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

March 28, 2015

COBA7 WISH LIST Review & NYHA Super Symposium

Filed under: Uncategorized — George Allen @ 5:04 am

COBA7® via community-investor.com Blog # 342 Copyright @ 29 March 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 a 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: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764

COBA7® Motto: ‘U Support US & WE Serve U!’, and Goal of its’ three print & online publications is, ‘Not only to share information & opinions, but o transform & improve!’

I.

Reviewing COBA7® WISH LIST for 2015

Here we’ll revisit one COBA7® Wish at a time, during next five weeks!

WISH # 1. “COBA7® to refine its’ organizational structure, recruit additional affiliates (a.k.a. ‘MHInsiders’) & meet with transition planning group; ID real & potential income streams; affiliate with a national buyers’ group; possibly succeed ULI’s MHCC as MHIndustry’s ‘Think Tank’; and maybe imitate a major RVIndustry ‘motivational event’ – for the MHIndustry, at the RV/MH Heritage Foundation Hall of Fame in Elkhart, IN.

Here we go:

COBA7® organizational structure remains unchanged. COBA7® is a division of GFA Management, Inc., dba PMN Publishing, in IN., and remains as such until transition planning group decides otherwise, likely upon successful recruitment of a leader/staff. Interested?

Recruiting additional affiliates remains a high priority, with goal of 400 ‘MHInsiders’ by year end 2015. Emphasis here is on the ‘7 Part’ tangible benefits characteristic of COBA7® for $544.95/year, compared to what a similar amount buys elsewhere!

Transition planning group numbers 30+ manufactured housing & LLLCommunity businessmen & women from 15 states! They’ll meet @ 1-4PM on 9 September, in San Diego, before the 24th annual Networking Roundtable begins, if not before….

There’re now five COBA7® ‘income streams’; plus a new partnership with Community Buying Group, giving MHInsiders discount access to Lowe’s ProSerives, Office Max & Depot, Sherwin Williams, SEARS’ Commercial, and more. See ad in April Allen Letter.

ULI’s Manufactured Housing Communities Council has disbanded. Here’s an opportunity for MHARR, MHI, & COBA7® to launch a joint THINK TANK, to address MHIndustry issues, challenges, and future prospects in a united and thoughtful fashion! All three entities will be at the MHCongress. Might that venue be ‘the time’ to meet and talk about this possibility? I’ll write & ask. If no interest, COBA7® will do so on its own.

COBA7® leadership has been invited to participate in an upcoming RVIndustry national ‘motivational event’ at the RV/MH Heritage Foundation facility in Elkhart, IN. The thought is to possibly replicate such a ‘motivational event’ for the MHIndustry in 2016.

Next week, we’ll focus on item # two on the COBA7® WISH LIST: ‘Community Series Homes’ & CSH Model production & shipment among HUD-Code manufacturers. There are some very exciting things taking place – and about to happen, relative to ‘Selling More New HUD-Code Homes into Land-lease-lifestyle Communities’ nationwide!’

II.

WE WARNED YOU!

Not to Miss New York Housing Association’s Super Symposium

I’ve just returned from that stellar two day event. With no exaggeration, I tell you this was the most informative, challenging, and helpful state MHAssociation – hosted seminar program I’ve attended in more than three decades in this business! Nancy Geer is commended for her insight as to what NYHA members, and colleagues from 11 NE USA states, needed to hear and learn firsthand from individuals ‘making much of this happen’ to and within our industry and realty asset class. Proof of such high praise? Every session was attended by nearly all the 130+ businessmen and women registrants – right up thru the final session Thursday morning. Few meeting planners can pull off that finale’!

Jenny Hodge, vice president of MHI”s National Communities Council, delivered the ‘MHIndustry’s point of view’ per the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform Act, S.A.F.E. Act, CFPB matters, and much more. Good example of a passionate lobbyist in action.

Pamela Beck Danner, esquire, and administrator of the Office of Manufactured Housing Programs at HUD, brought everyone up to date relative to soon implementation and enforcement of installation standards, and dispute resolution program – both pretty much dormant for the past five plus years. Summary? ‘No longer her predecessor’s HUD!’

Marc Lifset & Jeffrey Barringer, esquires, with McGlinchey Stafford did pretty much the impossible: described current status of state laws under all new federal regulations. They then went onto answer: ‘Is Lease with Option to Purchase Viable in Your State?’ And let me tell you, the Power Point copies supplied by Danner, Lifset & Barringer were alone, ‘worth the price of admission’ to this Super Symposium.

