George Allen / EducateMHC Blog Mobile Home & Land Lease Community Advocate & Expert

August 6, 2016

MHAlive! Think Tank sets stage for 25th Networking Roundtable

Filed under: Uncategorized — George Allen @ 11:40 am

Blog # 408 Copyright 2016 COBA7® @ 7 August 2016, community-investor.com

Perspective. ‘Land-lease-lifestyle Communities, a.k.a. manufactured home communities and ‘mobile home parks’, comprise the real estate component of manufactured housing.’

This blog posting is the sole national advocacy voice, official ombudsman & historian, research reporter & online communication media for North American LLLCommunities.

To input this blog &/or affiliate with Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance®, a.ka. COBA7®, use Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764

COBA7® Motto: ‘U Support US & WE Serve U! Goal of it is’ print/online media =
‘Not only inform & Opine, but transform & improve MHBusiness Model Performance.’

INTRODUCTION. This week’s blog, by way of introduction, covers the exciting proceedings at MHAlive! – a Think Tank experience, as it occurred 1 August 2016, at the RV/MH Hall of Fame facility in Elkhart, IN. Frankly, this veteran MHIndustry observer cannot think of a single ‘like event’ at any other time, anywhere else, during year 2016. Yet this is the very type of Open Discussion our industry and realty asset class needs, to get us through the trauma and paradigm shifting of the past 16 years! So, read and ponder – then commit to participate in next year’s MHAlive!, same place, similar time (first Monday of August in Elkhart). GFA

I.

MHAlive!

MHAlive! ‘Think Tank’ Stimulates Discussion & Plans for Future

Is it possible? The RV/MH Hall of Fame, in Elkhart, IN., has become the national hub for present and future discussions of manufactured housing & recreational vehicle industries’ issues & matters, as well as a business education center for its’ entrepreneurs.

Apparently it has! The RV industry routinely kicks off their new production year
with early morning breakfasts in its’ banquet hall – attracting hundreds! The MHIndustry,
since 2/27/2009, has convened State of the Industry Caucuses there – most recently, Two
Days of Plant Tours & Home Sale Seminars’ was hosted in the facility’s amphitheatre
and seven nearby HUD-Code housing manufacturing plants.

And this past Monday, 1 August 2016, manufactured housing executives and
land-lease-lifestyle community owners/operators, from Georgia to California and in
between, gathered for a morning-long MHAlive! ‘Think Tank’ experience, concluded
with a luncheon. Later in the day, the 2016 Class of RV/MH industry pioneers and
leaders were inducted into the foundation’s prestigious Hall of Fame!

What was discussed during the MHAlive! Think Tank sessions? A few of the
heady topics that are, or should be, on just about everyone’s mind these days:

• Restoring reasonable access to chattel capital, to enable in-community ‘home only loans’. Here, lively discussion ranged from FHFA’s Duty to Serve (‘DTS’) rulemaking; to status of HR650; to ‘Who’s HR5301 – the Seller Finance Enhancement Act?’ to, tell me more about Fannie Mae ‘home only loans’ in certain LLLCommunities! For more info on HR5301, go to sellerfinancecoaliton.org/learn-more. For more info on MHI/MHARR’s HR650, phone (703) 558-0400. For more info on Fannie Mae & ‘home only loans’, come to the 25th anniversary Networking Roundtable, 7-9 September in Nashville, TN. Phone (317) 346-7156 for more information & to register for this seminal event.

• It’s all but inevitable, DOE-mandated energy standards will increase the cost of new singlesection manufactured homes by approximately $2,000 apiece, and multisection homes by approximately $4,000 apiece! This heavy-handed dictate is being effected 1) with few, if any, businessmen and women (e.g. home manufacturers, LLLCommunity owners) involved ‘in the rulemaking process’; 2) relative to factory-built homes already recognized as being energy efficient and not in need of additional energy regs at this time; 3) with DOE’s surprising lack of awareness of the paradigm shift moving distribution of new HUD-Code homes away from independent (street) MHRetailers, into LLLCommunities nationwide; and, 4) either uncaring or naïve, to the reality these unnecessary energy standards will stymie lower and middle income individuals/families’ access to the last type of affordable, non-subsidized manufactured housing left in the U.S.!

• As shown recently (in Woodall’s Campground Management, July 2016), the ‘RV Industry Pumps Nearly $50 Billion Annually into the U.S. Economy’. Well, the Manufactured Housing Institute, working with Dr. Stephen C. Cooke of the Alward Institute for Collaborative Studies, in North Carolina, plans to estimate similar $ impact on the U.S. economy, by HUD-Code manufactured housing and its’ various segments, e.g. land-lease-lifestyle communities. To date, Dr. Cooke, citing a base year of 2013, and examining only the ‘production value’ of new homes shipped, suggested a ‘going forward factor’ of $43,169 per unit (e.g. 2013 = $2,600,000,000.00 divided by 60,288 units shipped = $43,126,300.00/unit) Thus, 70,544 new HUD-Code homes shipped during 2015 – according to the Institute for Building Safety & Technology (‘IBTS’), contributed approximately $3,045, 313,936.00 to the national economy that year.

