A new federal task force co-chaired by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has 180 days under President Donald Trump’s October 22 housing order to recommend ways to cut the cost of manufactured and other factory-built homes. Counted from the order’s date, the clock runs out on April 20, 2027. A new manufactured home averaged $130,500 in May 2026, according to Census Bureau survey data.
Who sits on the task force and what it owes the President
Section 3 of the executive order names the HUD secretary and the FHFA director, or their designees, as co-chairs. The secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce and Veterans Affairs, or their designees, are members, and the co-chairs may invite other agencies. Agriculture and Veterans Affairs bring two departments that run home-loan programs.
Within 180 days of the order’s date, the task force must send recommendations to the President through the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. The order lists no earlier checkpoint. A recommendation is not a rule, and Section 6 says the order creates no enforceable rights and leaves implementation subject to law and appropriations.
The assignment is broad. The task force is to look at modern manufacturing methods for factory-built housing, including common specifications and certifications, and at reciprocal recognition of approvals from different agencies. It is also to remove duplicative reviews, consider using federal financing and insurance to encourage production, and promote competition while keeping safety standards.
People shopping for a new factory-built home are the buyers the assignment is aimed at. Anyone comparing quotes now is pricing under the rules in force today, and nothing in the order changes a sticker price, a loan term or a permit fee this year.
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The order’s purpose section calls homeownership “a vital pillar of our great country.” It lists reducing regulatory barriers, using advanced risk-assessment technology and increasing competition in housing and mortgage markets as the goals behind the order’s housing measures.
Where the $130,500 average comes from
The Census Bureau’s Manufactured Housing Survey, republished by the St. Louis Fed, shows monthly averages for 2026 that were not seasonally adjusted. They ran from $131,700 in January to $137,500 in March, with $134,800 in both February and April, before easing to $130,500 in May.
The larger double-section homes cost more. Their average sales price was $166,600 in May, on the same Census data. Those figures are what the task force’s cost-cutting has to move, and the order sets no price target and promises no drop.
Its text points instead at process. The order names duplicative reviews that slow or raise the cost of building a home, and the task force is asked to find ways to remove them. Savings, if they come, would have to show up in what factories and retailers charge.
HUD already writes the federal code for these homes
HUD’s manufactured housing program page names the National Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974 as the governing law. HUD sets federal design and construction standards for these homes, and those standards can override conflicting state and local laws.
HUD enforces the standards directly or through state agencies, inspects factories and retailer lots, and regulates installation. It collects a fee for each home built, authorizes a HUD Label for homes that meet the standards, and runs a dispute resolution program for defects. A 21-member Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee advises the department.
That federal code explains why reciprocal recognition of approvals and fewer duplicate reviews are on the task force’s list. The order also reaches past the federal code to state and local permitting. It tells the task force to evaluate whether federal grant funding could be conditioned on, or used to encourage, standardized permitting by states and localities, and to prepare legislative recommendations. Some fixes would need Congress.
FHFA’s seat matters for financing. In the same order the FHFA director is the official who would direct Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on a mortgage-insurance cancellation pilot and a nationwide title-acceptance program. The manufactured-housing section gives that agency a place in the production and financing discussion.
What a buyer can count on between now and April
Nothing changes a price or a loan term on October 22. The task force reports in 180 days, the President decides what to adopt, and agencies would then have to write rules or ask Congress for authority. The order’s other sections, on mortgage-insurance cancellation, title insurance on refinances and direct-loan rates at VA and USDA, run on separate tracks.
The order does not say which federal financing or insurance programs the task force might use to encourage production, and it does not say how many homes it hopes to add. Those answers would come in the April recommendations, if at all.
For anyone pricing a factory-built home, the open question is whether the recommendations lower the sticker price or only speed up the paperwork, and whether any of it arrives before the next purchase has to close.
Which housing-cost help does not wait for an April report?
The task force is working on what a manufactured home costs to build, and it reports in April. Today’s bills, from heating to property tax to Medicare premiums, are cut by opt-in programs, and each has its own income limit and application.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