As requested, I updated the ‘State of the MHIndustry & LLLCommunity Asset Class’ statistics – many of which have changed just since the first of the year! Went on to describe the Asset Aggregator Wave of LLLCommunity Consolidation – the fourth such ‘wave’ – including syndicators of the late 1970s, REITs in the early 1990s, and ‘equity plays’ since then. Read feature article in the March issue of the Allen Letter for details.

Concluded my talk with the first public presentation of ‘Frost Free Foundation’® from the LLLCommunity Owners Perspective’; simply put: ‘Learn beforehand (Before buying a new HUD-Code home for resale on-site) whether one’s preferred home manufacturer clearly approves FFF for the installation of their homes, and says so in their Installation Manual – or consider buying elsewhere.’ Why? Because the alternative, retrofitting perfectly good rental homesites, to be in compliance with aforementioned (in this blog posting) federal installation standards, compliant new concrete slabs, ribbons, piers, cost on the average, $5,000.00+/- per site! And that’s not all…For a one page summary description of ‘How to learn more about FFF’, and other ‘necessary use precedents’, phone the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764 and request it. This offer open to everyone, not just COBA7® affiliates. MHInsiders will receive the final printed version of this FFF® aid, as a lagniappe in a future issue of the Allen Letter professional journal.

***

March 21, 2015

New MH Team: Home Manufacturers & Communities

Filed under: Uncategorized — George Allen @ 12:08 pm

COBA7® via community-investor.com Blog # 341 Copyright @ 22 March 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 a 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: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764

COBA7® Motto: ‘U Support US & WE Serve U!’, and Goal of its’ three print & online publications is, ‘Not only to share information & opinions, but to transform & improve!’

I.

HUD Code Home Manufacturers &
Communities Finally Really Together!

Yes, You Can Be Part of Manufactured Housing Industry History Making at 24th Networking Roundtable in San Diego on 9/10/15!

Couldn’t tell you this before today. The two hour Keynote Session, during the morning of 10 September 2015, at this year’s 24th annual Networking Roundtable, features ALL major HUD-Code home manufacturers pitching their Community Series Home product lines to more than 200 land-lease-lifestyle community owners/operators gathered from throughout the U.S. and Canada! And after they’ve done so, the convention floor will be opened for audience questions, comments, and discussion.

This unique pairing has happened once before during the 70 year history of the manufactured housing industry; and that was to get us, HUD-Code home manufacturers & community owners, started down a new path together, that we continue to be on to this day!. And this reunion of sorts, is intended to encourage both parties to aspire to a new and more productive level of home shipments in the present and near future. How can you not want to be present on this exciting occasion?

But first a little history, describing What has brought us to this auspicious (‘well-omened’ & ‘betokening success’ Selling More New Homes into Communities) opportunity, and Who the keynote presenters will likely be that day.

This six year evolution began at the RV/MH Heritage Foundation’s Hall of Fame in Elkhart, IN., with the 27 February 2009 National State of the Asset Class (‘NSAC’) caucus of 100 HUD-Code home manufacturers and community owners. While we didn’t realize it then, this caucus moved our industry away from exclusive reliance on independent (street) MHRetailers to fill vacant rental homesites in communities, to far more in-community home placements by the owners/operators of those income-producing properties. It was at this caucus, home manufacturers agreed to design, build and market a new line of HUD-Code homes that, by years end, would be referred to as Community Series Homes, or CSH models. That year, 2009, 25 percent of the annual shipment total of 49,789 new HUD-Code homes went into (then) manufactured home communities, for a total of 12,450 homes.

The Community Series Home? Generally, a singlesection home or modest-sized multisection home with one or more exterior &/or interior WOW! Factors, plus an array of durability-enhancing features, intended to ease the ‘make ready’ between tenants and or homebuyers. CSH Models are often marketed by Business Development Managers, or BDMs, selected and trained by the various HUD-Code home manufacturers. A FREE list of CSH Model features, and BDM contact information, is available by phoning the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764. And every October, COBA7® affiliates receive an updated list of ALL the HUD-Code home manufacturers in the U.S., along with their contact information.

