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Inside Cavco’s Studio Collection: Designer Details Come Standard

November 10, 2026

exterior wooded lot ranch style home manufactured home cavco industries design studio mhinsider — A new home from Cavco. All photos courtesy of Cavco Industries.

MHInsider Sponsored Content: Cavco Industries

What happens when you give Cavco’s most creative and driven team of interior designers, floor plan engineers and decorators free rein to design the manufactured home of their customers’ dreams? As it happens, they create the Studio Collection, a group of beautiful manufactured homes that deliver exceptional designer features packaged affordably for discerning homebuyers.

Speaking about this new collection, Megan Foster, Director of Cavco’s Design Innovation Team, describes the creation of this collection as “one of our team’s and my personal proudest accomplishments.”

What is the Studio Collection from Cavco?

rattan pendant lighting interior dining area manufactured home cavco industries design studio mhinsider — Rattan pendant lighting adds a fine design element to an inviting dining area.

Foster describes the Studio Collection as “a national collection that has been curated to be affordable, while still giving customers those extras that create a custom look and feel. That really makes these homes feel like something special.”

She explains that every floor plan, finish and design decision had to earn its place. From the roofline to the interior fixtures, each detail is chosen to make the home more beautiful and livable for the homeowners, not for how it would look in a catalog.

Foster is direct about the team’s intent.

“Our goal wasn’t to build the least expensive home; our goal was to build the most valuable home for our customers. The Studio Collection wasn’t assembled from existing floor plans and designs; each model was engineered to be something that stands out.”

Every Studio Collection home, wherever it is built across the company’s 33 building centers, follows the same design philosophy, styling and quality guidelines. For buyers, that means distinctive features already in place, not add-ons that cost extra. For retailers, it means they’re selling a proven product backed by Cavco’s national promise to provide exceptional, affordable homes that people want – including the Studio Collection homes.

Only released a year ago, homes in Studio Collection have already climbed into Cavco’s top three best sellers. And it’s easy to see why.

What Today’s Homebuyers Want

interior living area manufactured home cavco industries design studio mhinsider

The features packed into the Studio Collection aren’t just someone’s personal favorites. They’re what customers ask for. And Cavco’s customers ask for many of the same special features and details. Now, the Cavco Innovation Team includes many of them into their home designs. Features such as freestanding tubs, ceramic tile backsplashes and integrated entertainment centers, as well as trending fixtures and finishes.

Getting the styles just right is a balancing act: buyers want a home that feels current, but being too fashion-forward can push too far ahead of what customers are looking for.

“You can get too trendy really quickly and make people uncomfortable,” Foster says.

Luxury carries the same risk. “People are intimidated when you get too luxury-driven… like, ‘I can’t afford that’ or ‘that’s not really my speed.’”

The Studio Collection skillfully navigates a thin line: current enough to feel fresh and classic enough to hold up for years.

What is Cavco’s Design Innovation Team

kitchen appliances sink natural light window manufactured home cavco industries design studio mhinsider

The Design Innovation Team is a mix of Cavco’s leading designers, floor plan specialists and materials experts from across the country. For the Studio Collection, the team brought in all of the interior designers, plus the architecture group and the home designers who talk with plants and retailers every day.

“We really make sure these homes are manicured to make sense across all markets,” Foster says.

Their designs target how people live today and what they want in a home. One such Studio Collection model is the new Grande Arbor and its multigenerational double-suite plan, a frameless prototype of which was recently displayed at the Innovative Housing Showcase 2026 in Washington, D.C. This design is a response to how people are cohabiting today: “You’re moving your aging parents or adult kids back in with you, and they need their own space and their own privacy – so we designed this double-suite home for those multi-generational families,” Foster explains.

Each design decision in a Studio Collection home must answer one question: “Does this design choice make life better for the homeowner?”

“My favorite part of the whole design process is that it is challenging to maximize budget and make our homes as beautiful as we can, and as functional as we can,” Foster says.

What Makes a Studio Collection Home Different?

Their distinction starts from the outside. Studio Collection homes are designed to have standout curb appeal with home exteriors mixing shake, board-and-batten and horizontal panels for texture. “Texture,” Foster says, “has really become important, even more so than some of the color trends that we see.”

Entering the home, the front door handle is a buyer’s first touch of the house and sets the tone. Small details like this can reveal immediately if a house feels well-built before ever stepping inside.

Inside, the kitchen anchors every plan. Depending on the model, features can include:

Kitchen islands with prep space and casual seating
Stainless steel appliance packages with smooth-top ranges
Custom range hoods and decorative pendant lighting
42-inch cabinets with upgraded hardware
Ceramic tile backsplashes
Coffee bars with room for a beverage fridge

Select models offer built-in porches, and some plans add a pass-through window from the dining area to the back porch. “It opens the room to the outdoors,” Foster says, “so you’ve got a nice circle of movement and just ease of entertainment.”

Living areas bring feature walls with floating shelves, accent beams and warm wood slat accents. Primary suites may include statement-piece freestanding soaking tubs, large walk-in showers with gridded doors and cohesive, black fixtures. Attractive LED-backlit mirrors do double duty: they help with getting ready and give the room a nice glow at night.

