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

March 15, 2015

Letters, Asset Aggregators, & Much More…

Filed under: Uncategorized — George Allen @ 3:58 am

COBA7® via community-investor.com Blog # 340 Copyright @ 15 march 2015

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 a national advocacy voice, official ombudsman (press), research reporter, & online communication media, for all LLLCommunities in North America!

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!’, and Goal of its’ three print & online publications is, ‘Not only to share information & opinion, but to transform & improve!’

Introduction to this week’s COBA8® blog posting at community-investor.com website:

We likely receive more letters, emails and the like at COBA7®, a division of GFA Management, Inc., dba PMN Publishing, than any other business alliance in the manufactured housing industry: folk responding to this weekly blog posting, or to our affiliate-supported monthly newsletters, and via the normal course of business. Well, here’s recent pithy correspondence received of late. Ponder & learn from them.

WOW! There’s so much ‘going on in & around the MHIndustry/LLLCommunity asset class these days’! Here’re three of the dozen matters making a splash these days: Learn about a property consolidation wave while it’s happening; keep the Ohio Supreme Court decision in mind should you need it similarly; and, if a professional property management aficionado, get trained and ‘certified’ as an MHM® on 31 March 2015 in Dixon, IL.

As You Know, We Do Hear From Readers

Here’re Two Communiqués from MHIndustry Businessmen

I.

Let’s talk Washington, DC for a few minutes; you know, our nation’s capitol, ‘Inside the (infamous) Beltway’, & simply, ‘DC’.

Apparently the air Washington is different, and makes folk – whether they be politicians, lobbyists, trade association types, or hangers-on, deaf to reality elsewhere in this great country. And here, George, is where I differ from you and attempts to ‘go along to get along’ with that strange and eclectic population.

I’d just ignore ‘em and run your own shop and win; and you can. For example; I learned a lot from Jack Frazier, his leadership style, and sense of priorities for winning in business. The first priority? Succeed, period. Remembering along the way, no one else will help you succeed other than your own team, and you have to pay attention to them.(*) His point? ‘Any impact we want to have outside our business will have credibility only when we’re successful; otherwise, no impact whatsoever.’ As to you and COBA7®, you’ll succeed on your current path, going full speed, dragging along a few (home) manufacturers who see potential in what you’re doing with community owners. Neither MHI or MHARR have your interests at heart. They might help on a few things, but their goals are simply income and survival in DC.; so, they’ll react to the occasional squeaky wheel, but COBA7® Success is up to you and your affiliates! The time to smile and say, “I told ya so” will come after success, financial independence, and not needing ‘them’ at all.” NB

(*) This quote is reminiscent of similar sentiment found in my Chapbook of Business & Management Wisdom, to wit: “Only two people really really care whether a consultant – or entrepreneur, for that matter, succeeds or fails in business; the consultant – or businessperson, and his or her spouse or significant other!” GFA From chapter titled: ‘scintillatingly Salient-but-Salacious Secrets to Business Management Consulting Success’, PMN Publishing, 2002. Note. New fourth edition in process of publication.

Like that one? Well, here’s another one I frequently ‘recall with a smile’: “To clearly identify one’s supporters, detractors, and in-betweens, observe who contracts for one’s consulting services, buys one’s proprietary products (books & forms, ) and pays to subscribe to one’s newsletter – and who doesn’t! And the in-between folk? Well, the smart ones buy and subscribe, to learn and copy what you’re doing; while the lazy ones simply don’t care, or have no clue as to what’s going on around them!” GFA

II.

And this correspondence from a successful businessman who sells new HUD-Code manufactured homes for a living.

“What killed independent (street) MHRetailers (erstwhile ‘dealers’), and almost took the manufactured housing industry down with them, was poor business practices. Home salesmen got deep enough into the financing regimen to know what they had to show on applications to get independent third party chattel finance firms to ‘buy their deals’. The back rooms at some, if not many MHRetailers, generated income, credit and down payments out of thin air, to get home buyers approved for loans. Some have been known to opine, ‘Our industry took mortgage fraud to a new level and taught it to the site-built guys.’ Well, the site-built guys similar ‘success’ resulted in everyone now being subject to the S.A.F.E. Act, Dodd-Frank legislation, and other financial regulations.