By year end 2013, the percentage of new HUD-Code homes shipped directly into (now) land-lease-lifestyle communities rose to 30 percent of 60,228 homes shipped, with 18,100 of these going directly into communities; and that percentage is expected to rise further, when 2014 U.S. Census Bureau statistics are available. It was also during year 2013, a new trade term, describing LLLCommunities in general, debuted: the New Breed of MHRetailer & Lender!

Furthermore, year 2014, in part due to this markedly increased participation by communities, in the new home marketing and buying/selling/financing process, was labeled the ‘NEW ERA for LLLCommunities’ nationwide! And this new role, to a large extent supplanting traditional independent (street) MHRetailers, required more research, resources, communication, camaraderie, professional property management, even national advocacy (e.g. ombudsman/press services), than before. So, to meet that increased and broadened need, the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance® or COBA7® was launched in Indianapolis, IN., as a division of GFA Management, Inc., dba PMN Publishing.

Now we’re well into year 2015, and headed for this historic event in September, where HUD-Code home manufacturers and community owners/operators will ‘Meet & Talk As One’. Who’re the HUD-Code home manufacturers on board at this time?

• Keith O. Holdbrooks, president of Clayton Manufacturing, Clayton Homes in Maryville, TN.

• Joe Stegmayer, Chairman & CEO of Cavco Industries, Inc., in Phoenix, AZ.

• The new CEO, or a senior vice president, from Champion Home Builders in Troy, MI.

• Terry Decio, of Skyline Corporation in Elkhart, IN.

• Wally Comer, of Adventure Homes, LLC, in Garrett, IN.

• And, one or two firms yet to be named; members of the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (‘MHARR’). We hope to announce ‘who’ following this weeks MHShow in Tunica, Mississippi.

All the participating home manufacturers have been asked to cover four key points in their brief presentations:

1. ‘Why should LLLCommunity owners buy their CSH Models?’

2. What marketing & sales training support is available to communities selling new homes on-site?

3. Is the Frost Free Foundation® or FFF® an approved installation procedure for their firm’s homes? What guidance is provided the community owner?

4. How to ascertain the most marketable home line(s) per local housing market, and how’re affordable home buying price points calculated?

This event, given your participation, can and will be precedent-setting, and impetus for community owners becoming more comfortable filling the estimated 250,000 vacant rental homesites nationwide, with new HUD-Code Community Series Homes!

To ensure YOU receive an invitation to attend, as a LLLCommunity owner/operator, or vendor of needed products, $ and services, phone the aforementioned HOTLINE, and consider affiliating with COBA7®, to receive the monthly Allen Letter professional journal, even the 26th annual ALLEN REPORT, a.k.a. ‘Who’s Who Among LLLCommunity Portfolio Owners/operators Throughout North America!’

See YOU in San Diego, 9-11 September 2015, at the Hilton Resort Hotel on Mission Bay! Let’s make manufactured housing history together!

II.

Pulling Out All the Stops!

Here’s where to be, if you’re a true ‘player’ in either or both the manufactured housing scene & land-lease-lifestyle communities!

It’s as simple as this. There are select places to go to be seen; other places where you go to learn ‘what’s really going on’ relative to sensitive and strategic matters; and, places where manufactured housing & LLLCommunity history will be made! Here’re a few tips, about such places, for you to consider:

• 25 March in Albany, NY. Pam Danner, esquire, from HUD; Bruce Savage from AHA; & I, will be addressing attendees from 11 NE-USA states. In my case, I’ll be delivering the ‘State of the MHIndustry & LLLCommunity Asset Class’ talk I share monthly with MHAssociations and companies throughout the U.S.. Plus, ‘What YOU Need to Know About Today’s ‘Asset Aggregation Wave’, a.k.a. LLLCommunity property consolidation trend, that no one else will tell you!. And, the first public presentation of ‘Frost Free Foundations® & the LLLCommunity owner/operator!’ Where else in the U.S. can YOU go to receive that triple dose of needed info in one sitting? Nowhere else! Phone (518) 867-3242 on Monday, 3/23 to register. Tell ‘em, ‘George sent me!’

• 31 March in Dixon, IL. If you own/operate one or more land-lease-lifestyle communities (a.k.a. manufactured home communities), YOU owe it to yourself, and your on-site or regional managers, to receive professional property management training and certification! The Manufactured Housing Manager®, or MHM® program is a one day, no test affair, costing only $250.00 per person. This class presently has 15 registered, but can handle 10 more. To register, phone (317) 346-7156 this coming week. See YOU in Dixon next Monday? Hope so!

