Blog # 429 Copyright @ 15 January 2017; 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 report & online communication media for 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 of its’ print/online media – to “Not only inform & opine, but to transform & improve MHBusiness model performance!”
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INTRODUCTION:
Part I. Own one or more land-lease communities? This could be your last opportunity to influence Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, as they finalize DTS-related rules that’ll return access to chattel capital to us, or continue the impasse endured since the turn of the century, 17 years ago! Do not pass up this unique and timely opportunity! And, why is no one else challenging you to input the GSEs? More to the answer than you likely realize…
Part II. Recent Canadian example of ‘national advocacy consolidation’ is worth talking about here in the states! Picking up where Part I leaves off; recall how very little we’ve achieved politically, given ‘national advocacy marginalization’ in our nation’s capitol these past 17 years. Not saying merger with the NAHB’s BSC is ‘the answer’, just that we sorely need a more effective lobbying arrow in our quiver than is the case at present!
Part III. ‘Hey, Gotta Love the MHARR!’ Takes something significant to get us to pen a headline like that – and Mark Weiss did, when crafting a recent Press Release, laying three of the manufactured housing industry’s key 2017 issues out there in one sterling paragraph! Read and reread what he penned! Then, like me, clip and mount it where you’ll see it everyday. Then ask; ‘Why isn’t anyone else communicating like this?’
POSTSCRIPTS.
This offer still stands, to MHI & MHARR: You’re welcome to contribute an op/ed column, regularly or from time to time, for possible publication in the Allen Letter professional journal. With the demise of The Journal, we – as an industry & asset class – have precious few media outlet opportunities to use these days, to ‘get the word out to our businessmen and women peers’ nationwide.
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In January’s Allen Letter, COBA7 challenges MHARR & MHI to meet – all three together – to ‘brainstorm’ continuance of the NEW ERA of manufactured housing & land-lease community cooperation into year 2017. Will it happen? Read more here later…
I.
Community Owners Asked Here, to Input GSEs with
Duty to Serve (‘DTS’) Rulemaking Recommendations!
OK, we’ve officially been invited to answer this question: ‘What would you, as a land-lease community owner or operator like to see written into DTS Rulemaking being considered and codified at present, by Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae?’ Read on….
Trust me, the GSEs are not waiting around for you and me to respond. Rumor has it, one manufactured housing national advocacy entity is already advising them on matters having to do with leases, etc.. Have YOU been asked, before NOW, to input what YOU would like to see included? For most of us property owners the answer is NO. Why?
With that said, COBA7, during the week following the Louisville MHShow, and after the FHFA Listening Session in Chicago, on 25 January, will be collecting your responses to this suggestion by FHFA (i.e. GSE’s oversight agency), to input both GSEs’ in formal business correspondence. Already we know there are concerns, among LLCommunity owners, about 1) the nature and terms of potentially requisite ground leases; 2) the possible role of mortgage insurance; 3) role of lender recourse; and, 4) identification of potential investors to buy securitized chattel capital mortgages on manufactured homes in this property type. What else should the GSEs write into their DTS rulemaking?
Look at it this way, ‘What do you think it’ll take to help the GSEs feel secure guaranteeing chattel capital mortgages on their way to being securitized and sold on the financial market?’
This is your last opportunity to directly influence DTS Rulemaking at Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, via the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance, or COBA7! Send your input, this week, to COBA7 c/o Box # 47024, Indianapolis, IN. 46247, or via gfa7156@aol.com.
Such an exciting and rare opportunity for us. Don’t delay letting us know your ideas and thoughts on this vita and timely matter! Who’d have thought, three years ago, when Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac first attended the annual Networking Roundtable (in Peachtree City, GA.), we’d be invited to work this closely with them on a project of mutual, strategic, national interest.
II.
2017 = CMHI/MHICanada & CHBA; MHI/MHARR & NAHB’s BSC?
Is this the ‘consolidation formula for manufactured housing’ in Canada and the U.S. during year 2017? Wow! Based on responses to last week’s blog posting at community-investor.com, one would certainly think so. Here’s the SURPRISE: All commentators favor the idea! Seriously. I’d have bet ‘dollars to donuts’ U.S. MHIndustry aficionados would balk at following CMHI & MHICanada’s example of joining with CHBA in council fashion. And maybe they will. But for right now, sentiment is 180 degrees different – at least in part, evidenced by these and other remarks:
• “NAHB would be a good move, and I used to advocate it when we were MOD builders. Their codes are consistent, believed, trusted and supported by most communities, particularly in rural markets where, too frequently, there is no code, or the enforcement is minimal….”
