Hi,
This is not a CentOs issue or problem. This plain Jane UNIX. $HOME can be anything you want or need it to be. Copy the user's home directory to where you want and make the appropriate changes in the passwd file or automount maps.
Well, yes and no. In case of Debian/Ubuntu, we need to modify apparmor settings (e.g., by changing "etc/apparmor.d/tunables/home" information) to get it right apart from just copying them and changing passwd file.
I wondered if CentOS has such an issue when relocating $HOME directories.
Cheers, Soo-Hyun