• 15 April in Las Vegas, NV. Yes, I’ll be at the MHCongress this year – mainly at the request of many COBA7® affiliates! Looking forward to the networking. BUT more important, and I can’t yet share the details with you here, there’ll be a very Special Event occurring during the afternoon for LLLCommunity owners & operators. I’ll be actively participating in it, and will share details with you here, when available. For now, let’s just say, it’ll be – like this year’s Networking Roundtable in San Diego (9-11 September), a truly historic ‘happening’, one YOU won’t want to miss!

*****

March 15, 2015

Letters, Asset Aggregators, & Much More…

Filed under: Uncategorized — George Allen @ 3:58 am

COBA7® via community-investor.com Blog # 340 Copyright @ 15 march 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 a 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: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764

COBA7® Motto: ‘U Support US & WE Serve U!’, and Goal of its’ three print & online publications is, ‘Not only to share information & opinion, but to transform & improve!’

Introduction to this week’s COBA8® blog posting at community-investor.com website:

We likely receive more letters, emails and the like at COBA7®, a division of GFA Management, Inc., dba PMN Publishing, than any other business alliance in the manufactured housing industry: folk responding to this weekly blog posting, or to our affiliate-supported monthly newsletters, and via the normal course of business. Well, here’s recent pithy correspondence received of late. Ponder & learn from them.

WOW! There’s so much ‘going on in & around the MHIndustry/LLLCommunity asset class these days’! Here’re three of the dozen matters making a splash these days: Learn about a property consolidation wave while it’s happening; keep the Ohio Supreme Court decision in mind should you need it similarly; and, if a professional property management aficionado, get trained and ‘certified’ as an MHM® on 31 March 2015 in Dixon, IL.

As You Know, We Do Hear From Readers

Here’re Two Communiqués from MHIndustry Businessmen

I.

Let’s talk Washington, DC for a few minutes; you know, our nation’s capitol, ‘Inside the (infamous) Beltway’, & simply, ‘DC’.

Apparently the air Washington is different, and makes folk – whether they be politicians, lobbyists, trade association types, or hangers-on, deaf to reality elsewhere in this great country. And here, George, is where I differ from you and attempts to ‘go along to get along’ with that strange and eclectic population.

I’d just ignore ‘em and run your own shop and win; and you can. For example; I learned a lot from Jack Frazier, his leadership style, and sense of priorities for winning in business. The first priority? Succeed, period. Remembering along the way, no one else will help you succeed other than your own team, and you have to pay attention to them.(*) His point? ‘Any impact we want to have outside our business will have credibility only when we’re successful; otherwise, no impact whatsoever.’ As to you and COBA7®, you’ll succeed on your current path, going full speed, dragging along a few (home) manufacturers who see potential in what you’re doing with community owners. Neither MHI or MHARR have your interests at heart. They might help on a few things, but their goals are simply income and survival in DC.; so, they’ll react to the occasional squeaky wheel, but COBA7® Success is up to you and your affiliates! The time to smile and say, “I told ya so” will come after success, financial independence, and not needing ‘them’ at all.” NB

(*) This quote is reminiscent of similar sentiment found in my Chapbook of Business & Management Wisdom, to wit: “Only two people really really care whether a consultant – or entrepreneur, for that matter, succeeds or fails in business; the consultant – or businessperson, and his or her spouse or significant other!” GFA From chapter titled: ‘scintillatingly Salient-but-Salacious Secrets to Business Management Consulting Success’, PMN Publishing, 2002. Note. New fourth edition in process of publication.

Like that one? Well, here’s another one I frequently ‘recall with a smile’: “To clearly identify one’s supporters, detractors, and in-betweens, observe who contracts for one’s consulting services, buys one’s proprietary products (books & forms, ) and pays to subscribe to one’s newsletter – and who doesn’t! And the in-between folk? Well, the smart ones buy and subscribe, to learn and copy what you’re doing; while the lazy ones simply don’t care, or have no clue as to what’s going on around them!” GFA

II.

And this correspondence from a successful businessman who sells new HUD-Code manufactured homes for a living.

