Blog # 398 Copyright 2016 COBA7® @ 29 May 2016; community-investor.com website
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.k.a. COBA7®, use Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764.
COBA7® Motto = ‘U support US & WE Serve U!’ Goal of its’ print/online media =
‘Not only inform & opine, but transform & improve MHBusiness Model Performance!’
INTRODUCTION: None needed this time around. Two very special stories for you.
I.
MEMORIAL DAY 2016
‘The day everyone honors KIA* war heroes; some of whom,
I honor every day of my life!’ GFA (KIA = ‘Killed in Action’)
As George Orwell aptly states, “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” Well, here’s the true tale of one rough man, the late Marine Sergeant Don Myers, describing an assault he led, along the Ho Chi Minh trail in South Vietnam, during February 1969, resulting in the capture of the largest enemy weapons (a dozen 122 mm. Russian field guns) during that conflict.
“I yelled at my men to drop their (field) packs and go forward on the run. Our rear element pushed the front of the platoon, and they too got caught up in our charge…as they joined the rush up the large hill. The mid-afternoon sun was blistering, and bullets were whizzing and zinging through the underbrush and beating into trees. The noise of gunfire and small explosions was all but deafening, as I looked up the slope of the mountain-like hill. Not forty meters away stood the largest damn enemy artillery piece I’d ever seen. The long barrel of the cannon looked like it was pointing straight down the trail at not only me, but the rest of the men that were scrambling up the slope as well. I yelled out loud, ‘Sweet Jesus, don’t shoot that mother!’ In seconds, I moved past the unmanned gun and noticed several bodies of dead NVA lying near the weapon. I was glad someone had gotten them before they had unlimbered that gun for firing. The barrel extended out 30 feet and the tires came up to my waist. A caisson affair was in back of the artillery piece with an open, ready box of big shells sitting upright in slots.”
As it turned out, a dozen large Russian artillery pieces were captured that day, but the enemy spiked ten of them; so only two were retrograded to the rear area. My job, as battalion rigging officer, was to dissemble them, and rig for helo-lifting back to the Dong Ha Combat Base. Today, one is on display in the USMC Museum in Quantico, VA., and the other one? Well, that’s a stirring tale for another Memorial Day. And in the attack just described, two Russian advisors were killed.
Memorial Day is always difficult for me, as I recall Marines KIA in that firefight during Operation Dewey Canyon (Google it), as well as in previous offenses near LZ Stud, Gio Linh, and during the days we reopened route # 1 to the Khe Sanh Combat Base.
So, many Thanks to friends who phoned Friday, to reminisce and express heartfelt feelings about what happened, now almost 50 years ago, in that far away land.
FYI. Sgt. Myers died a few years ago, but not until after he authored YOUR WAR – MY WAR, from which this story is quoted – also used in a documentary I prepared for the USMC Museum, titled ‘Pluck, Politics, & Shore Party’.
II.
‘NEW ERA of Manufactured Housing’, circa 2015, Now Year 2016, Continues the 16 Year Paradigm Shift in New Home Sales Methodology!
Recent ‘Two Days of Plant Tours & Home Sales Seminars’ underscored the need for LLLCommunity owners/operators to have housing product knowledge (plant tours) & practice home selling techniques (seminars).
To set the stage for plant tours and four sales seminars that’d follow, a brief retrospective of HUD-Code manufactured housing travails & triumphs, since the turn of the century, was provided. Here’re the paradigm shifts that have moved the MHIndustry from being dependent upon independent (street) MHRetailers, to the filling of vacant rental homesites, with Community Series Homes (a.k.a. CSH Models) within LLLCommunities, by owners/operators of said properties – in increasing numbers.
NOTE to the READER. Print off or copy these eight bullet points, for future reference, as they’re quoted directly from the ‘Official Manufactured Housing Industry Timeline’ maintained by the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance®, or COBA7® as official historian to the MHIndustry & LLLCommunity realty asset class.
• 1998 = 372,843 new HUD-Code homes shipped. Last MHIndustry renascence!
• 1999-2002 = 300,000 ‘repos’ = $1.3 billion loss in value per CFPB White Paper. Consequences? 1) Loss of easy access to chattel capital for in-community home loans; 2) far fewer new homes manufactured & shipped; & 3) 10,000 fewer independent (street) MHRetailers in U.S., until…
• 2009 = Forced change to traditional MH business model, with debut of Community Series Homes, when new HUD-Code home shipments hit nadir of only 49, 789 units – of which only 25% (12,446) went into LLLCommunities.
• Since 2010, large LLLCommunity portfolio owners/operators have been buying, selling, seller-financing, even leasing new HUD-Code homes on-site, to take-up the slack left by 10,000 fewer independent (street) MHRetailers in the U.S. – to fill an estimated 250,000 vacant rental homesites.
• By 2014, due to on-site selling & seller-financing of new HUD-Code homes on-site, LLLCommunities = New Breed of MHRetailer & Lender, selling ‘homes & lifestyle’ vs. ‘deal to deal’ mindset of independent street) MHRetailers. Also year of the birth of the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance®.
• In 2015, an estimated 40+/-% of 70,535 new HUD-Code homes, or 28,000+/- went directly into LLLCommunities nationwide; more than double 2009 volume
• Now, most LLLCommunity ownrs/operators, with vacant rental homesites, buy & sell new HUD-Code homes on-site, or risk business failure. So, we must get 85% of LLLCommunities ‘not selling’, into the New Breed & NEW ERA mindset!
• Seller-finance is the ‘new game in town’ and is played several ways: leasing of units, seller-finance (contract sale) via ‘captive finance’, & lease-option. All the while, required to be compliant with state (S.A.F.E. Act) and federal finance regulations per CFPB,.
How was the program itself? Successful! As 100 LLLCommunity owners/operators and HUD-Code manufacturer representatives spent two days visiting six plants, in the Elkhart, IN., area, and learning from four ‘different topic’ seminars taught by their LLLCommunity owner/operator peers. For more details, read the July issue of the Allen Letter professional journal! To subscribe, phone (317) 346-7156.
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