COBA7® presents Blog # 360 via community-investor.com Copyright, 9 August 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 the 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: (878)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 our MHBusiness model!’
I.
Manufactured Housing Industry’s New, Direct Home Sales Customer, the
Land-lease-lifestyle Community
& Here’s Why!
Your choice. Learn ‘What happened!’ in five paragraphs, labeled years 1998, 2000, 2009, 2013 & 2015…
OR,
Summarize in 40 words, the 15 year dual paradigm shift AWAY FROM independent (street) MHRetailers TOWARDS in-LLLCommunity home sales; & AWAY FROM too easy access to chattel capital via independent third party lenders, TOWARDS reliance on cash transactions, seller-finance, ‘captive finance’, lease-options, even rental units, on-site within LLLCommunities nationwide!
Does that summary do it for you? Or do you need to be reminded how LLLCommunity owners/operators, selling new HUD-Code homes on-site, ‘at whatever product cost/sales price margin works for them’ – to get rental homesites occupied and the rent meter running, is a Major Major Marketing Advantage over what the relatively few remaining independent (street) MHRetailers and ‘company stores’ can offer! Here’s a passage, underscoring this fresh truth, from a letter penned by a small property portfolio owner/operator:
“This seems to be ‘the year’ (2015) of transition from ‘repos’ to new manufactured homes for many of our smaller operators. Hardly a week goes by I don’t hear from one or more of these LLLCommunity folk, saying they’re ready to buy one or more new homes for the first time in ages, to fill vacant sites, upgrade their communities, improve cash flow and increase community value. This past week, one owner wrote about his eight year plan to fill 40 vacant sites with new homes. Another wrote about a three year plan to fill a 51 site conventional home development, that was foreclosed upon and is now empty, and how he plans to fill it with multisection homes. Few of these are going to place orders for 25-50 homes at a time, but thousands of us across the country represent 10-20% growth in new home sales for our industry”
Ah, but there’re two major potential stumbling blocks afoot that threaten this new reality!
• First is product design! Though Community Series Homes, a.k.a. CSH Models, have been ‘in play’ since the Elkhart, Indiana, NSAC Caucus* in 2009 – most HUD-Code home manufacturers, ‘who know about them’, only marginally market and fabricate the singelesection and modest-sized multisection homes with WOW! factors and durability-enhancing features, easing ‘make ready’ between homeowners and or renters! Proof? Count the few CSH Model homes exhibited at any regional manufactured housing show! They simply aren’t there – yet, as HUD-Code home manufacturers ballyhoo their ‘Big Box = Big Bucks! homes.
• Second is product pricing! No matter how you cut it, the wholesale cost of many, if not most, new CSH Models – and otherwise, is prohibitively high – high enough to stymie (‘a minor but insurmountable obstacle’) new home sales within and outside LLLCommunities in most local housing markets! Only a relatively few HUD-Code home manufacturers, who’ve pricewise pursued this ‘new, direct home sales customer’ have wound up with 40-50 percent of their production going directly into LLLCommunities, and find their orders ‘seven weeks out’. To them, LLLCommunities have become their ‘$ecret $auce’ for $uccess!
This my friends, all 1,000 of you receiving this weekly blog posting, is a major reason YOU should participate in the 24th annual International Networking Roundtable, 9-11 September, in San Diego, CA.. For the first time since that 2009 caucus, we’re poised, as an industry and realty asset class working together, to take the next major step to rejuvenate manufactured housing, even without easy access to chattel capital, which is to say:
Confirm and respect the LLLCommunity realty asset class as the ‘new, direct home sales customer’ for HUD-Code home manufacturers nationwide! To that end, this year’s theme is: ‘Selling More Community Series Homes into LLLCommunities Nationwide!’ Hence, senior executives from a half dozen prominent home manufacturing firms will be present to 1) Explain WHY you should buy their CSH Models (‘NO, not their Big Box = Big Bucks! developer models’); 2) WHAT LLLCommunity-customized marketing and sales training and aids, even housing finance programs, are available to facilitate ‘annuity type home transactions’ on-site; and 3) WHETHER the Frost Free Foundation® is an approved installation method for their CSH Model homes.
How can you afford not to be present, and part of the dual paradigm shift to rejuvenate the HUD-Code manufactured housing industry? There’s every good reason why LLLCommunity owners/operators coast-to-coast are widely and frequently referred to as the NEW BREED of MHRetailer! So, be present and be counted upon to ‘make positive history’ for the MHIndustry and the LLLCommunity real estate asset class! Come and buy some new HUD-Code homes!
