Farmington is U.S. mobile home capital

The Farmington area has a claim on being the mobile home capital of the United States, according to a housing study released last month by the Census Bureau. “The largest percentage of mobile homes as part of a metro area’s housing inventory was in Farmington, N.M., with 32 percent, followed by Yuma, Ariz., with 29 percent,” says the study titled “Physical Characteristics of Housing: 2009-2011.” The study is based on the Farmington metropolitan statistical area, or MSA, which means it includes all of surrounding San Juan County, including the Navajo Nation. The high proportion of manufactured homes is likely a rural phenomenon. Just more than two-thirds of the county’s estimated 128,529 population live outside the city of Farmington, scattered across roughly 5,500 square miles of typically rugged terrain, said Theresa McBee, president of the San Juan Board of Realtors. Manufactured homes could be the most cost-effective choice for a house in remote areas, she said.  At 26.7 percent, Lake Havasu/Kingman, Ariz., was the only other metro in the country to have mobile homes account for more than 25 percent. Doña Ana County shows up on a map as having 20 percent or more of its housing stock in mobile or manufactured homes...more