“What killed independent (street) MHRetailers (erstwhile ‘dealers’), and almost took the manufactured housing industry down with them, was poor business practices. Home salesmen got deep enough into the financing regimen to know what they had to show on applications to get independent third party chattel finance firms to ‘buy their deals’. The back rooms at some, if not many MHRetailers, generated income, credit and down payments out of thin air, to get home buyers approved for loans. Some have been known to opine, ‘Our industry took mortgage fraud to a new level and taught it to the site-built guys.’ Well, the site-built guys similar ‘success’ resulted in everyone now being subject to the S.A.F.E. Act, Dodd-Frank legislation, and other financial regulations.

So, what’s it going to take to bring MHRetailers back? Obviously, much improved business practices, beginning with salesmen removed from influencing financing where income, credit, and down payments are concerned. MHRetailers will also have to attract qualified prospective homebuyers who need and want their particular (housing) product line(s). This revival begins with clearly knowing what one’s local housing market wants to buy and how much, on the average, homebuyers can truly afford to purchase. Hand in glove, is the MHRetailers ability to identify and secure chattel financing for their transactions.

Furthermore, there’s a not-so-new, but proven methodology afoot, that’s worthy of reemphasis and application, The Pre-Qualification Analysis! In less than five minutes we ask ten questions which enable us to know whether prospective homebuyers are qualified to buy or not. And we emphasize verification of everything they tell us, leaving them no reason to lie. We also charge a $50.00 application fee – an amount they’ll lose, if it turns out they gave us wrong information during the Pre-Qualification Analysis. To date we’ve enjoyed a nine out of ten success rate, when it comes to accurate information.

Something new to the manufactured housing finance scene is pre-purchase counseling. We’re in the midst of finalizing our program with a not for profit that specializes in performing this unique service for HUD. Our goal is to have it in place and working, before debuting publicly for the first time, at the 24th annual International Networking Roundtable, 9-11 September 2015, in San Diego, CA. At that time, we’ll be pleased to share both our Pre-Qualification Analysis questions, and the counseling program.” SR

Has Anyone Else Out There Noticed?

The ‘Asset Aggregator’ LLLCommunities Consolidation Wave is Upon Us!

Yes, the land-lease-lifestyle community (a.k.a. manufactured home community) asset class is in the midst of its latest (fourth) ‘Make a Bundle or Lose Your Shirt’ bell-shaped curve of real estate investment.

And if you’re present at the New York Housing Association’s Northeast Super Symposium, 25 March 2015, in Albany, NY, you’ll hear firsthand about this fourth wave. Why is this significant, and Why should You want to be on hand for this exciting addendum to the ‘Official State of the Manufactured Housing Industry & Land-lease-lifestyle Community Asset Class’ presentation?

Heretofore, as an industry/asset class, we’ve not described or talked about any of the previous three ‘income-producing property consolidation waves’ until after the fact. This venue in New York however, will be the first time in MHIndustry history, where an ‘asset aggregator comber’ – as it’s swelled to date, will be described in terms of its’ participants, target properties, and at least one planned turnaround strategy – while actually occurring throughout the manufactured housing industry nationwide!

For more information and to register, phone Nancy Geer via (518) 867-3242.

Ohio Supreme Court strikes portion of local housing market zoning ordinance targeting manufactured homes!

Yep, we won one! “The Ohio Supreme Court ruled (10 March 2015) that a portion of the (city of ) Lodi’s zoning code, that targeted mobile home parks in the community, was unconstitutional.” – amounting to an unconstitutional taking of private property. For more information, contact the Ohio Manufactured Housing Association, (614) 799-2340

Soon Opportunity to be Certified as a Manufactured Housing Manager®

If you own or operate a land-lease-lifestyle community in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, or Iowa, and want to be part of the industry movement to bring professional property management to our unique type of income-producing property, plan to participate in the day long (no testing) Manufactured Housing Manager® class occurring in Dixon, IL (North Central Illinois) on Tuesday, 21 March 2015. The class already has 15 registrants, with room for ten more. Cost? Only $250.00/person.

Today, there’re nearly 1,000 MHM®s owning/operating LLLCommunities throughout the U.S. and Canada. The class textbook is the 1988 classic, now in it’s sixth edition, Landlease Community Management – you get a copy for the registration fee, plus a monograph of contemporary MHIndustry readings, and at the end of the day, the coveted gold MHM® lapel pin and MHM® certificate! This is the only professional property management training and certification class offered in the U.S., that’s taught by a 30+ year veteran of LLLCommunity ownership/management, Certified Property Manager® Emeritus, and MHM®Master.