Specific features for Studio Collection homes vary by model and plant.

The Value Is in the Package

On similarly designed homes, many of these desirable features that homebuyers want may cost extra. In the Studio Collection by Cavco, they come standard on the home. Studio Collection homes are built at many Cavco plants across the country. Consequently, materials are bought in volume. Of new materials, Foster says, “we can get a higher volume usage, and so we can get them at a better price.” Then that savings can be passed on to the customer.

The Cavco Design Team scouts vendor conferences and trade shows for materials that haven’t reached the field yet. “Everything we do is backed by lots of homework,” Foster says. “Finding the newest finishes, features and design innovations their customers will love at the best price is what they do – and they love it.”

Studio Collection home buyers aren’t starting with a base home and building toward the home they really want. They are starting with a home where those choices were already researched and selected for them, by people passionate about creating beautiful homes with the right balance of comfort, function and value.

The Studio Collection Designer details you’d pay extra for? Already included.

See more online at www.cavcohomes.com/studio-collection

Solar Lighting Company Provides Cost Savings, Security

Patrick Revere

November 9, 2026

palm trees clubhouse manufactured home community solar lighting mhinsider — All images courtesy of Central Equities of Florida.

Trent Goss is a managing partner for Central Equities of Florida, which owns 25 Tampa-area manufactured home communities in its portfolio of 70 commercial real estate assets. He wanted to improve the lighting in some of his properties and came across a photo of a property owned by a respected industry colleague.

“‘Dang, those are great-looking solar lights,’ I remember saying. I called them up,” he said. “I asked ‘Who made those lights?’”

“We did 400 of them in one community, and it gives us that uniform look that functions well,” Goss said. “When we buy a property, we hold it. We never sell it. When we have something to fix, we fix it for the long-term. We want to make a lasting impression and lasting improvement.”

palm tree acres manufactured home community CEF florida front gate entry sign mhinsider — Palm Tree Acres, a Central Equities of Florida community.

Goss said since that initial purchase, Central Equities has expanded its relationship with Gama Sonic, the Georgia-based company that provided the lights. He said the variety of designs and the flexibility of solar lighting has served the second-generation community ownership group very well.

“Sometimes it’s really hard to get something fixed or replaced in a situation where it’s hardwired,” Goss said. “You need to get into someone else’s space, or it’s just a difficult place to work. These solar lights have really come into their own and make it very simple to get what you want.”

fire pit manufactured home community solar lighting palm tree acres central equities florida mhinsider

Central Equities started in the 1960s and has grown slowly but steadily over the decades. And, it manages a great majority of its own properties.

“We primarily manage this out of our corporate office. We have a handful of properties where we’ve hired third-party property management, but for the most part we are doing all of the day-to-day management,” Goss said. “We get to see, feel, touch, and deal with every property issue known to mankind. So, you are always learning something new.”

Goss said some of the recent more difficult challenges at his properties have included aquifers filling to capacity and leaching out of the ground destroying parking lots and causing trees to come down. By comparison, community lighting has been simple.

“When we started putting in the lights, we didn’t just load them up and send out a crew,” he said. “We put one in and let residents look at it and asked if they would want one, and about 60 percent will say yes. By the time you’re done putting them in, the other 40 percent have come around saying they’ve changed their minds and would like to have a light installed.”

Matt Cohen from Gama Sonic said swapping conventional streetlights for solar fixtures in a community’s common areas and walkways can create a safer environment for residents while lowering the ongoing electricity costs that come with running grid-powered lighting across a large property.

“I’ve always believed my job is to help customers solve problems, not just sell products,” Cohen said. “Every community is different, so the first step is understanding what the customer is trying to accomplish and then finding the right solution for their property.

“When we can improve safety, enhance curb appeal, and eliminate the expense and disruption of trenching and wiring, we’ve created real value,” he said. “The most rewarding part is when customers like Trent continue to come back year after year because they know we’ll take care of them.”

The Centennial is a sleek-styled fixture. The Modern adds a motion sensor and timer. The Denali is built with what Gama Sonic calls its “Morph” technology, referencing a manufacturing process where monocrystalline solar cells are molded and integrated directly onto the curved and uneven surfaces of the light fixture itself, maximizing the surface area available.

Each light is suited for the kind of high-traffic outdoor areas common in manufactured housing communities.

Gama Sonic’s commercial lights have panels built in so they resemble standard post and wall lights but require no wiring, trenching, or digging to install. That’s a selling point aimed squarely at manufactured housing communities, where lighting often needs to cover sprawling networks of streets, common spaces, and pedestrian paths — areas that can be costly to wire into a grid.

aerial manufactured home community solar lighting central equities florida mhinsider

Gama Sonic commercial outdoor solar lights have:

Free energy from the sun in place of utility bills
Weather- and rust-resistant construction rated IP65
Installation in minutes without wiring
A five-year warranty

Goss said he has used the lights at Central Equities’ retail spaces, warehouse and mini-storage facilities, and single-family properties.

“Aesthetically, they are beautiful-looking solar lights,” Goss said. “And it’s really nice to see Gama Sonic show up at these industry events. When you need something, have a question, or want to look at some new options, they are there to talk with you about what you’re encountering.”

