In February, the Census Bureau will release the placements of manufactured homes for December and for all of 2021. There were 97.8 thousand placements through November, and my estimate is there will be 105.8 thousand total placements in 2021 - the most since 2006.
The housing start report on Wednesday indicated 966.9 thousand single family completions in 2021, and 370.9 thousand 2+ units completed.
This graph shows total housing completions and placements since 1968. The net additional to the housing stock is less because of demolitions and destruction of older housing units.
Even though there were significant construction delays in 2021 - and there are currently the most housing units under construction since 1973 - there were 1.444 million total completions in 2021, the most since 2007.
Although we don't know the exact number of net new households formed in 2021, it seems clear - based on home buying and rental demand - that there were more households formed than housing units completed last year. Some of the demand was from second home buying too, not household formation.
What isn’t clear is if this increase in household formation, with little population growth, will continue. See “The Household Mystery”:
. I’ll have more on household formation in the coming months.