For more information, and to register for the class, phone the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877)MFD-HSNG or 633-4764. The MHM® class is facilitated by the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance®, or COBA7®, and hosted by Hauck Homes of Dixon, IL. Next class will be on 20 May 2015 in E. Peoria, IL., as part of the annual meeting of the Illinois Manufactured Housing Association. For details, phone Frank Bowman @ (217) 528-3423.

***

March 7, 2015

24th Roundtable, 17th Lender Registry & two MHM classes!

Filed under: Uncategorized — George Allen @ 8:09 am

COBA7® via community-investor.com Blog # 339 Copyright @ 8 March 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 a 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: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764

COBA7® Motto: ‘U Support US & WE Serve U!’, and Goal of its’ three print & online publications is, ‘Not only to share information & opinion, but to transform & improve!’

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

Mark your personal and corporate planning calendars to be present at the 24th International Networking Roundtable, 9-11 September 2015, at the Hilton Resort on Mission Bay in San Diego, CA. Last year’s event was extra special by dint of the two Public Forums about our industry and asset class, plus the presence of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac executives. Well guess what? This year will likely feature ‘more of the same’ as the GSEs return, plus at least a half dozen HUD-Code home manufacturers bent on convincing LLLCommunity owners/operators to buy more new homes from them! And much much more…

Many of you – blog floggers (readers) – have already told us the 26th annual ALLEN REPORT was nothing short of a ‘home run’ document, when it came to identifying key LLLCommunity portfolio ‘players’, describing the history of COBA7®, and providing salient and helpful benchmark statistics. Well guess what? The 17th annual National Registry of ALL Lenders (real estate-secured & chattel capital alike) raises the Signature Series Resource Document performance bar even higher! It identifies more bona fide lenders, specializing in LLLCommunities and manufactured housing, than any other similar document researched and published during the past 50 years of MHIndustry history!

Get certified as a Manufactured Housing Manager®, or MHM® in short. Two classes already scheduled between now and June 2015.

I

1st Look at 24th exciting Networking Roundtable

Theme: ‘Manufacturers & Communities Working Together Building, Selling & Financing, & Renting More New HUD-Code Manufactured Homes!’

Where will YOU be on 9-11 September 2015? If a HUD-Code home manufacturer or land-lease-lifestyle community owner/operator, definitely at the 24th annual International Networking Roundtable in San Diego, CA.!

The agenda is nearly complete, the three dozen (up from two dozen last year) presenters scheduled, and hotel under contract for what promises to be the most pivotal national manufactured housing industry event during year 2015! How so? Read on…

As faithful blog floggers (readers) and Allen Letter professional journal subscribers will recall, last year’s roundtable was public forum where 200 attendees previewed a WHITE PAPER before arriving, then engaged in two hour long discussions regarding the past, present, and future of manufactured housing and the LLLCommunity asset class. It was also when, for the first time in memory, two GSEs (Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac) engaged in public discourse with their clients: YOU & ME. (They’ve been invited back, along with representatives from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to continue this pithy and timely conversation). Bottom line? Although the two national (MH) advocacy bodies did not live up to expectations, and continue the Public Forums this Spring, their acquiescent attitude has been widely viewed as the needed mandate for Community Owners (7 part) Business Alliance®, or COBA7®, to ‘pick up their dropped leadership mantle, and lead the industry and asset class forward thru year 2015 and beyond…

Hence, this year’s 24th Networking Roundtable theme is ‘Manufacturers & Communities Working Together to Build, Sell & Finance, and Rent, More New Manufactured Homes!’

And we now have a statistical base upon which to now build. We know at year end 2013, that 30 percent of all new HUD-Code homes shipped, went directly into LLLCommunities nationwide. And while we won’t know until June/July what that percentage increased to during 2014, we’ll know by 9-11 September, and build on that momentum for the remainder of 2015, going into year 2016!

So, how will this theme manifest itself during the 24th annual Networking Roundtable? Starting with three keynote presentations, the morning of 10 September:

• The CEOs of nearly a dozen HUD-Code home manufacturers have been invited to address this august body of 200+ LLLCommunity owners/operators in this fashion:

WE WANT YOUR BUSINESS & HERE’S WHAT WE’RE DOING TO EARN IT! (Subtopics: Community Series Homes; availability or not, of a corporate finance program; nature of sales training & related support matters; stance on Frost Free Foundations® as approved installation methodology; and, ‘How to know what homes will sell?’ & ‘How much $ can local housing market folk afford?’