MHInsider is the leader in manufactured housing news and is a product of MHVillage, the top marketplace for manufactured housing.

What’s Next for the Independent Retailer?

John Ace Underwood

October 28, 2026

red ranch home on property new home retail sales mh manufactured housing mh professionals mhinsider magazine

Editor’s Note: John Ace Underwood is providing a series of articles to MHInsider on retail sales strategies that reach the site-built homebuyer. This is the second in a five-part series.

professional head shot suit john ace underwood manufactured home retails sales strategy — John Ace Underwood

Over the past four decades, the distribution of manufactured homes and modular homes has been a fairly well-developed system. Manufacturers built homes. Independent retailers sold them. Communities provided placement opportunities. Each segment depended heavily upon the others, and for years, the distribution system remained fairly stable.

A Rapidly Changing Relationship

Currently, across the country, manufacturers are aggressively pursuing direct relationships with developers, managing their factory-owned retail operations, partnering with conventional site builders, and in some cases even launching their own communities and subdivision-style developments. While these moves may make strategic sense from the manufacturers’ perspective, they are creating growing concern among independent retailers.

The answer goes well beyond simply seeking additional revenue streams or greater operational control. While both certainly contribute, they do not fully explain the broader strategic shift now taking place across the industry.

Land-home projects often generate stronger margins and more predictable long-term growth. But perhaps most importantly, these strategies provide access to a vastly larger category of buyer: the conventional single-family home purchaser.

That may be the single most important factor driving this entire industry transition.

Manufacturers Have Recognized a Much Larger Market

For decades, much of the manufactured housing industry operated within a relatively narrow customer pool.

Most retailers traditionally marketed to consumers who already identified themselves as manufactured housing buyers — customers actively searching for affordable housing alternatives or those already familiar with the product category through prior experience, family exposure, or community living.

The problem is that this market, while important, is relatively limited. Manufacturers increasingly recognize something many retailers have discussed for years:

The growth potential of factory-built housing does not primarily exist within the current manufactured housing buyer market. It exists within the vastly larger conventional single-family housing market.

That market includes millions of buyers who have never seriously considered factory-built housing.

These are not “manufactured home buyers” in their minds. They are simply single-family home buyers and manufacturers clearly understand that most traditional street retail models have struggled to effectively reach them.

This realization may explain much of the strategic shift now taking place throughout the industry. Developers, builder-partners, subdivision projects, and manufacturer-owned retail operations all provide something many traditional dealerships historically have not: Access to mainstream housing buyers much earlier in their decision-making process.

Manufacturers are no longer simply trying to sell more manufactured homes. They are attempting to position factory-built housing as a legitimate solution within the broader single-family housing market. That is a fundamentally different objective.

Why Developers Matter

Developers play a critical role in this strategy because they normalize the product.

A buyer driving onto a traditional manufactured home sales center often immediately views the experience through the lens of “manufactured housing”. Whether fair or unfair, decades of stigma, misunderstanding, and outdated perceptions still heavily influence that experience.

But a buyer touring a completed neighborhood of attractive factory-built homes on private land often sees something entirely different. They simply see housing. That distinction matters enormously. Manufacturers understand that context shapes perception.

Subdivision-style developments allow buyers to experience factory-built homes as part of a broader single-family housing environment rather than as a separate housing category altogether.

Conventional Site Builders Offer Similar Advantages

Conventional site builders already possess relationships, credibility, marketing systems, and visibility within the mainstream housing market. Partnering with them allows manufacturers to place factory-built housing in front of buyers who otherwise may never visit a traditional manufactured housing retail center.

In many ways, manufacturers appear to have concluded that the industry cannot achieve significant long-term growth simply by continuing to market primarily to existing manufactured housing buyers.

The Appeal of Vertical Integration

There is another factor driving this transition, as well: Control.

While not always successful, manufacturer-owned retail operations allow factories to control branding, customer experience, merchandising, pricing strategy, staffing, marketing, and follow-up systems. They can standardize operations, protect brand image, and capture retail margin.

From a purely business perspective, the appeal is obvious.

Independent retailers vary dramatically in professionalism, operational discipline, sales process, customer approach, marketing sophistication, and leadership quality. Some operate exceptionally well. Vertical integration reduces inconsistency, but it also fundamentally changes the factory-retailer relationship.

At some point, many independent retailers will be asking how long they will be viewed as valued long-term partners within the historic model.

A Critical Wake-Up Call for Retailers

Despite the concerns, independent retailers should view the transition as evidence that manufacturers may actually be signaling where the future opportunity exists. The broader single-family housing market is enormous.

Millions of buyers struggle with affordability. Site-built construction costs continue rising. Labor shortages persist. Interest in attainable housing alternatives continues to grow. Manufacturers clearly see this opportunity.

The retailers most likely to survive and thrive over the next decade may not be the ones who continue waiting for manufactured housing buyers to find them. They may be the ones who begin intentionally reaching conventional single-family housing buyers instead.

It requires repositioning the business model, marketing strategy, and customer experience around a very different audience.