Use attached brochure to register this week, or phone the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764.
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End Note. (*) National State of the Asset Class caucuses, 2/27/2008 & 2/27/2009, effectively made HUD-Code home manufacturers and LLLCommunity owners/operators ‘partners’, bypassing the independent (street) MHRetailers, relative to the marketing and sales of new HUD-Code homes on-site within this unique, income-producing property type. Since then, the NSAC caucus was first supplanted by the MHInitiative® between years 2010 & 2013. Then, effective January 2014, the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance®, or COBA7®, has taken the lead in promoting Community Series Homes as being ‘the answer’ to filling an estimated 250,000 vacant rental homesites throughout the U.S., and a practical means of increasing monthly and annual new home shipments. And frankly, recognition of the aforementioned dual paradigm shift, has led to the implementation of this year’s theme at the 24th annual International Networking Roundtable.
II.
POTPOURRI
Of MHIndustry & LLLCommunity Not-So-Trivial Trivia from RV/MH Hall of Fame Day, 3 August in Elkhart, IN.
• Writers Conference. Where official RV historian met possible MH counterpart, and shared resources. Want a copy of the syllabus for the session? Ask for it.
• Spring 2016 ‘Plant Tours & Sales Seminars’ tweaked to include six factories, and several HOW TO seminars on every step to buying new homes for sale on-site. Want name on advance ‘invite list’? Phone Official MHIndustry HOTLINE #.
• Already alerted you to one imminent IPO (Initial Public Offering – of stock) precursor to a LLLCommunity portfolio becoming our asset class’ fourth real estate investment trust or REIT. Now we learn there’s yet another on the horizon! Who? Ah, you’ll have to be present at the 24th Networking Roundtable to hear.
• Hilton San Diego Resort & Spa Hotel cutoff date for special room rate for 24th Networking Roundtable occurs this week, so phone (877) 313-6645 for group rate per: GFA Management, 24th Networking Roundtable. Please do so right away!
• Roundtable. Steve Lefler will address: ‘Future of LLLCommunities’ in light of ‘All new homes in California must be Net Zero Energy Use by year 2020!’ And how that’s already being done in LLLCommunities throughout that state!
• Roundtable: ‘All you wanted to know about the Manufactured Housing Institute, but didn’t know who to ask!’ Rick Robinson, esquire, with help from Nathan Smith, PHC®. No better resource to brief you about pending legislation.
• New book. WOW! After last week’s blog on this subject, and the near overwhelming response received – with suggestions as to additional categories and names of LLLCommunity owners to include, sounds like I might have a ‘best seller’ on my hands. Keep those ideas and names a-coming! (317) 346-7156.
• Roundtable: ‘All you wanted to know about the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform but didn’t know who to ask! Marc Weiss, esq., with assistance from recently retired Danny Ghorbani. Meet our industry’s ‘Washington Watchdog’ in person.
• Speaking of MHARR. If you didn’t read their REPORT & ANALYSIS, dated 28 July 2015, re: HUD Funding & state SAAs; high-cost energy regulation, ‘disparate impact’, and other MH-related matters, phone (202) 783-4087 and request an electronic version. You’ll be glad you did.
• Roundtable: ‘All you wanted to know about the Federal Housing Finance Agency, but didn’t know who to ask. Now you can ask Michael Price directly. And as you know, representative from Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac are to be on hand as well!
IV.
5th annual SECO Summit in the South!
‘Where You’ll Want to be 14 & 15 October 2015, in Atlanta, GA.
Lots of reasons to attend this year, e.g. MHM class on the 13th; Community Series Homes on display – to tour and buy; one of Best lineups of HOW TO seminars for all of 2015, and this…
LLLCommunity owners/operators often ask ‘How to get local banks to underwrite chattel capital mortgages on manufactured homes sited in land-lease-lifestyle communities?’ Well, used to point them towards Tom Horner, Jr., CPA® in Kansas, and a few other ‘friends in the MHBusiness’.
But at this year’s SECO Summit in the South, attendees will meet Larry Mathews, president of the American Commerce Bank. They partner with LLLCommunity owners in Georgia, offering an in-community home acquisition finance program that’s filling vacant rental homesites, increasing investment cash flow and property value – all at low interest rates, high LTV*, minimal closing costs, and 10-15 year terms, with no pre-payment penalty – all in a close working relationship with some of the MHIndustry’s leading home manufacturers! Can’t ask for more than that can you? So, be there and learn how to do something similar in your local housing markets! For more information about SECO Summit in the South, contact Kristina Unger via (404) 408-8020.
End Note. (*) LTV = loan to value
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