Already, four days after the invitation, four manufacturer CEOs and senior executives have signed-on to participate in this keynote presentation!

• It’s anticipated it’ll take two full hours for the selected half dozen executives (not salespersons), to make short succinct presentations, then engage in Open Discussion with the audience.

• The third keynote hour will be the purview of Dr. David Funk, head of the graduate real estate department at Cornell University. His address? ‘Housing Economics & Manufactured Housing’s Strategic Niche!’ If you’ve not heard David’s insightful observations relative to MH & communities, be there!

All this just ‘scratches the surface’ of what’ll be covered during the 2 ½ days we’re together at the Hilton Resort on Mission Bay in San Diego, CA. Next week and thereafter, I’ll tell you more….

In the meantime, to ensure YOU receive an ‘invite’ to this year’s 24th annual International Networking Roundtable for LLLCommunity Owners/operators, phone the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764.

II.

17th National Registry of ALL Lenders!

The research is finally finished on this salient document. It’s being printed as I tap out these words, and will be mailed later this week, to COBA7® Option II & III affiliates, as one of three lagniappes enclosed with the March 2015 issue of the Allen Letter professional journal! Frankly, while we already know it’s the second most popular Signature Series Resource Document or SSRD we print and distribute monthly – behind the 26th annual ALLEN REPORT, I’m downright excited about the content ‘this time around’. Why?

In years past, the most real estate-secured mortgage originators (brokers & or lenders) identified, has been 18. This 17th National Registry contains no fewer than 25! And chattel capital sources & servicers? Rishel Consulting, once again, has come thru with the most comprehensive list of names and contacts, available anywhere, to this end! The ‘icing on the cake’? Just enough information about lease-option methodology to entice one to visit one or two Spencer Roane, MHM® websites, to learn if this might not be the ‘secret ingredient’ for handling new home transactions in the present and near future. And finally; nowhere else in the entire manufactured housing industry, and or throughout the LLLCommunity asset class, will you find a more comprehensive overview of the real estate lending environment during 2014 and looking forward throughout 2016, than you’ll find in this valuable document. It is chockfull of all the $ info you’ll need, relative to the MHIndustry & LLLCommunity asset class.

If you’re not already an Option II or III affiliate of COBA7®, but would like to become one NOW, to obtain all three SSRDs published to date (26th ALLEN REPORT, ‘State of the MHIndustry & LLLCommunity Asset Class!’ outline; and, ‘17th annual National Registry of ALL Lenders’), phone the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764, or print off the COBA7® brochure attached to the BEBA (Blast Email Blog Alert) announcing this week’s blog posting # 339. And know that next month, April 2015, the SSRD will be the popular ‘Who Ya Gonna Call in 2015?!’ list of freelance consultants serving all segments of the HUD-Code manufactured housing industry.

III.

Manufactured Housing Manager®, MHM®

If you consider yourself to be a professional property manager of land-lease-lifestyle communities (a.k.a. manufactured home communities) and want to become certified as such, you’ll be at one of two Manufactured Housing Manager®, or MHM® one day classes, on 31 March in Dixon, IL., or 20 May in East Peoria, IL. That’s right, 15 new MHM®s were designated during the annual MHShow in Louisville, KY., in January – now we’re providing similar ‘training & certification’ opportunities on the aforementioned dates at the named locations.

FYI. The one day class tuition is $250.00 per person. This pays for the day long training session, a copy of the classic Landlease Community Management, a monograph of contemporary MHIndustry ‘readings’, and gold MHM® pin, as well as MHM® certificate. There is no test involved. And to date, there’re nearly 1,000 MHM® owning/operating LLLCommunities, coast to coast and throughout Canada.

The MHM® class is the only such professional property management training and certification program, focused on the LLLCommunity asset class, taught by a veteran community owner, Certified Property Manager®, and Manufactured Housing Manager®.

For more information, and to register for either MHM® session, phone the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764.

And to corporate CEOs and state MHAssociation executives reading this blog posting, know you can host an MHM® session for your property managers, or members, and receive a $50.00 rebate per person, when classes contain at least ten MHM® candidates, but not more than 25.

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