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

September 26, 2018

Where Are They Today?

Filed under: Uncategorized — George Allen @ 12:20 pm

Blog # 504; Copyright @ 23 September 2018; community-investor.com

Perspective. ‘Land lease communities, previously manufactured home communities, &
‘mobile home parks’, comprise the real estate component of manufactured housing.’

This blog posting is the sole national advocate, voice, official ombudsman, historian, research reporter & online communication media for all North American LLCommunities

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

COBA7 Motto: ‘U Support US & WE Serve U!’ Goal for its’ print & online media =
to not only inform & opine, but to transform & improve MHousing performance!
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INITRODUCTION: Are you ready for this? (Unsure I am). Two blog postings in one week: one semi-historic; the other? Well, the title hints at its’ importance: ‘We’ve Got A Problem!’ – Revisited. Read on…and again, in a day or so….

I.

Where Are They Today?

On 31 August 1993, 19 owners/operators of (then) manufactured home communities, from throughout the U.S., attended a day long strategic planning meeting in Indianapolis, IN. Purpose? To organize and effect better national representation and advocacy for the realty asset class, by bona fide stakeholders, before the 1994/5 beginning of the mini-REIT wave.

25 years later, all but six of the original 19 participants have retired, moved onto other business and personal interests, or died. And today, there are three land lease community REITs, and 500 known stakeholder portfolio owners/operators

Retirees include Gary McDaniel, Martin Newby, Lynwood Wellhausen, and Martin Lavin, esquire.

Moved onto other interests: Jim Grange, Jeff Kellogg, Dick Leiter, Bill Williams, Bill Geary, Jerry Ellenberg, and Scott West.

Deceased. Tom Horner, Jr. and Ron Richardson

So, what are the remaining six present and former owners/operators of land lease communities doing these days?

Randy Rowe, formerly with ELS, Inc., (nee MHC, Inc), went on to found, grow, and later sell, Hometown America. Today he heads Green Courte Partners, based in Chicago, and is acquiring his third portfolio of land lease communities!

Kamal Shouhayb, long of Choice Properties & the Choice Group, continues to own a Midwest-based portfolio of land lease communities, now managed by his son Rob; and develops realty in other regions of the world.

Eugene Landy of UMH Properties (nee United Mobile Homes), in this industry observer’s eyes, is the most under-appreciated, self-effacing businessman in the manufactured housing industry! How so? His firm was a real estate investment trust – in the 1980s, before it was popular to be a REIT. And though slow-growing in portfolio growth, Gene has long ensured UMH Properties has been the most active REIT-supporter of national advocacy efforts in behalf of land lease communities via MHI and COBA7.

Brian Fannon, CPM, is a the preeminent journeyman of land lease community development and operations, given his long and successful career in professional property management, and stellar work he’s engaged in today, selling new HUD-Code homes onto rental homesites at the newly developed Oaks at Rockford, in Rockford, MI.

Ed Zeman, continuing his late father’s (‘Bud Zeman’) legacy, continues to own/operate land lease communities throughout the Midwest, including the aforementioned Oaks at Rockford.

George Allen, CPM, MHM. What does one say about oneself? The less the better. Though I am pleased to see the work we began together in 1993 continue under the auspices of: three trade groups:

• Manufactured Housing Institute’s (‘MHI’) National Communities Council (‘NCC’) division, functioning as national lobbyist in Alexandria, VA.

• Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance (‘COBA7’), a division of GFA Management, Inc., dba PMN Publishing, providing products (e.g. books, newsletters, Signature Series Resource Documents or SSRDs) and services (e.g. consulting, MHM training/certification, & networking/deal-making events) for land lease community owners/operators throughout the U.S. and Canada.

• National Association of Manufactured Housing Community Owners (‘NAMHCO’), a newly organized national advocate and lobbyist for land lease community owners/operators nation wide. Headquartered in Arizona.

If you’d like to read more of the details describing this history of land lease community national advocacy, beginning with aforementioned 8/31/1993 meeting, read Bruce Savage’s The First 20 Years! PMN Publishing, IN., 2013. FREE for the asking, as long as inventory allows, by phoning the Official MHIndustry HOTLINIE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764.

Postscript. The September 25th meeting of MHI’s NCC division, in Huntington Beach, CA., was somewhat historic in its’ own right. How so? It was the last meeting, since the NCC was officially launched by MHI on 1 January 1996, to be attended by one of the original 19 community owners/operators who formed the Industry Steering Committee (NCC’s predecessor) on 31 August 1993. So, one might say, There Ends A 25 Year Era!
GFA
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