HUD showcase spotlights Cavco chassis-free manufactured home

Cavco Industries, Inc. will unveil Grande Arbor, the company’s first manufactured home model built without a permanent steel chassis frame, this week in Washington, D.C. The new model, built to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) code, will debut between September 22 and September 24 on the National Mall, as part of the 2026 Innovative Housing Showcase, an annual HUD-organized event that highlights innovative housing designs and technologies. Cavco’s new model introduction comes just over two months after the passage of the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which eliminated the permanent chassis requirement for manufactured housing. While Cavco and other manufactured housing leaders say the benefits of the change will take time to materialize, they argue that eliminating the permanent chassis requirement will spur development of better, more flexible designs, higher-density housing and greater deployment of manufactured homes in urban and suburban infill markets. The next iteration of manufactured housing According to the Niskanen Center, eliminating the permanent steel chassis requirement reduced manufactured home construction costs by $5,000 to $10,0...