So, what’s it going to take to bring MHRetailers back? Obviously, much improved business practices, beginning with salesmen removed from influencing financing where income, credit, and down payments are concerned. MHRetailers will also have to attract qualified prospective homebuyers who need and want their particular (housing) product line(s). This revival begins with clearly knowing what one’s local housing market wants to buy and how much, on the average, homebuyers can truly afford to purchase. Hand in glove, is the MHRetailers ability to identify and secure chattel financing for their transactions.

Furthermore, there’s a not-so-new, but proven methodology afoot, that’s worthy of reemphasis and application, The Pre-Qualification Analysis! In less than five minutes we ask ten questions which enable us to know whether prospective homebuyers are qualified to buy or not. And we emphasize verification of everything they tell us, leaving them no reason to lie. We also charge a $50.00 application fee – an amount they’ll lose, if it turns out they gave us wrong information during the Pre-Qualification Analysis. To date we’ve enjoyed a nine out of ten success rate, when it comes to accurate information.

Something new to the manufactured housing finance scene is pre-purchase counseling. We’re in the midst of finalizing our program with a not for profit that specializes in performing this unique service for HUD. Our goal is to have it in place and working, before debuting publicly for the first time, at the 24th annual International Networking Roundtable, 9-11 September 2015, in San Diego, CA. At that time, we’ll be pleased to share both our Pre-Qualification Analysis questions, and the counseling program.” SR

Has Anyone Else Out There Noticed?

The ‘Asset Aggregator’ LLLCommunities Consolidation Wave is Upon Us!

Yes, the land-lease-lifestyle community (a.k.a. manufactured home community) asset class is in the midst of its latest (fourth) ‘Make a Bundle or Lose Your Shirt’ bell-shaped curve of real estate investment.

And if you’re present at the New York Housing Association’s Northeast Super Symposium, 25 March 2015, in Albany, NY, you’ll hear firsthand about this fourth wave. Why is this significant, and Why should You want to be on hand for this exciting addendum to the ‘Official State of the Manufactured Housing Industry & Land-lease-lifestyle Community Asset Class’ presentation?

Heretofore, as an industry/asset class, we’ve not described or talked about any of the previous three ‘income-producing property consolidation waves’ until after the fact. This venue in New York however, will be the first time in MHIndustry history, where an ‘asset aggregator comber’ – as it’s swelled to date, will be described in terms of its’ participants, target properties, and at least one planned turnaround strategy – while actually occurring throughout the manufactured housing industry nationwide!

For more information and to register, phone Nancy Geer via (518) 867-3242.

Ohio Supreme Court strikes portion of local housing market zoning ordinance targeting manufactured homes!

Yep, we won one! “The Ohio Supreme Court ruled (10 March 2015) that a portion of the (city of ) Lodi’s zoning code, that targeted mobile home parks in the community, was unconstitutional.” – amounting to an unconstitutional taking of private property. For more information, contact the Ohio Manufactured Housing Association, (614) 799-2340

Soon Opportunity to be Certified as a Manufactured Housing Manager®

If you own or operate a land-lease-lifestyle community in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, or Iowa, and want to be part of the industry movement to bring professional property management to our unique type of income-producing property, plan to participate in the day long (no testing) Manufactured Housing Manager® class occurring in Dixon, IL (North Central Illinois) on Tuesday, 21 March 2015. The class already has 15 registrants, with room for ten more. Cost? Only $250.00/person.

Today, there’re nearly 1,000 MHM®s owning/operating LLLCommunities throughout the U.S. and Canada. The class textbook is the 1988 classic, now in it’s sixth edition, Landlease Community Management – you get a copy for the registration fee, plus a monograph of contemporary MHIndustry readings, and at the end of the day, the coveted gold MHM® lapel pin and MHM® certificate! This is the only professional property management training and certification class offered in the U.S., that’s taught by a 30+ year veteran of LLLCommunity ownership/management, Certified Property Manager® Emeritus, and MHM®Master.

For more information, and to register for the class, phone the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877)MFD-HSNG or 633-4764. The MHM® class is facilitated by the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance®, or COBA7®, and hosted by Hauck Homes of Dixon, IL. Next class will be on 20 May 2015 in E. Peoria, IL., as part of the annual meeting of the Illinois Manufactured Housing Association. For details, phone Frank Bowman @ (217) 528-3423.

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