• The realities of corporate consolidation, in HUD-Code home manufacturing and LLLCommunity investment properties, was tallied, compared and examined. Specifically; in 1977 = 25 housing manufacturing firms garnered 70% of national market share, shipping 186,462 of 265,651 new ‘mobile homes’; today, in 2015 = the Big 3-C firms (Clayton, Cavco, Champion) together garnered 71% national market share, shipping approximately 50,086 of 70,544 new manufactured homes. And in the case of (then) MHCommunities, 1987 saw the 25 (then) known portfolio ‘players’ owning/operating 181,705 rental homesites; today, 2015 = 120 of the 500+/- known portfolio owners/operators control 841,796 rental homesites; overall, a 20 fold increase in the total number of portfolio ‘players’ (i.e. 25 to 500+/-); and, a like 20 fold estimated increase (3,634,100+/- sites) in total number of rental homesites within property portfolios characteristic of this real estate asset class (e.g. 3,634,100 divided by 181,705)!

• COBA7® debuted its’ ‘TOP TEN States Shipping New HUD-Code Homes’ in an earlier blog posting, featuring the May 2016 listing. Well, here’re the May & June lists side by side. No one else in the MHIndustry will provide you this interesting and helpful monthly information from the IBTS!

MAY 2016 JUNE 2016
1. Texas = 1,096 HUD-Code homes 1. TX = 1,129 HUD-Code homes
2. Florida = 434 2. FL = 474
3. Louisiana = 403 3. LA = 460
4. Alabama = 377 4. AL = 364
5. Michigan = 309 5. MI = 348
6. North Carolina = 273 6. MS = 327
7. California = 263 7. CA = 285
8. South Carolina = 258 8. NC = 280
9. Mississippi = 252 9. SC = 258
10. Kentucky = 210 10. GA = 242
Total = 4,167 of 7,299 = 57%

These lists supplement a similar format published by the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (‘MHARR’). Major difference? Their ranking is per ‘cumulative total shipments’, per state, harkening back to 2011. The COBA7® lists are not encumbered with past performance per state; rather, just new unadulterated data! Are you a COBA7® affiliate yet? Phone aforementioned Official MHIndustry HOTLINE for an information brochure.

Did you notice? The total number of new HUD-Code homes shipped during June 2016 is 7,299 units! That brings the YTD total to 39,869 units. These statistics are researched & published by IBTS, used by HUD, MHARR, & COBA7. Be aware & beware, a June shipment number ‘reduced by’, then ‘added to’, by Destination Pending figures from past (May) & present (June) months. So confusing!

• Final area of Think Tank discussion had to do with the present state of ‘no national brand advertising for HUD-Code manufactured housing’. Discussion centered around whether LLLCommunities, given their present day absorption of 40+ percent of new HUD-Code home shipments (during 2015), should consider pressuring home manufacturers to redirect payment of floor fees (that LLLCommunities pay to them) to a capable, experienced, motivated (yet to be named) national manufactured housing marketing and advertising firm, to this end: National Brand Advertising!

• Announcement was made re publication and FREE distribution of a Guidebook for the Selling & Seller-financing of New HUD-Code Homes On-site in LLLCommunities, at the upcoming 25th anniversary Networking Roundtable in Nashville, TN. The guidebook is a compilation of material presented at the Two Days of Plant Tours & Home Sales Seminars, held in May at the RV/MH Hall of Fame; plus timely and helpful material culled from other sources and resources. The guidebook will also likely be distributed at the 6th annual SECO Summit in the South, in Atlanta, GA., in late October. And then be available for purchase from COBA7®. For more info on the SECO event, email genevieve@secoconference.com

• Finally, and actually occurring after the MHAlive! Think Tank experience, preliminary plans were laid for a one or two day seminar program this Winter. Titled, ‘How to Implement & Use Lease-Option in Midwest LLLCommunities!’ LLLCommunity owners/operators in five Midwest states have already voiced support for the program. To put your name on the ‘invite’ list, email spencer@roane.com

See what you missed by not being present at MHAlive! on 1 August at the RV/MH Hall of Fame in Elkhart, IN.? But don’t fret; plans are afoot to host MHAlive! – a ‘Think Tank’ experience, again next year, during the same time frame, at the same location!

And that wasn’t all. Following a group luncheon, hosted by Newport Pacific, several MHIndustry execs returned to the Hall of Fame for an hour long presentation of ‘Write Your RV/MH Story!’, How to Pen & Publish Your Memoir, Autobiography, or Corporate History….This session, led by George Allen, CPM® & MHM®, will likely result in a biography of a true industry pioneer, an RV/MH Hall of Fame inductee, whose career extends back to the year 1948! This session too will likely be featured in 2017 at the same place and during same timeframe – to encourage other pioneers, and YOU, to record and publish your personal, familial, and or corporate history in the RV and or MH industries!

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