Broader placement and occupancy of manufactured homes — particularly in neighborhoods zoned for single-family dwellings — could be one of the major consequences in New Hampshire of the new federal housing law.
Known as the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, the bipartisan legislation seeks to address the lack of supply in the Granite State and across the country by, among other features, reducing barriers to development, protecting neighborhoods from corporate raiders and attracting more capital for builders.
The consequences of the housing act, which became law July 10, were discussed Aug. 13 among a group of housing advocates in a webinar hosted by NH Business Review (NHBR).
“I have to confess that when I sat down to think about what I am most excited about in this bill, it was the manufactured housing provisions,” said Jack Ruderman, legislative affairs advisor for New Hampshire Housing.
The act rewrites federal code eliminating a 50-year-old requirement that manufactured homes have a permanent chassis. Local cities and towns can still regulate through zoning where these homes can be located, but the webinar participants now see a possible path for these homes being part of single-family residential neighborhoods.
“Even though this isn’t immediate relief, and even though it has to be coupled, I think, with some zoning changes in our state, I do think if you’re a young person and you are looking for some signal that the government cares about starter homes, they sent a pretty good one on manufactured housing,” said Ruderman.
In the New Hampshire, manufactured homes (often called mobile homes because of the chassis for transport) are located in specific communities often called mobile home parks. Manufactured housing can be located on private lots, but where that is allowed varies widely from community to community.
The state Legislature during the completed 2026 session considered a proposal to allow newly built manufactured homes as a permitted use in all residential districts, overriding local restrictions. It was sent to the House Housing Committee for further study.
The federal action, according to Sarah Marchant, chief operating officer of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, gives rise to the creation of more diverse manufactured homes.
“This law is innovative, and it would require New Hampshire to update its definition of manufactured housing,” said Marchant.
“What it allows for is the innovation in the new types of building design and the removal of the chassis on-site, so that piece doesn’t stay with the home, reducing costs but also allowing these homes to be placed flat on a foundation, flat on a crosswall foundation or slab,” she added.
They can be stacked as a two-story, have an attached garage and porch.
“They are appreciating assets, and they are probably the only home that you will find listed, if you looked in MLS, for under $200,000,” said Marchant. “These are actually affordable homes that you can purchase, build equity in, for less than renting a two-bedroom apartment. So they’re an incredibly important part of the homeownership story here.”
Indeed, the newest New Hampshire Association of Realtors (NHAR) report shows the median price of a manufactured home in the state is $170,000, compared to $580,000 for a single-family house, and $429,950 for a residential condominium/townhouse.
The ROAD act removes the designation of manufactured homes as personal property (such as an automobile) and classifies them as real property. Chassis-free and traditional manufactured homes now have to be treated equally with regards to financing, titles, insurance, taxes, and installation.
New Hampshire removed the personal property designation on manufactured homes back in 1983.
In a lot of ways, the ROAD to Housing Act is helping the rest of the country catch up to some housing initiatives already in place in New Hampshire, according to Elissa Margolin, director of the Initiative for Housing Policy and Practice at Saint Anselm College.
“New Hampshire has been on the right track,” said Margolin. “So you’ve seen a lot of policy reforms come out of our state Legislature in the last couple of years that are reflected in this ROAD bill. You’ll also see some moves that New Hampshire made early on, particularly around manufactured housing, where the rest of the country is kind of catching up.”
Nick Taylor, executive director of Housing Action NH, cited a measure in the act, already in place in New Hampshire, that allows the placement of a single staircase in a residential building under certain circumstances.
He said that that measure “aims at creating more smaller multifamily buildings on narrower lots that don’t necessarily need to have the two staircases without compromising on fire safety. That showed up in this bill.”
Taylor described the ROAD Act as being more about regulation reform than about appropriations.
“Some of the things we’re talking about, like the grant programs, those would still need to show up in a future federal budget,” said Taylor. “And so we’re kind of creating the buckets that have labels on them and tell you exactly what it would go to, but they’re not filled yet.”
For instance, it would provide grants to local governments to convert empty or vacant commercial and industrial buildings into affordable residential housing.
There is a carrot-and-stick provision to get certain communities in the state to keep up a certain pace of providing housing in order to maintain funding currently provided by Community Development Block Grants (CDBG). It ties certain CDBG allocations to local housing production metrics, and provides funding bonuses or reductions based on how fast a municipality builds homes.
The new regs apply to Dover, Manchester, Nashua, Portsmouth and Rochester.
“If you’re a high-demand market and you are building more housing, if you’re above the median housing production, or you’re building 4% or more units, you’re getting an increase in your CDBG funds, and if you’re not, you’re going to get a decrease,” said Taylor.
“When we think about actually getting results on all this and building the homes that our businesses need, that our workers need, like this type of program that is saying we don’t really care exactly how you get there, but you’ve got to build more housing, is a really interesting case study,” added Taylor, “and I’m very excited to to see it work.”
Asked about what the New Hampshire legislature can do to align itself with aspects of the ROAD Act, future funding of housing programs came up as an answer, particularly in light of the fact that the current two-year funding removed a lot of money previously set aside for housing initiatives.
“As we go into a budget year, I would think that making sure the affordable housing fund is funded adequately will be important in order to take advantage of this new federal law,” said Margolin.
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