Manufacturers shipped 14,824 homes from 256 plants in June 2002, bringing year to date shipments to 87,852, down 5.3% from a year ago. June shipments were off by 16.6% compared to a year ago. Multi- section homes represent 77.1% of year to date shipments, and 77.5% of June shipments.

MHI estimates of retail sales for June 2002 indicate an increase of 5.4% compared to June 2001. We estimate that year-to-date retail sales through June 2002 have declined by 2.7% from the same period in 2001.

Through June of this year compared to the first six months of 2001, the following regions have registered gains in MH national market share: New England (+14.7%); Middle Atlantic (+6.8%); Pacific (+1.4%); and South Atlantic (+1.1%). The largest percentage drops in market share have been in the East North Central states and the South Central regions.

Within the top ten MH states also, market shares have shifted somewhat for the first six months of 2002 compared to the same period last year. Texas (-15.5%), Michigan (-20.4%) and Georgia (-7.4%) have registered shipment declines well above the average -5.9% decline for the top ten states (and -5.3% decline nationwide). Of the top ten states, only Louisiana is registering an increase in market share. Florida, Tennessee and Kentucky are essentially at the same market share as last year with tiny losses, while the remaining top ten states (the Carolinas and California) have registered market share losses in between the two groups above.

It is well known that in the 1990s, the manufactured housing industry underwent a major structural change nationally in the movement away from single-section homes to multi-section homes. The monthly reports to HUD enable manufacturers to list multi-SECTION homes by number of floor sections up to nine floors per home. However, the 2002 national product mix within the industry tends to "hide" some very interesting regional patterns. In particular, single-section homes remain, and will probably continue to remain, significant components of the MH industry on a region-specific and key state-specific, if not national basis.

Percentage-wise, New England states still ship the most single-section manufactured homes -35.9% of total shipments through June 2002--, followed by the West South Central region, notably Texas and Louisiana, and the East South Central region, most notably Kentucky and Tennessee. The Pacific region states receive the smallest percentage of single-section homes of any region in the country at only 4.3% of all shipments through June of 2002. The Mountain states region and the South Atlantic states rank as the second and third highest percentage states for multi-section shipments behind the Pacific states. The remaining three regions, Middle Atlantic, East North Central, and West North Central, come in at close to the national averages for SW (22.1%) and MW (77.1%).