Top-down aerial of harvested field rows stitched between green cropland and a country road

Notes from the field.

The supply scoreboard

Six property types, two questions: how much new space is being built, and how full is what already stands? One sector answers both the way an owner wants — and it is the one that is not allowed to change its answer.

Market Commentary · Aug 2026 · 8 min read

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Market commentary, investor education, and a look inside how we underwrite. Written for accredited investors who want to go deeper.

Aug 2026 · Market Commentary The land is the asset In a manufactured-housing community the resident owns the home and the community owner holds the ground — the component of U.S. home value that has done the appreciating. The thesis in one causal argument, with the evidence one link away. Read the note →
Aug 2026 · Market Commentary The most boring chart in real estate. On purpose. Twenty-six straight years of same-store NOI growth, 2000–2025, with no other REIT sector past 23; a federal credit book where 3,209 of 3,215 community loans have performed; and listed MH equities at about three-quarters of market beta. Counts, not adjectives. Read the note →
Aug 2026 · Market Commentary Nobody is making more of these Roughly 43,000 communities and 4.3 million homesites — and zoning almost never says yes to a new one. Two years of Census data show total housing growing while the community stock stands still, and the market pricing what cannot be rebuilt. Read the note →
Aug 2026 · Market Commentary Congress agrees on nothing. Except this. Between March 2024 and July 2026, six favourable federal changes landed in twenty-eight months — capped by the ROAD to Housing Act, which cleared Congress four times in five months, 922 votes to 56. Read the note →
Aug 2026 · Education Almost none of it is a building A land-lease community's depreciable basis concentrates in 15-year site infrastructure — bonus-eligible, permanently — while the land beneath is never written down at all. The tax code reads the same ownership map as the land thesis. Read the note →
Jul 2026 · Education Real estate professional status: what the tax benefits really are The definitive plain-English guide to sec. 469(c)(7): the 750-hour and more-than-half tests, all seven material-participation tests, the grouping election, the 3.8% NIIT safe harbor, what happens to suspended losses, the rules people confuse it with — and the records that make it survive an audit. Every claim sourced. Read the note →
Jul 2026 · Market Commentary Why supply-constrained housing still compounds As rates normalize, the structural case for manufactured housing and self-storage hasn't changed: essential demand, limited new supply, and pricing power that shows up in the cash flow. Read the note →
Jun 2026 · Education The 1031 exchange, explained for investors How a Delaware Statutory Trust can serve as like-kind replacement property — and where the 45- and 180-day deadlines bite. Read the note →
Jun 2026 · Diligence Inside our underwriting checklist The conservative assumptions every offering must clear before it reaches the shelf. Read the note →
May 2026 · Education Opportunity Zones: what the 10-year hold really means A plain-language look at deferral, step-up, and exclusion — and how the 2025 law that made the program permanent changes the math. Read the note →
May 2026 · Market Commentary Self-storage after the surge Normalizing street rates, an eleven-year low in new supply, and where disciplined operators still find yield. Read the note →
Apr 2026 · Education Accredited investor status, without the jargon Who qualifies, how verification works under Rule 506(c), and what to have ready. Read the note →
Mar 2026 · Market Commentary Reading the rate cycle without predicting it Why we underwrite to a margin of safety instead of a forecast. Read the note →

Context

Did you know.

Manufactured housing is older, larger, and more woven into American life than its reputation suggests.

History

Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins spent their first days back from the Moon inside a converted Airstream trailer: NASA's Mobile Quarantine Facility, now in the Smithsonian.

History

In 1936 the economist Roger Babson predicted that within twenty years more than half the population of the United States would be living in automobile trailers.

History

By the end of 1946 the Federal Public Housing Authority had allotted 11,266 family trailers and 214 dormitory trailers to educational institutions.

History

In 1954 Elmer Frey's Marshfield Homes built a trailer ten feet wide: too wide to tow without special permits, and the point at which the industry began selling houses rather than vehicles.

Law

Since June 15, 1976, every manufactured home built in the United States has been required by federal law to be built to the HUD Code, a national construction and safety standard that preempts state and local building codes on the aspects it covers. (Local zoning and land-use rules are not preempted.)

Scale

As of 2023, about 16.6 million Americans lived in manufactured homes, which accounted for roughly 5 percent (about one in twenty) of U.S. households.

Law

Wind standards were rewritten in 1994 after Hurricane Andrew, and homes built for Wind Zone III, the highest-risk coastal areas, are engineered to a 110 mph design wind speed under 24 CFR 3280.305 (a fastest-mile speed under ANSI/ASCE 7-88, not the 3-second-gust metric used in today's site-built codes).

Scale

Roughly 44,000 land-lease manufactured housing communities operate across the United States, some 4.3 million homesites in all, according to the Manufactured Housing Institute.

Myth

The median manufactured-home householder is 55 years old — the same as the median single-family householder.

Scale

In its Form 10-K for fiscal year 2025, Public Storage states that it believes the four largest self-storage owners hold approximately 22 percent of U.S. self-storage square footage, with the remaining 78 percent owned by regional and local operators.

Structure

In a land-lease community the operator owns the ground and leases homesites; residents who own their homes lease only the land beneath them. Many communities also include homes owned by the operator and rented out.

Manufactured Housing Institute, Scaling Up America's Housing Supply with Manufactured Homes (August 2025), citing U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey data. Figures are as of the dates stated and were not independently verified.

24 CFR Part 3280, the Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards, effective June 15, 1976; wind-zone design loads at 24 CFR 3280.305; federal preemption at 42 U.S.C. 5403(d).

Public Storage, Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal year 2025, Part I, Item 1, "Competition" (SEC accession 0001628280-26-007696). The statement is the issuer's own belief, not an audited figure.

U.S. Census Bureau, 2023 American Housing Survey, as reported by the National Association of Home Builders, Eye On Housing (April 2025).

Background sources: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, object record NASM_A19740677000 (Apollo 11 Mobile Quarantine Facility); American Society of Planning Officials, Planning Advisory Service Report No. 12 (1950); Allan D. Wallis, Wheel Estate; Pew Charitable Trusts, "Millions of Homeowners Who Rent Land Are at Risk of Price Increases or Eviction" (June 2025). Biographical items are drawn from published interviews and profiles; no affiliation or endorsement is implied.

Did you knowMatthew McConaughey chose to live in an Airstream community for years. By preference, not necessity.Matthew McConaughey chose to live in an Airstream community for years. By preference, not necessity.Tim McGraw grew up in a trailer in Start, Louisiana, before three Grammys and 40+ #1 hits.Academy Award winner Hilary Swank grew up in a manufactured home community in Bellingham, Washington.Eminem was raised in a mobile home park outside Detroit — the world of “8 Mile.”Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott grew up in Pine Creek Estates, a mobile home community in Louisiana. He had its sign tattooed on his leg in 2023.Demi Moore spent part of her childhood in a trailer park in Roswell, New Mexico.Biographical; no affiliation or endorsement implied

Insights are for informational and educational purposes only and do not constitute investment, legal, or tax advice, or an offer to sell or solicitation to buy any security. Views are current as of each article's publication date and may change. Third-party figures are as of the dates cited and were not independently verified. See full disclosures.