufactured Housing Institute” (MHI) shouldn’t be talked about, though Landy is now a member of the MHI board of directors.
Per MHARR.
“These bottlenecks and the failure to deal with them within the ROAD to Housing invoice, had been detailed in an MHARR analysis entitled “A Critical Analysis of the U.S. Senate ROAD to Housing Act of 2025,” which was extensively distributed to the business and different people and corporations on August 14, 2025. These unaddressed main bottlenecks are:
- (1) The proliferation of zoning mandates that discriminatorily exclude or unreasonably prohibit the location of HUD-regulated manufactured properties; and
- (2) The failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to implement the statutory Obligation to Serve Underserved Markets (DTS) with respect to the almost 80% of the manufactured dwelling client finance market represented by private property (chattel) loans.”
Landy has been an legal professional for many years. Per sources deemed dependable, he’s a daily reader of business and different information. He is aware of that without millions of more HUD Code manufactured homes the affordable housing crisis in the U.S. can’t be solved and without the MHARR amendments, the ROAD bill will fail to fix the housing crisis. It’s his job to know that MHARR’s two factors above would clear up the problems he named through HousingWire, cited above.
The timing of Landy’s op-ed is noteworthy.
By chance or design, Landy waited until he joined the board of directors of MHI.
Among the many facts-evidence-analysis (FEA) checks by a number of third-party synthetic intelligence (AI) programs, was the next findings by Gemini.
- “Landy’s assertion defines the failure metric (“didn’t fund a single private property manufactured dwelling”). MHI’s actions, or lack thereof, on necessary legislative fixes (like these advocated by MHARR) are the mechanism that enables this failure to persist. MHI’s posture aligns with the rhetoric of Landy, however its habits in Washington aligns with preserving the market construction that results in Landy’s said failure.”
Copilot mentioned this.
- “MHI: Silent publicly on MHARR amendments/DTS urgency. Paywall hides advocacy…”
Per Grok.
- “MHI Honest Effort on ROAD Act per MHARR? ❌ None Evident
- MHARR’s Aug 15 white paper calls for amendments to Senate-passed ROAD Act 2025 (e.g., implement DTS chattel, keep away from chassis elimination pitfalls). MHARR White Paper”
From that MHARR White Paper.
- “MHARR President and CEO, Mark Weiss, said: “Whereas MHARR welcomes the elimination of the statutory ‘everlasting chassis’ mandate for brand spanking new manufactured properties, we’re dissatisfied that our colleagues on the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) – ostensibly the ‘lead’ business group advancing the manufactured housing-related features of this laws – apparently allowed essential deficiencies to be included throughout the laws whereas concurrently omitting probably the most severe bottlenecks which have thwarted the business.” Weiss continued, “Hopefully MHI will step ahead and search cures to those points because the legislative course of unfolds.”
MHI’s CEO, Lesli Gooch, is on document offering remarks akin to MHARR’s in a letter to then HUD Secretary Ben Carson.
Democratic lawmakers with Secretary Mel Martinez (R) and a Republican lawmaker with Secretary Marcia Fudge (D) are on document calling for enforcement of what’s generally known as “enhanced preemption” made regulation beneath the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000.
That energy beneath the 2000 Reform Law to overcome local zoning barriers has only rarely been invoked by HUD. Congress held oversight hearings in 2011 and 2012 that each MHI and MHARR indicated they wished HUD to implement.
So, why is “enhanced preemption” lacking from MHI’s web site?
Why isn’t MHI urgent Congress to implement present legal guidelines that board member Sam Landy has successfully drawn consideration to through HousingWire?
Who advantages from the status quo which is all but guaranteed to continue if the ROAD to Housing Act isn’t amended as MHARR has called for if not the consolidators that dominate the MHI board?
That’s Landy’s de facto thunderclap. As an attorney, Landy doubtlessly knows that if federal preemption was enforced that Coxsackie, NY development he referenced wouldn’t have been blocked.
“There are various sorts of journalism, however on the coronary heart of their constitutional duties, journalists are within the enterprise of monitoring and holding a examine on folks and establishments in energy.”
– The American Press Institute.
If MHI is severe about returning manufactured housing to historic robust growth, the plan of action is evident. Get Congress to amend the ROAD to Housing Act to repair the problems MHI board member Sam Landy brought to light.
Tony Kovach is the co-founder of ManufacturedHomeProNews.com and ManufacturedHomeLivingNews.com.
This column doesn’t essentially replicate the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial division and its house owners. To contact the editor liable for this piece: [email protected].
