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

September 13, 2014

Rpt @ 23rdNetworking Roundable, & MHI’s Triumvirate

Filed under: Uncategorized — George Allen @ 2:34 pm

COBA7® via community-investor.com Blog # 314, Copyright 14 September 2014

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, ombudsman press*, statistical research reporter, & online communications resource 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

* ombudsman press. ‘Manufactured housing’s ronin, fielding inquiries, complaints, etc.

Introduction to this week’s COBA7® blog posting at community-investor.com website:

I.

‘Preliminary Report re: 23rd annual Networking Roundtable.’ You simply won’t believe all the exiting, historic, educational, networking & GSE-related, realty deal-making events that occurred during this year’s well-attended venue in Peachtree City, GA!

II.

‘WOW! MHI to Seat ‘First Triumvirate + 1’ in 2015? Tomorrow’s election, during MHI’s annual meeting in Arizona, has potential to be its’ most pivotal, if not (maybe) contentious, in decades! Why? Read on about the ‘power play’ & more….

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I.

Preliminary Report re: 23rd annual Networking Roundtable

This was the FIRST EVER celebration, during this year’s National Manufactured Housing Week (9/7-13/2014), of the NEW ERA for the Land-lease-lifestyle Community Owners’ Business Alliance®, or COBA7®, featuring:

• (again) dual FIRST EVER National Public Forums, stimulating much lively and intense discussion regarding the FUTURE of manufactured housing & land-lease-lifestyle communities nationwide! Mike Sullivan, CPM® & Ken Rishel were keynote presenters.
• (and again) the FIRST EVER Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac panel, comprised of five GSE executives – draws largest Friday morning audience in 23 year history of the Networking Roundtable! Panelists expressed strong interest in our industry and realty asset class’ NEED for chattel capital for new and resale home lending on-site! And both GSE’s asked to be invited back to the 24th annual Networking Roundtable, to continue this historic dialogue! Next time around, we’ll try to include the FHFA.

Also; here the American Housing Advocates announced their aggressive online agenda in support of manufactured housing and LLLCommunity image, ‘affordability’ and lifestyle. Everyone in the MHIndustry & LLLCommunity realty asset class should take a few minutes to visit www.americanhousingadvocates.com

Plus, all 20 educational seminars and panel discussions will soon be detailed, along with individual contact information, in the October 2014 issue of the Allen Letter professional journal. Not a subscriber? It’s simple to subscribe. Phone the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764.

And that’s not all! MHEW (that’s short for Manufactured Housing Executive Women), met as a group, networked, and agreed to articulate a Mission Statement. Interested? Contact Suzanne Felber via info@lifestylist.com Don’t be left out! Contact her today!

Then there’s Rick Rand, ACM®. He collected nearly $2,000.00 in PAC donations, from Networking Roundtable participants, for the Manufactured Housing Institute’s PAC Fund! “You’re Welcome, MHI!” I often wonder whether the institute fully appreciates Rick’s talent for raising funds for the very important PAC fund….

Finally.

COBA7® ‘plans for the future’ were shared during the final session of this year’s highly successful Networking Roundtable. They, at this point in time, 1) have to do with completing the long-awaited asset class ‘on-site PM compensation’ calculator – a function of location (i.e. local housing markets); AMI (Area Median Income per county in which LLLCommunity is located); property size & nature; Allen Model OERs; and more….Oh, and 2) one unique segment of the MHIndustry has asked to be absorbed en masse as affiliates of COBA7® during 2015. How exciting is that?

YES, if you missed attending this year’s 23rd annual Networking Roundtable, you missed a very Special Event in this Fall’s hectic meeting schedule. But all is not lost! If you attend no other MHIndustry & LLLCommunity – focused event this Fall, by all means find your way to Atlanta, GA., on 1 & 2 October 2015 for the SECO Summit in the South! There’s not only a full agenda of educational offerings, but a half dozen new HUD-Code homes on display, and much much more. Oh, and ‘the day before’, on 30 September, ‘yours truly’ will be teaching the one day Manufactured Housing Manger®, or MHM® professional property management training and certification class, in the same location (Wyndham Hotel) as the SECO Summit in the South. For info on both venues, contact Chris Nicely via (865) 385-9675.

II.

WOW! MHI to Seat ‘First Triumvirate + 1’ in 2015?

Employees of Warren Buffett & Sam Zell slated to fill 3 of 4 MHI Executive Board Seats

Yes, the president/CEO of 48+/-% HUD-Code U.S. housing market share home manufacturer; a semi-retired exec from the world’s largest portfolio owner/operator of land-lease-lifestyle communities; and, president of the biggest of the ‘Big Five + One’ independent, national chattel capital loan origination firms, are slated for election, on 15 September 2014, to fill three of four executive offices on the Manufactured Housing Institute’s board of directors for year 2015.

And the remaining ‘smaller LLLCommunity portfolio owner/operator’ is slated for a ‘third term’ as MHI chairman – a fete made possible by filling the unexpired 11 month term of a predecessor; then serving a full year as MHI chairman this year; and now, slated for a third time around the merry block. In my opinion, before starting a third term, there should be a public commitment to professional property management.

In any event, all this confirms rumors of a soon ‘lock on the upper level volunteer leadership’ at MHI – one of the pair of national manufactured housing advocacy bodies – by just three employees of the world’s two Brobdingnagian ‘manufactured housing industry & LLLCommunity portfolio’ corporations.

Bottom line? MHI may soon have its’ first true triumvirate (‘three joint rulers’), some say oligarchy (‘government in which power is in the hands of a few’), plus one, come year 2015!

One can only hope this sage caution by Lord Acton, in 1887, doesn’t apply here: “Power Tends to Corrupt and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.”

In the meantime, there are rumors afoot, of an alternate slate to be introduced during MHI’s annual meeting and elections. Let’s wait and see what happens….

By the way…

Did anyone else find it strange, direct, dues-paying MHI members received an email message, on 14 August 2014, stating in part: “MHI’s bylaws allow for voting by absentee ballot for the election of officers of the board.” And furthermore, “The attached ballot is recommended by the nominating committee in compliance with the MHI bylaws.”???

I found it strange. Why? Because a year ago, in preparation for the election of officers to MHI’s National Communities Council division board, I solicited and obtained no fewer than 20 properly executed proxy votes from as many direct, dues-paying MHI members unable to attend, and took them with me to MHI’s annual meeting, with the intent of using them during the aforementioned NCC division election. But I was told at the annual meeting, since the NCC has no bylaws, and MHI’s bylaws don’t directly address proxy voting, my 20 proxy votes were ‘disallowed without inspection’, and the subsequent election was effected by fewer than a dozen direct, dues-paying members of the institute/division, present for the election. Now where’s the fairness in that? One would think, ‘What’s good for the goose (MHI) should certainly be good for the gander (NCC)’, but evidently that’s not PC (politically correct) among those presently in office (power).

Perhaps one of the first orders of business for the incoming NCC division chairman, would and should be, to ensure bylaws are drafted, finally after 11 years of NCC existence; and the question of proxy voting (or ‘absentee ballots’ a la MHI bylaws) at least be considered for adoption. Let’s wait and watch what happens during tomorrow’s MHI elections, and with the institute’s new officers – whoever they may be- going into year 2015.

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