Historically, many retailers focused primarily on selling manufactured homes to previous customers and referrals. Sixty percent of all factory-built home buyers either previously owned a factory-built home or knew someone who had.

On the other hand, there are thousands of single-family home buyers in every market who are looking for an affordable way to own their own home on their own land, not one that is in a subdivision. These buyers would be delighted with a factory-built home, but they don’t even know it exists and therefore have never considered our industry as an option.

The future may require learning how to market and sell attainable single-family housing solutions built with factory efficiency. That is an entirely different mission.

The only remaining question is whether retailers will evolve quickly enough to move with the market and prosper beyond anything they’ve even experienced — or whether they will be left competing for a shrinking segment.

Join me next issue for the next article in the series, where I will discuss some very easy, low-cost opportunities for transitioning from a factory-built housing retailer to a participant in supplying the single-family home market.

MHInsider is the leader in manufactured housing news and is a product of MHVillage, the top marketplace for manufactured housing.

HUD Secretary to Co-Chair Task Force on Manufactured Housing Innovation

Patrick Revere

October 22, 2026

manufactured housing regulatory reform white house economic full housing review task for manufactured housing

White House Executive Order: ‘Decreasing Housing Costs for the American People’

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner will co-chair a newly formed Task Force on Manufactured Housing Innovation, initiated by an executive order of the White House signed by President Donald Trump on Oct. 22, 2026.

“President Trump is a builder, and today he is committing to bring even more innovative and affordable housing solutions to market for the American people,” Turner said. “For decades, home building has been crippled by regulatory red tape, but the Task Force on Manufactured Housing Innovation can usher in the next generation of housing by modernizing standards and speeding up approvals across government.”

The task force will be co-chaired by the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and includes the secretary of the Department of Agriculture, the secretary of the Department of Commerce, and the secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Lower Cost, Expand Access

The White House executive order established a Task Force on Manufactured Housing Innovation with the aim of lowering the costs of single-family homeownership and mortgages and promoting innovation throughout the housing market.

The order…

Directs the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency to create a pilot program to cancel borrowers’ mortgage insurance premiums proactively once they have satisfied their equity requirements based on the current market value, which will eliminate a large monthly expense for qualifying Americans across the country.
Establishes the Task Force on Manufactured Housing Innovation, co-chaired by the secretary of Housing and Urban Development and the FHFA director, to increase the quality of and lower the cost of building a home by facilitating the use of modern manufacturing methods in the production of factory-built housing eligible for federal housing programs.
Directs the FHFA director to reduce homeowners’ refinancing costs by expanding the FHFA’s title insurance waiver pilot into a permanent program to allow more borrowers to utilize cost-friendly alternatives to title insurance and to reduce the closing costs of refinancing and monthly expenses associated with homeownership.
Directs the secretaries of Agriculture and Veterans Affairs to reduce interest rates on single-family home loans made by their respective departments.

The executive order fact sheet states that homeownership is a “vital pillar of our great nation” and that President Trump and his administration are “working tirelessly to cut burdensome costs and red tape to make the American dream of homeownership more affordable for all Americans.”

It said unnecessary regulations and outdated mortgage processes have made homeownership unaffordable and have driven up closing costs.

MHInsider is the leader in manufactured housing news and is a product of MHVillage, the top marketplace for manufactured housing.

HandyTrac Expands Key Management Technology

Patrick Revere

October 19, 2026

hand holds key bar scan manufactured housing communities key access management security handytrac mhinsider mh professionals land-lease communities, mhinsider — All photos courtesy of HandyTrac

Addresses Manufactured Housing Community Needs for Access Management, Security

HandyTrac Systems, a provider of biometric key control technology, is positioning its key management platform as a security tool for manufactured housing communities, where operators often oversee large properties with numerous access points and limited on-site oversight.

hand selects among coded keys manufactured housing communities key access management security handytrac mhinsider mh professionals land-lease communities, mhinsider

The Alpharetta, Georgia-based company makes electronic key cabinets designed to track and document who accesses keys to show homes, offices, maintenance facilities, common areas, and vendor entry points across a community.

“Manufactured housing communities face security challenges that differ from other property types, including sprawling geographic footprints, a mix of resident-owned, community-owned and vacant homes, and frequent vendor and contractor traffic,” HandyTrac Director of Business Development Chad Habegger said.

When security-related issues are handled informally through phone calls, text messages or paper notes, important details can be lost, creating risk for owners, managers and residents. HandyTrac’s system is built around an 18-gauge steel key cabinet with a built-in door alarm that triggers email notifications when the cabinet is opened outside of approved activity, giving managers visibility even when they are off site. Access to the cabinet is limited to approved users, and every interaction is logged automatically.

“The system also uses biometric authentication, such as fingerprint identification, to ensure only authorized individuals can retrieve keys, removing risks tied to shared codes or borrowed credentials,” Habegger said. “An automated randomized key placement feature prevents predictable storage patterns inside the cabinet, adding another layer of protection against unauthorized removal.”

fingerprint scanner kiosk on wall manufactured housing communities key access management security handytrac mhinsider mh professionals land-lease communities, mhinsider

Beyond access control, the company said the platform is designed to help operators track maintenance and safety issues that affect overall community security. A recent addition to the offering is alert notifications within the app. HandyTrac utilizes custom notes and activity codes that allow users to track the detail of who pulled a key and why and turns that information into detailed audit trails. Each reported issue is assigned and documented until resolved. Each home, lot, or common area also builds its own history of reported issues and completed actions, creating a comprehensive record managers can reference later.

