Blog # 507; Copyright @ 21 October 2018; 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 reporter & online communication media for all North American LLCommunities
To input this blog &/or affiliate with Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance, a.k.a. COBA7, use Official MHIndustry HOHTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764
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to not only inform & opine, but to transform & improve MHousing performance!
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INTRODUCTION: Here we go again! I’m deep into compiling & penning the 30th anniversary ALLEN REPORT (due out as a lagniappe in the January 2019 issue of the Allen Letter professional journal – to COBA7 Option II & III affiliates), and along comes a unique opportunity to articulate a manufactured housing market indicator needed by the industry and realty asset class for decades! I’m talking about ((maybe) a Manufactured Housing Affordability Index or MHAI. When the ALLEN REPORT is finished (no simple task), I’ll turn my attention to details of this much-needed research/reporting tool!
In the meantime, if you’re a land lease community owner/operator with a property portfolio containing five or more communities and or 500+ rental homesites, but haven’t yet submitted the ALLEN REPORT questionnaire, please phone (317) 346-7156 and request a copy of the form. Your reward? A FREE copy of the 30th anniversary ALLEN REPORT ( a savings of $544.95) – IF you complete said questionnaire in full! Then FAX it to (317) 346-7158 ASAP!
I.
EUREKA!
(“I Have Found It!”)
Or Maybe Not…
HUD’s ‘Housing Market Indicators Monthly Update’ Inspires Articulation of a ‘Manufactured Housing Affordability Index’
Oh, it’s not yet ready for public announcement, but is close – maybe! When it does debut, it’ll most likely be via COBA7’s the Allen CONFIDENTIAL! business newsletter, then the Allen Letter professional journal. To receive either or both manufactured housing & land lease community – focused print media publications, affiliate with the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance or COBA7, via Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764. You’ll be glad you did! Hundreds already so-affiliated!
What’s a ‘housing affordability index’ do? It measures whether or not a typical individual or household earns enough annual gross income (‘AGI’) to qualify for a chattel mortgage on a new HUD-Code manufactured home at the national, or regional (i.e. local housing market) defined by postal zip code) levels, based on most recent manufactured housing price, mortgage rate, and income data – and when/where appropriate, area median income (‘AMI’) levels characteristic of various local housing markets.
Bottom line? The Manufactured Housing Affordability Index (‘MHAI’) will be – if it materializes, a means to track, over time, whether manufactured housing is becoming more or less affordable for the typical individual or household prospective homebuyer/site lessee, & homebuyer buying and permanently installing a manufactured home on a scattered building site conveyed fee simple.
That’s all for now. Will tell you more as time passes and the MHAI formula is proofed and tested for use throughout the manufactured housing industry and among land lease communities nationwide..
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II.
Lest We Forget…
Responses to ‘We’ve Got a Problem!’ blog postings # 503 & 505 continue to Arrive at the COBA7 Office
“I think I forgot to tell you Amen on this! Also, two of my friends in the MHBusiness think the same. And they are working ‘where the rubber meets the road’! Thanks for all you do George.” This from a major land lease community portfolio owner/operator who’s also been a major independent (street) MHRetailer in the Midwest for decades.
And then this from a now retired independent (street) MHRetailer – who prefers the term ‘dealer’, who also owned (back then) several manufactured home communities – and how he experienced the consequences of manufacturer and property consolidation back then. Only change to his narrative is, I’ve updated the trade terminology following the first sentence…gfa:
“Yes George – 372,943 new HUD-Code homes were shipped (in 1998), and many mobile home parks had a one year waiting list. The only ways for a (Midwest) Street Dealer, like me, could get a home into one was:
1) Pay full lot rent on any and all vacant rental homesites the land lease community owner/operator had, in order to allow one’s customer to fill out an application for said site; and if accepted, expect to give the park manager, anywhere from $500 to $1,000 (in cash) for their cooperation. (Known, back then, as a spiff or birddog fee)
2) One could pick out an occupied rental homesite, and the manager would evict them to create a spot for your customer. (Now, that’s a new one on me. gfa)
3) We would ‘temporarily’ set the customer’s home on one of the ‘overnight’ spots we owned, then move it to a permanent rental homesite when a vacancy occurred.
4) If park manager had a friend, sister, brother or distant cousin who wanted a new home, it was understandably beneficial to sell it to them at absolutely net dealer cost.
‘Those were the good old days!’ To which my correspondent added: “You can’t fix stupid, and greed is hard to overcome – But when you put the two together, it’s the beginning of the end!”
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George Allen, CPM, MHM
COBA7, division of GFA Management, Inc., dba PMN Publishing
Box # 47024
Indianapolis, IN. 46247
(317) 346-7156