Are manufactured condos the solution to St. Petersburg, Florida's affordable housing crisis? First Dartmouth Development's Frank Maggio certainly does seem to think so. The St. Petersburg Times writes:
Maggio hopes an appeal to price will sell the mondos. In a St. Petersburg market where $250,000 condos are considered entry level, Maggio is pitching mondos for as little as $160,000. The reason is the shorter building time, assembly line construction and low profit margins.
He said he's so confident of sales, he's building the first 54 units, housed in three modular stories, on speculation. They will range from 1,000 to 1,500 square feet with two or three bedrooms.
"In work force housing, we don't need to be driving prices up, but driving prices down," he said.
What Maggio is obviously missing is that $160,000 is way overpriced for a modular unit, especially when you can still buy a two bedroom, two bath unit for under $150,000 in Pinellas County. Maggio did not state why he feels $160,000 is a warranted price, which I find odd, considering that condo inventory is exuberant in the current market.
Modular housing, to be deemed affordable should actually be affordable, and St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker should not approve any "affordable" housing project, unless the units are $80,000 or less, or $120,000 or less, if developers will subsidize the buyers' downpayments.
Exorbitantly priced units that require first-time buyers, police officers, teachers and firefighters and other working class folks to mortgage themselvs so deeply in debt that it becomes troublesome to cover other living expenses is clearly not affordable housing, and Mayor Rick Baker and other decision makers need to create clear reqirements for developers calling something an "affordable" housing project. Mondos are clearly not affordable housing, in the classic sense of the term.
Modular materials are less expensive than concrete block, therefore, the units should cost less, not more than current resale inventory, which they do in the case of Maggio's proposal.
Cities would be wise to create guidelines for what qualifies as affordable housing and what does not. St. Petersburg, Florida is lagging behind in this effort, when it comes to affordable housing.
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