The system also documents work assigned to vendors, contractors, and internal staff to help ensure security-related tasks are completed properly and on time.

HandyTrac markets the technology to manufactured housing owners, multi-site operators, and property managers responsible for safety and regulatory compliance. It is part of a broader lineup of HandyTrac systems marketed for use in multifamily housing, senior living communities, student housing and other property types, with the company offering multiple cabinet models to fit properties of varying size and complexity.

full panel keys kiosk on wall manufactured housing communities key access management security handytrac mhinsider mh professionals land-lease communities, mhinsider

Product Features:

Large 10″ Touch Screen Interface
Fast 8 Core ARM Cortex-X1 1.8ghz Processor
Full website access directly on the display
Easy Wall Mounting
Wi-Fi and Ethernet
Multilingual Support (English, Spanish, Tagalog)
Full System Warranty
US-Based Technical Support
Single or Double Cabinet
Biometric Fingerprint Access
Enhanced Security
One-Touch Building Pull Integration for Pulling Multiple Keys
Audit Trail – Reports are backed up to Amazon Web Services
Customizable Activity Codes
Instant Reports – Keys Out, Who Has Key and Why, When Returned
Built-in Door Alarm with Email Notification
Unit Notes
Unit Restrictions
Yardi Interface

MHInsider is the leader in manufactured housing news and is a product of MHVillage, the top marketplace for manufactured housing.

The Development of the ‘brightSTAR Way’

Patrick Revere

October 13, 2026

executive board meeting room brightstar way manufactured housing community midwest mh professionals mhinsider magazine — A team meeting at the BrightStar headquarters.

professinoal portrait environmental portrait man blue suit at desk brandon schilling brightstar way manufactured housing community midwest mh professionals mhinsider magazine — President and CEO Brandon Schilling

At a manufactured home community in Fostoria, Ohio, industry veteran Brandon Schilling beholds something he thinks of as “the school bus test”.

The company he leads as president and CEO, BrightStar Communities, had acquired the community in Northeast Ohio, and the group had largely completed its initial plan to revitalize the asset.

“When the kids who live in the community are getting off, we look to see how many of the kids who are staying on the bus are pointing out the window, saying ‘I want to play there!’” Schilling said.

With that endorsement from an excited child, Schilling and his team have a strong notion that they’ve landed once again on what they call “The brightSTAR Way”.

New entry signs, upgraded utilities, new playgrounds, repaved roads, new homes with high-quality skirting, and restored clubhouses are all part of the plan for every community they own or buy.

“This is a set of non-negotiables. We just won’t compromise,” Schilling said of the company standard.

In managing its properties and in the acquisition of new communities for the BrightStar portfolio, the BrightStar team holds that every resident deserves a safe and pleasing environment in which to live, where they hold a sense of pride.

BrightStar has operated for more than 50 years and owns more than 20 communities across Ohio and Indiana, and, increasingly, in the Southeast.

basketball court playground clubhouse brightstar way manufactured housing community midwest mh professionals mhinsider magazine

For much of the company’s history, its practice in the manufactured housing industry had been in third-party management. In recent years, BrightStar began acquiring communities. Foxhole Equity bought an interest in the company in 2019.

“That’s been a huge success for us going forward,” BrightStar Director of Acquisitions Carter Moses said of the strategy.

In Fostoria, the acquisition was typical of what BrightStar buys: a community that needs attention and residents who are committed to each other and the neighborhood.

“A lot of it is the curb appeal, adding where needed,” Moses said.

Schilling said the former clubhouse in Fostoria had become a maintenance building.

“We fully re-did the clubhouse,” Schilling said. “It was a value-add buy, as most of the acquisitions are. There had been no upgrades, no changes in years. There was a need for repair and new homes to replace the older ones.”

The ‘Paradigm Shift’

exterior home entry brightstar way manufactured housing community midwest mh professionals mhinsider magazine — The entry of a new home in Fostoria.

Repaved roads and upgraded clubhouses increase curb appeal, but what makes a community — a neighborhood — is the people who live there and their interaction with each other.

“We know all of the residents by name, and their kids’ names, too,” Moses said. “We get out and connect with them and encourage that type of interaction.”

home exterior landscaped brightstar way manufactured housing community midwest mh professionals mhinsider magazine

The community manager and staff, for instance, organized a cookies and letter-writing night during Christmas.

Schilling said when the staff wanted to show of the improvements in Fostoria, it was decided they should have an event.

“We called the mayor,” Schilling said. “We held a community event. We toured homes with the residents.

“It was a paradigm shift,” he said.

Soon, the residents took up the mantle and took to social media to show their pride in Fostoria.

“They face off against other area communities, challenging them in a way,” Moses said. “It’s a community faceoff, of sorts, in a friendly way.”

Moses said Fostoria represents one of many success stories within the BrightStar portfolio.

