The big American homebuilders have dug themselves into a hole from which they may not emerge for years. Having been abettors and subsequently victims of the U.S. housing bubble in the early years of this decade, they may be the last to profit when buyers finally return to the market.

Berkshire also owns 21st Mortgage and Vanderbilt, the two largest lenders in the industry, assuring a certain availability of finance even in these trying times for credit.

If a buyer purchases the land and the home with the same mortgage, then the limit is the same as for anything else, up to $729,500 in high-cost areas, with a 5.0% downpayment.

There’s some instrinsic charm in manufactured homes for buyers. For one thing, even beyond the financing, they’re affordable. In 2007, factory-built homes went for $40 per square foot while site-built units cost $92.For another, they’re likely to become blue-collar chic, which would put them more in line with the ethos of the post-bubble recovery than the ostentation of the subprime period.

Tom Beers, the chief economist at the Manufactured Housing Institute, which represents 90.0% of the industry, said manufactured housing went through a subprime bubble of its own in the late 1990s. Lenders subsequently tightened up on their standards while they were still shoveling cash at underqualified buyers of traditional homes.

That cost the manufactured industry customers, but now that moral rectitude has come to the rest of the market, “we’re going to see a level playing field because everyone is now using common-sense lending rules,” Beers said.

The manufactured housing industry’s share of new-home starts was roughly a tenth of the U.S. housing market between 2004 and 2006 down from 22.3% in 2000 and 33.8% in 1995. The Manufactured Housing Institute expects that figure to grow to 14.8% in 2008 and even higher in the years to follow as the new rules kick in.