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

August 21, 2019

Pass This Blog Onto Land Lease Community Owners/operators Nationwide!

Filed under: Uncategorized — George Allen @ 12:03 pm

August 2019; Copyright 2019; www.educatemhc.com

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

This blog is sole online national advocate, official ombudsman, asset class historian, research reporter, PM education resource & communication media for all land lease communities!

To input this blog &/or affiliate with EducateMHC, telephone Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764. Also email gfa7156@aol.com & visit www.educatemhc.com

Motto: ‘U Support US & WE Serve U! Goal: promote HUD-Code manufactured housing & land lease communities as U.S. Source of affordable attainable housing! Next MHM class @ 9/11/19

INTRODUCTION: One important topic today! Yes, it’s that important. Period. And, as Part I of this week’s blog posting asks…

I.

Please Pass This Blog Onto Land Lease Community Owners/operators Nationwide

This year is the 28th consecutive year Carolyn & I have hosted the International Networking Roundtable. And it’s the first time, since years 2008 & 2009, this popular land lease community owner/operator-focused event, is timed and positioned to play a key role influencing the fate of the manufactured housing industry going forward!

How so? Well, if you’ve been following weekly blog postings, at this website during the past month (blogs # 544, 546, & 547), you know of the homeowner/site lessee (a.k.a. ‘residents’) unrest within institutional investment grade land lease communities owned by some – but certainly not all, property portfolios controlled by fewer than a dozen private equity fund managers. Oft at issue, is the immediacy, size, and or frequency of rental homesite rate increases, upon acquisition of land lease communities.

Two recent indicators of present and future, impending concern:

‘Legalized Looting: Mobile Home Rent Increases Require Wall Street Reforms’. Headline; U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren’s guest opinion piece dated 26 July 2019. Quoted from blog # 544.

‘The (manufactured housing) industry needed a regulatory framework on construction in 1976, and it needs a new framework for community ownership & operation in 2019. House Bill HR 2832 is a start!’ Quoted from Doug Ryan’s op/ed piece in Prosperity Now press. Blog # 547.

So, what to do about this troublesome matter? Discuss it at the 28th Networking Roundtable, 8-10 September in Indianapolis, IN. Already, several open forums are scheduled:

• Spencer Roane, MHM, from 3-4PM, 8 September, will host an open discussion about ‘financing homebuyers/site lessees who can’t qualify for conventional chattel loans’.

• From 4-5PM, I’ll host a ‘fireside chat’ type discussion ‘on topics of choice’ by individuals so-gathered. Can be ‘evergreen issues’*1, or otherwise*2. Or not here listed.

• And during the Roundtable proper, either 9 or 10 September, time will be set aside for the overarching topic described earlier in this blog – IF there’s interest in doing so. You?

A caveat (‘warning’). Should there be no group meeting/discussion, among private equity fund managers and or their land lease community portfolio owners/operators, with industry and realty asset class leaders – and the aforesaid national legislative regulatory threat continiues to grow, expect a clarion (‘obtrusively clear’) call for the first National State of the Asset Class (‘NSAC’) caucus in a decade*3! So, let’s get this conversation started in early September. If not already registered for the Networking Roundtable event, visit www.educatemhc.com or phone the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764.

End Notes.

1. Evergreen (i.e. ‘always relevant’) Issues: 1) responsibility for proper, safe & secure installation of HUD-Code homes; 2) HUD declares manufactured housing ‘affordable’ but refuses to overtly promote same; 3) present MH stock is aging faster than new homes are being fabricated & shipped; 4) continuing lack of reasonable access to chattel capital & disparate loan percentages between chattel capital & real estate-secured rates – even with property owner guarantee; 5) propensity to sell homebuyers more house than they can truly afford, by not including utility expenses in PITI & site rent $ total; 6) negative symbiotic comparing of new HUD-Code homes going onto private sites conveyed fee simple, with those going onto rental homesites within land lease communities; and, 7) lack of two secondary markets: one to value and sell resale homes, and marketing of seasoned chattel capital loans.

2. Otherwise issues: 1) ‘New Type’ HUD-Code manufactured home for underserved markets (e.g. millennials & retirees); 2) GSEs ‘slow walk’ DTS (Duty to Serve) programs for chattel capital, & parallel efforts to serve realty-secured loans via Choice & MH Advantage programs; 3) local housing market intransigence relative to zoning & rezoning in behalf of manufactured housing & land lease community development; 4) national advocacy overlap diluting lobbying effort on national stage; 5) lack of state MH association support by many property portfolio firms; 6) Big Three MH manufacturers (i.e. Clayton, Cavco, Skyline-Champion) garnering 80+/-% of national market share of HUD-Code homes; and, 7) growing evidence of near-predatory site rent increases.

3. As described in blog # 544, two National State of the Asset Class caucuses were held; one on 2/28/2008 & another, 2/28/2009. In the first instance, more than 100 (then) manufactured home community owners/operators gathered at a community in Tampa, FL. Result? Five Strategies & Action Areas designed to preserve their collective business model. A year later, to the day, a second NSAC caucus was hosted by the RV/MH Hall of Fame in Elkhart, IN. This too was attended by 100+, a mix of HUD-Code housing manufacturers & land lease community owners/operators from throughout the U.S. Result? New HUD-Code housing design friendly for community placement, featuring WOW! Factors and durability-enhancing features intended to reduce turnaround time and cost expenditure, between home buyers and or renters. Later labeled, by Don Westphal, landscape consultant, as Community Series Homes – to, in part, differentiate from ‘big box = big bucks’ Developer Series Homes of the late 1990s.

***

George Allen, CPM, MHM
EducateMHC
Box # 47024, Indianapolis, IN. 46247
(317) 346-7156

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