What is a HUD Code home? The federal construction standard every manufactured home has been built to since 15 June 1976, which is what separates a manufactured home from an older mobile home and from a modular one.
The HUD Code is the Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards at 24 CFR part 3280, adopted under the National Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974 and in force for homes built on or after 15 June 1976. It covers the body and frame, fire safety, plumbing, heating and electrical systems, thermal protection and the ability to survive transport. It is also preemptive: a local building department cannot apply its own code to the construction of the home itself, though siting, the foundation, the utility connections and the installation remain local business.
Compliance shows up as two labels, and both matter at a sale. A red enamel certification label is riveted to the outside of each transportable section and carries a unique number, so a two-section home has two of them. A data plate is posted inside, commonly in a kitchen cabinet, a bedroom closet or beside the electrical panel, and lists the manufacturer, the date of manufacture and the wind, roof load and thermal zones the home was built for. Those zone maps were tightened in 1994 after Hurricane Andrew: the wind zone rule was published in January 1994 and applies to homes built on or after 13 July 1994, and the thermal provisions were amended that March.
The 1976 date is the lending line. FHA, VA, USDA and the agencies will not finance a factory-built home made before it, which is why a pre-1976 mobile home is usually a cash or chattel purchase. A missing or painted-over label stops a file, and the fix is a label verification letter from HUD's records rather than a new label. A modular home is not a HUD Code home at all: it is built in sections to the local building code and inspected by the state, so the label to look for there is a state or third-party insignia.
A worked example
A buyer offers $95,000 on a 1,450 square foot factory-built home on owned land. The lender asks for the HUD labels; one section's red plate has been painted over. HUD's label verification letter costs about $100 and takes a few weeks, the file closes on an FHA Title II loan at 3.5 percent down, and the same home built in 1974 would have been cash only.
Manufactured homes for sale in Las Vegas
Questions people ask
Where is the HUD label on a manufactured home?
A red enamel certification label is riveted to the outside of each transportable section, usually near a lower rear corner, so a double-wide has two. The data plate with the wind, roof load and thermal zones is inside, commonly in a kitchen cabinet, a bedroom closet or next to the electrical panel.
Is a modular home a HUD Code home?
No. A modular home is built in sections to the local building code, the IRC as adopted by the state, and carries a state or third-party inspection insignia rather than a HUD label. It has no permanent chassis, sits on a permanent foundation, and is financed and appraised as a site-built house.