Affordable Housing Crisis in Massachusetts: Could Manufactured Homes be a Solution?
Housing Affordability in Massachusetts
Massachusetts is in an affordable housing crisis. The median home price across the state was $629,500 in December 2024, up 9.15 percent from $576,700 in December 2023. The median home price across the U.S. was $427,728 in December 2024.
Higher housing prices likely reflect rising construction costs, which make it harder to build additional housing, further accelerating the housing crisis in Massachusetts. According to U.S. Data Labs, Massachusetts issued only 79 building permits per 100,000 residents in 2024. This number placed Massachusetts as having the third-lowest rate of building permits issued per 100,000 residents in the entire United States, far below the national average of 281. New York and Connecticut, with rates of 53 and 58 per 100,000 residents, were the states with the first and second lowest rates of building permits issued. Figure 1 below showcases the stagnant permit rates for single-family homes in Massachusetts.
Figure 1: Massachusetts Number of building permits per 100k population by unit type
The Affordable Homes Act
In 2024, Massachusetts passed the Affordable Homes Act, which authorized over $5 billion in spending on initiatives aimed at combating rising housing costs. The bill aimed to boost housing production, mandated the allowance of accessory dwelling units throughout Massachusetts, and helped finance more housing options aimed at low- and moderate-income residents. In the act, Massachusetts pledges to provide financial assistance and priority to projects that promote “innovative strategies for the production” of affordable housing, including the construction of manufactured homes.
According to U.S. Census data, the average price of a manufactured home in Massachusetts was $84,100 in 2024 for a traditional single-family home, just below the national manufactured home average of $85,200. These homes can serve as accessory dwelling units under the Affordable Homes Act, providing affordable housing in established neighborhoods for the elderly and young families.
Community Effects of Mobile Homes
However, a January 2024 Harvard study that revisits a 2007 public opinion survey found that among four housing typologies, mobile or manufactured homes ranked lowest in “quality of the neighborhood.” Such perceptions of mobile homes may help explain why local zoning codes often make them illegal, and why less than 1 percent of the Massachusetts population lived in mobile homes in 2022. In a random sample of 30 communities conducted by Pioneer Institute, only nine communities allowed mobile homes by right. The data was compiled in the process of creating an AI housing regulations database, based on an older hand-gathered database available at MassHousingRegulations.com.
Some people may associate mobile home parks with crime, but the available data does not confirm that. For example, Cambridge, Cheshire, Fairhaven, Great Barrington, and Williamstown all permit mobile or manufactured homes by right in at least one district. Cambridge had a violent crime rate of 4.79 per 1,000 residents in 2023, with Cheshire, Fairhaven, Great Barrington, and Williamstown at rates of 0.31, 3.41, 2.49, and 1.30 per 1,000 residents, respectively. These crime rates range anywhere from slightly below to above the Massachusetts state average violent crime rate of 3.08 in 2023, indicating there may be no correlation between mobile homes being permitted by right in communities and violent crime in Massachusetts. New Bedford has one of the Commonwealth’s highest violent crime rates, at 5.04, despite the fact that mobile homes are not permitted in any district, as shown in Figure 2 below.
Figure 2: 2023 Violent Crime Rate by Town
Mobile Homes in Practice
Massachusetts has only about 250 mobile home communities containing around 35,000 residents. Just because a town allows mobile homes by right does not guarantee their prevalence, and a town prohibiting new mobile homes in their zoning bylaws does not necessarily mean none exist within their borders. In 2023, Massachusetts had an estimated 24,203 mobile homes, making up 0.8 percent of the state’s total housing units. In contrast, California, comparable to Massachusetts in terms of per capita GDP ($104,058 and $109,396, respectively), has an estimated 502,594 mobile homes in 2023, making up 3.4 percent of the total housing units. The only U.S. state in which mobile homes make up a comparable amount of the total housing units is Connecticut, with an estimated 12,346 units in 2023, accounting for 0.8 percent of their total residential units. Nationally, the U.S. had an estimated 8,014,250 mobile homes as of 2023 accounting for 5.5 percent of the country’s total housing units. On the far end of the spectrum, Mississippi had an estimated total of 191,459 mobile homes in 2023, accounting for 14.2 percent of the state’s total housing units.
Mobile homes can offer a viable solution for low-income families or elderly individuals seeking affordable housing. They supply affordable housing for multitudes of people throughout the United States, and their prevalence in Massachusetts has no conclusive correlation with increased violent crime. Having proved its commitment to affordable housing in 2024 with the Affordable Homes Act, Massachusetts should consider making mobile homes legal in more communities.
Kathleen Durkin is a Roger Perry Housing Regulations Database Intern with the Pioneer Institute. He is a rising junior at Villanova University, with a double major in Economics and Political Science. Feel free to contact via email or LinkedIn.