Currently, the group has seven more communities under contract and is keeping an eye out for further opportunities and expansion.

“This is a long-term, legacy business,” Moses said.

MHInsider is the leader in manufactured housing news and is a product of MHVillage, the top marketplace for manufactured housing.

Manufactured Housing’s AI Moment Is Here

Contributed Content

October 8, 2026

robots arm hand finger touch pad check check home listings mhinsider mhvillage manufactured housing ai technology mhinsider

By Arthur Attal

manufactured housing technology ai mhinsider magazine — Attal

The question that manufactured housing community owners and operators were asking a year ago was whether AI could actually be useful in their business. That debate is over, and the questions now are more practical: Where do I start? How do I connect AI to my existing systems? And what happens to my team?

Why Communities Need A Unique Approach

Most AI tools entering property management were designed for multifamily. That is a problem for operators, because the two asset classes operate on fundamentally different logic.

In manufactured housing, a resident is often both a leaseholder and a homeowner simultaneously. Home sales processes and land-lease dynamics require different workflows than a high-rise leasing funnel. State-level regulations on lot rent increase notices, eviction notice requirements that vary by state and can void a proceeding if the wrong period or language is used.

Retrofitting a multifamily AI tool — or for that matter any tech solution — for MH tends to reveal its gaps after go-live, when broken workflows surface in real transactions. The better path is purpose-built tooling or platforms that have invested in integrations with the systems community operators already use. Depth of integration across the industry’s leading systems, like ManageAmerica, Rent Manager, and Yardi, is a signal of how seriously a vendor has committed to the vertical.

Domos is an AI platform built specifically for manufactured housing communities, with integrations across those systems and a focus on the workflows manufactured housing operators run.

What an AI ‘Ecosystem’ Actually Means

The word “ecosystem” matters here. Most operators start their AI exploration by evaluating point solutions: one tool for sales inquiries, another for maintenance triage, a third for payment reminders. Each solves a discrete problem. The challenge is that workflows do not operate discretely.

A resident’s journey from first inquiry to signed lease and to ongoing tenancy involves handoffs across multiple functions. When AI tools for each function operate in isolation, those handoffs become manual reconnection points. Data does not flow, context gets lost, and staff end up doing the integration work that the technology was supposed to eliminate.

An AI ecosystem approach connects those workflows end-to-end and ties them back to the property management system of record. AI that reads from and writes to the property management software and customer relationship management system, or CRM, goes beyond just answering questions. It takes actions, updates records, and closes loops.

One Domos customer has applied this to their home sales process. AI workers manage workflows from first inquiry through closing, without requiring a human to coordinate each stage. But the connected approach delivers something else that point solutions never could: visibility across the entire funnel.

“To me, the greatest benefit has nothing to do with time being freed up — it has everything to do with data and transparency, something this industry has always lacked. There was no true way to measure conversion data, identify breakpoints, or uncover buyer trends until AI. The speed at which we can now identify those trends and adjust means no lead is left behind,” Endeavor Communities principal partner Ryan Smith said.

What Happens to Human Teams?

When operators hear “AI workforce,” the first question is usually some version of: do my people still have jobs? The concern is reasonable and the industry has not been straightforward enough about what actually changes.

The honest answer is that a capable AI should absorb work that previously required headcount. For operators looking to scale, that is often the primary value: growing a portfolio without proportionally growing the team.

Think about what onsite staff spend their time on today: logging calls, updating resident records, entering work orders, chasing data across systems. These are not judgment calls, they are data entry tasks that happen to require a human because this is how systems were built. Today, the interaction model flips: teams stop talking to software and start talking to their workers; AI workers who handle the system interactions on their behalf, faster and more consistently than any manual process. The human’s job becomes doing what only humans can do: the in-person showing, the difficult resident conversation, the decision that requires reading a room, not updating a field in a property management software.

That shift lands best when onsite staff is brought in early. They know the workflows better than anyone, which makes them essential to a successful deployment. They are also typically the most skeptical. Operators who have done this well report the same pattern: the people who pushed back hardest tend to become the strongest internal advisers and advocates once they see what changes.

“Our goal isn’t to do away with employees, it’s to scale. We want our teams putting their energy into the human part of the job: the in-person conversations, the relationships, the work only people can do,” Rhonda Stroud, a partner and head of property management for Bedrock Communities. “AI takes the administrative weight off their plates so they can focus on the rest. There was initial skepticism, but our onsite managers and maintenance teams are now the ones telling us how much time it gives them back.”

Guardrails, Limitations, and What to Watch

The strongest case for AI adoption in the industry cannot be separated from an honest accounting of its limitations.

Compliance is the most critical area. The Fair Housing Act governs how AI can communicate with prospective residents, and HUD’s 2024 guidance made explicit that the Act applies to housing decisions regardless of whether a human or an algorithm makes them, including the screening of prospects and within all resident communications. Manufactured housing adds further complexity: lot rent increase notice requirements vary by state, with mandatory periods ranging from 30 days to three months and specific statutory language that differs by jurisdiction. Eviction notice rules for land-lease communities are similarly state-specific; the wrong notice period or missing required language can void the proceeding. An AI system that has not been configured with these constraints is a liability, not an asset.

