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One of the primary challenges facing U.S. urban and suburban governments is the growing need for high-quality affordable housing. Manufactured-home land-lease communities have played a tremendous role in housing Americans and remain the housing choice of many people, whether because of their affordability or the lifestyle they offer. Over 9 million households with 18 million people live in manufactured homes, and 45 percent of manufactured-home buyers earn less than 80 percent of the area median income. In 2009, manufactured housing accounted for 43 percent of all new homes sold for under $150,000 and 23 percent of all those sold for under $200,000. Since 1989, manufactured housing has accounted for 21 percent of all new family homes sold.

In 2009, the median price of an existing single-family home in the United States declined by 12.5 percent, the largest single-year drop since the National Association of Realtors began tracking the number in the late 1960s. But there were pockets of stable values and even rising home prices in every major metropolitan area across the country. The location of these stronger neighborhoods tended to depend on the traditional strengths of the metropolitan area as a whole.

“Resilient” seems to be the best word to describe the U.S. Gulf Coast real estate industry. No matter what Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, or Alabama experience— natural disasters, economic downturns, or other unforeseen problems—the region seems to bounce back stronger than ever.

Disappointing reversals and changes are abundant in this month’s ULI Barometer, although there is a touch of positive news, as well. Read more in ULI’s Real Estate Business Barometer, a monthly summary of more than 60 key indicators of the economy, employment, and the real estate market.

High-speed rail could be a catalyst for community building in California if we are able to “unlearn” what we currently know about transit-orient development in the US and successfully develop new implementation tools based on international models, according to a panel of urban design and development experts at California’s High-Speed Rail TOD Marketplace. Read more about what the experts discussed at the session.

It is hard to pinpoint how much of the $787 billion in federal economic stimulus funds is making its way into actual real estate developments, but projects adding value to real estate are under way, or on the way, in all four corners of the country—and many places in between. While the massive injection of taxpayer capital into the economy is not without its critics, it has prompted one of the biggest increases in construction spending the industry has experienced in a long time.

New laws and regulations empower regulatory agencies, requiring significant addition to both staffs and budgets. Some reported “growth” numbers; please don’t read our syntax as being critical of Dodd-Frank as real, enforceable regulation is required. Read about the potential job creation of Dodd-Frank.

According to an analysis in Bloomberg Businessweek (July 26 – August 1, 2010), home prices in Asian cities, together with some Scandinavian countries, significantly increased during the first quarter 2010 as compared to the same period in 2009. How did housing prices in Europe and the United States compare?

While most economic statistics released recently continue to paint a mixed and uneven picture, that is better than the previous run of consistently sluggish data that so dominated over the summer. Nevertheless, there is a subtle reassessment underway whereby consumers and companies consider a downgraded outlook for the rest of the year and into 2011.