• “George. I’ve thought about this a lot over the years. The full scope of the MH industry does not fit with NAHB, unless the (land-lease) community business is left out. The communities have more in common with the Realtors. Unless MH is willing to slice its’ small slice of the housing pie (i.e. 5% of national market share) in half, I don’t see any merger working.”
Good point, that latter observation. And with the rising percentage of new HUD-Code home being shipped directly into land-lease communities nationwide (i.e. 25% in 2009; 40+% in 2015; 75% predicted for year 2020), that slice of the housing pie could well become a deal killer or maker. Hmm. Worth thinking about, don’t you think?
But that ‘thought’ is fraught with at least two significant challenges only now beginning to be addressed by the manufactured housing industry and land-lease community real estate asset class:
• Return of reasonable access (Forget easy access) to chattel capital via ‘any source(s)’, especially the two GSEs identified in Part I of this blog posting. It hasn’t happened yet. Maybe with a new national governance administration…No, at present, the two best alternatives remain independent third party chattel finance firm(s) – one in particular; and increasing popularity of lease-option methodology. (NOTE. On Tuesday, 17 January, of this week, between 1 & 4PM at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Louisville, KY., Spencer Roane, MHM, will be conducting a three hour workshop on L-O, the practical, seller-finance alternative! Only $95.00/aattendee. Reach out to genevieve@secoconference.com TODAY, or phone (770) 871-6889, to register and obtain the handout attendees will want to print ahead of the workshop!)
• HUD-Code home manufacturers, while now knowing how to ID & sell new homes to large property portfolio owners/operators, have yet to figure out how to reach all 500+/- of these sole proprietors and firms, nary to mention the 85% of 50,000+/- LLCommunities numbering 100 and fewer rental homesites apiece! (NOTE. On Tuesday, 17 January, of this week, between 9AM & Noon, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Louisville, KY., George Allen, CPM & MHM, will share 35 year trade secrets to this end: ‘How to ID LLCommunities & owners nationwide!’ Audience limited to HUD-Code home manufacturers. $95.00/attendee. Phone (317) 346-7156 to register Monday morning only!
Both the above events are being planned and hosted by COBA7. Do you see what’s happening here? No other manufactured housing national advocacy entity is taking steps, such as these, to promote the sale and seller-financing of new HUD-Code homes on-site in land-lease communities. If we don’t as an industry and realty asset class, do just this sort of thing NOW, then we might as well fold our collective futures in with the NAHB’s Building Systems Council and let the chips fall where they may….
Of course the land-lease communities will likely be left out of this esoteric (‘new’) mix. Either LLCommunities will have to entice the NAR, or NAA, to ‘take us in’ – and who knows, maybe they will, if we bring our ‘floor fees (dues)’ with us from manufacturers where we buy new HUD-Code homes. OR, we continue on our own in one or (GASP!) two national groups: 1) MHI’s National Communities Council and its’ few large property portfolio owners/operators; and, 2) COBA7, representing LLCommunities of all sizes, large & small, throughout the U.S. and Canada. What do you think?
III.
Hey, Gotta Love the MHARR!
Did you see and read MHARR’s recent (1/9/2017) Press Release titled: MHARR FORMALLY CALLS FOR CONGRESSIONAL REVIEW & REJECTION OF DOE MAN UFACTURED HOUSING ‘ENERGY’ RULE. (?)
We sure did, especially that last substantive paragraph. It bears repeating and repeating!
“With this MHARR action having now been initiated in Congress…1) to challenge and enjoin any final DOE rule. MHARR is also moving forward on two other pending regulatory matters -2) the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s ‘Duty to Serve’ final rule, which fails to create an affirmative duty for the securitization of manufactured home chattel loans by the GSE; and 3) HUD’s impending ‘Interpretive Bulletins’ on frost-free and frost-protected shallow foundations, that would substantively and improperly alter existing standards, and is insistently being pursued by the current career manufactured housing program administrator and contractors, as a device to assert total HUD control over installation standards and programs in all 50 states.” (#s added. GFA)
WOW – again! That about ‘says it all’ where major 2017 issues are concerned, relative to manufactured housing. Hmm. Now one must ask; ‘Why am I not hearing more about these three significant issues of import, from other national advocacy bodies?
Me? I’ve cut out that paragraph and taped it to the side of my office PC, as a constant reminder of what’s going on – or should be going on, in the industry and asset class where we do business. Perhaps you should do likewise….
In the meantime; THANKS MHARR for keeping us informed and engaged!
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George Allen, CPM & MHM
Box # 47024, Indianapolis, IN. 46247
(317) 346-7156