Beyond compliance, operators should ask vendors direct questions before signing. What does the AI hand off, and to whom? How are errors caught? Can AI hallucinations be prevented? Is the system configurable, or does it operate as a black box? The goal is an AI that operators can constrain and oversee. That distinction separates tools built for manufactured housing from tools that were built for something else and pointed at it.

How to Start Implementing

Operators who feel behind on AI adoption often hesitate to move, waiting for the right moment. That hesitation has a cost that compounds quietly.

AI systems that update continuously mean operators do not carry the maintenance burden themselves. By the time an operator finishes building an in-house solution, the underlying models, connectors, and agentic behaviors that solution was built on are already materially outdated.

The implementation path is also clearer now than it was six months ago. Early adopters absorbed the learning curve, and results are no longer limited to pilot phases.

A Practical Approach to AI

Before evaluating vendors, run a two-part internal audit. First, map which workflows consume the most staff time with the least variation. Repetitive, high-volume processes are the best candidates to delegate to AI workers.

Second, look at organizational structure honestly. Centralized operations tend to extract more value from AI faster. If decision-making and workflows are fragmented across sites, that structure is worth addressing before or alongside any AI deployment.

The operators getting the most out of AI are treating it as a workforce and organizational strategy, not a software purchase. Portfolios scaling without proportional headcount growth, teams focused on work that actually requires human judgment, and staff who are more effective and more satisfied in their roles. That is the outcome worth building toward.

MHInsider is the leader in manufactured housing news and is a product of MHVillage, the top marketplace for manufactured housing.

One of the Largest Property Management Software Providers Brings MH Manager

Patrick Revere

October 5, 2026

manufactured housing industry property management software woman at laptop smile productivity

Yardi has been in the converging world of real estate and technology for a long time, including in the manufactured housing industry with its primary offerings and an adapted version for smaller operations, called Yardi Breeze Premier. After years of development, the company has released Yardi MH Manager, a new right-sized, manufactured-housing-focused offering that helps meet the needs of mid- to larger-sized operators.

Built for Control in a Single Platform

Yardi built and deployed MH Manager for manufactured housing community owners and operators who serve and manage residents, homesites, home inventory, and daily operations. It offers…

1. Management of homes and homesites
2. Acceptance of online payments, as well as other resident tools
3. Automated daily workflows
4. The use of built-in accounting designed for MH operations
5. A reduction in manual processes, elimination of disconnected systems

“MH Manager is an intuitive and powerful property management software that meets the needs of a property manager in this industry and eases the workflow of everyday operations,” Tanner Buuck, Yardi’s sales manager for manufactured housing, said. “By combining property management, accounting, and resident services into one platform, operators can eliminate the need for multiple systems, reduce data entry errors, and gain real-time insights into operations.”

Yardi was founded in 1984 by Anant Yardi, who created the first platform Basic Property Management, on an Apple computer for his real estate properties in Santa Barbara, Calif. In the ensuing decades, Yardi expanded with its Voyager product and strategic acquisitions, and now operates 80 countries with a workforce of more than10,000 employees.

MHInsider is the leader in manufactured housing news and is a product of MHVillage, the top marketplace for manufactured housing.

SECO26: Practical Education for Community Owners

Contributed Content

October 2, 2026

manufactured housing industry events three person panel table seco community owners education — An educational panel from SECO 2025. From left, Ed Barber, Jane Yang, Bryce McMurtry, and moderator Chris Nicely. Photo courtesy of SECO.

Oct. 6-8 at Avalon Hotel in Alpharetta, Ga.

Manufactured housing community owners have never had more information available to them — or more decisions to make. From advances in artificial intelligence and technology to changing operational demands, acquisitions, risk management, and evolving resident expectations, today’s owners are constantly balancing long-term strategy with day-to-day operations. As a result, opportunities for education are valuable.

Hosted by the nonprofit Southeast Community Owners organization, SECO26 takes place Oct. 6–8, 2026, at The Hotel at Avalon in Alpharetta, Georgia. This year’s conference marks a move from its longtime home at The Waverly Hotel near The Battery in Atlanta to a new venue in the heart of Avalon, a walkable mixed-use district offering convenient access to restaurants, shops, and entertainment.

What began 15 years ago as a gathering of regional community owners has grown into a nationally recognized conference, welcoming attendees from coast to coast. Community owners from more than 35 states are regularly in attendance at SECO conferences.

With Yardi Breeze returning as the presenting sponsor, SECO26 will bring together manufactured housing community owners, operators, investors, suppliers, and other industry professionals for two and a half days of education designed specifically for the community ownership sector.

The educational program reflects many of the challenges owners navigate today. Artificial intelligence will be a major focus, with multiple sessions designed for varying levels of experience — from attendees exploring AI for the first time to those looking for practical ways to incorporate it into their businesses. Additional sessions will examine operations, acquisitions, liability reduction, technology, management strategies, asset protection, and other topics intended to provide practical, real-world takeaways.

The exhibit hall gives attendees direct access to companies providing products and services tailored to manufactured housing communities, making it easy to compare solutions, discover new technologies, and build relationships with industry vendors. Attendees will also have the opportunity to tour five model homes from leading manufactured home builders, providing a firsthand look at current home designs, features, and innovations.

As the manufactured housing industry continues to evolve, SECO26 provides an opportunity for community owners and operators to step away from their day-to-day responsibilities, explore new solutions,and return home with practical strategies for their businesses. For additional information, including the conference agenda, speakers, exhibitors, and registration details, visit SECOConference.com.

MHInsider magazine is the leader in manufactured housing news and is a product of MHVillage, the top marketplace for manufactured housing.

Transform Vacant Land into Homeownership Opportunities

Contributed Content

September 29, 2026

By Patrick Shea

For many Americans, homeownership feels increasingly out of reach. Rising home prices, limited housing inventory, and increasing construction costs have created significant barriers for working families.

For me, that challenge has become both a professional mission and a personal passion.

I began my career in the manufactured housing industry more than six years ago as an installer based in Illinois. In that time, I have participated in the installation of more than 500 manufactured homes across the Midwest and West.

Working directly in the field taught me everything from site preparation and transportation logistics to installation, inspections, and code compliance. More importantly, it allowed me to witness firsthand the positive impact manufactured housing can have on families seeking homeownership.

Throughout those years, I developed a reputation for delivering safe, quality, and code-compliant homes while helping families achieve one of life’s most important milestones — owning a home.

Land on a Vision

After relocating to the Las Vegas area, I quickly recognized the tremendous need for affordable housing solutions throughout Southern Nevada. Like many fast-growing markets across the country, the region continues to face increasing housing costs and a shortage of attainable homeownership opportunities.

I wanted to become part of the solution. I obtained my manufactured home dealer’s license and established Shea Factory Homes, a dealership that focuses on providing modern manufactured homes and attainable homeownership opportunities. At the same time, I continued building Shea Construction & Co., our installation and site-development company specializing in manufactured housing projects.

Together, these companies allow us to offer a streamlined approach that covers every stage of the development process — from land evaluation and planning to home placement and completion.

What makes our model unique, however, is the partnership between development, investment, execution, and speed.

A significant contributor to our success has been our work alongside valued investors, whose efforts behind the scenes have helped identify many of the redevelopment opportunities we pursue today.

While completed homes often receive attention, successful redevelopment projects begin long before construction starts. Finding viable opportunities requires extensive market research, property analysis, and relationship building. Many of the properties we target are vacant lots, abandoned parcels, or underutilized sites that others overlook. Each property must be evaluated for zoning requirements, utility access, development costs, permitting considerations, market demand, and overall feasibility.

Identifying the right property is only the first step.

‘Bridging the Gap’

Investors play a critical role in bridging the gap between opportunity and action. By sourcing deals, cultivating investment relationships, and helping secure project funding, a good investment partner makes it possible for a team, ours included, to transform vacant and neglected properties into productive residential housing.

One of the greatest advantages of our approach is speed. Once a suitable parcel has been acquired and development planning is complete, a new manufactured home can typically be ordered and delivered within approximately three to four weeks. Following arrival, site completion, installation, utility connections, inspections, and final preparations can be completed within a month, allowing the home to be ready for occupancy on a significantly shorter schedule than would be the case for many standard site-built construction projects.

In a market facing ongoing housing shortages, time matters. Every month saved in the development process represents families being housed sooner, neighborhoods being revitalized faster, and communities benefiting from additional housing inventory more quickly.

While no single solution can solve the affordability crisis, manufactured housing offers one of the most practical and scalable ways to bring quality housing to market efficiently without sacrificing safety, durability, or long-term value.

The results can be seen throughout our redevelopment projects across the Las Vegas Valley.

The accompanying before-and-after photographs illustrate how abandoned, outdated, and underutilized parcels can be transformed into attractive residential properties featuring modern manufactured homes. What were once vacant lots become opportunities for families, neighborhoods, and communities alike.

At Shea Factory Homes, our mission extends beyond simply selling homes. We take pride in helping families achieve homeownership and begin building real equity.

Every home we place represents more than a housing unit. It represents an opportunity for a family to create stability and invest in the future.

Looking ahead, we believe this redevelopment model has tremendous potential beyond Las Vegas. Communities throughout Nevada, California, Arizona, Utah, and other Western markets face many of the same affordability challenges we see in Southern Nevada.

By combining strategic investment partnerships, redevelopment expertise, and modern manufactured housing solutions, we believe meaningful progress can be made toward expanding housing supply and increasing access to homeownership throughout the region.

Patrick Shea began his journey in the manufactured home industry in the South Suburbs of Chicago. As a licensed installer, he worked with multiple communities across the Midwest, Arizona, and Nevada. After founding Shea Factory Homes and Shea Construction & Co., he shifted his focus toward developing affordable single-family manufactured homes. Now rooted in Las Vegas, he is committed to serving first-time homebuyers, hardworking blue-collar families, veterans, and individuals priced out of the traditional housing market.

MHInsider is the leader in manufactured housing news and is a product of MHVillage, the top marketplace for manufactured housing.

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Oct. 6-8 at Avalon Hotel in Alpharetta, Ga.

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