Blog Posting # 661 @ 22 October 2021: EducateMHC
Perspective. ‘Land lease communities, previously manufactured home communities, and earlier, ‘mobile home parks’, comprise the real estate component of manufactured housing!’
EducateMHC is the online national advocate, asset class historian, data researcher, education resource & communication media for all land lease communities throughout North America!
To input this blog and 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: to promote HUD-Code manufactured housing & land lease communities as U.S. # 1 source of affordable attainable housing! Attend MHM class!
INTRODUCTION: Quite a mix of topics today! First, some important and timely information relative to DOE regs that threaten the intrinsic affordability of HUD-code manufactured housing. Then a personal pique relative to how ‘others’ attempt to affect our daily lives. And finally, a personal lamenting of the passing of more than three decades of dedicated work in behalf of land lease community owners/operators nationwide and in Canada.
I.
AGAIN, ‘DOE REGS MUST BE DOA!’
That’s the ‘short title’ to Part I of this week’s blog posting. Here’s the ‘long title’, so to speak, quoting from the Manufactured Housing Institute’s (‘MH’) latest newsletter to members:
“The Department of Energy (‘DOE’) has published a proposed rulemaking on energy standards for manufactured housing which, if finalized, will eliminate manufactured housing as an affordable housing option for hundreds of thousands of potential homebuyers.”
Did you get that? MHI’s communique goes on to say: “The current DOE proposal is fundamentally flawed and must be completely rewritten to ensure manufactured home remain an available option for American families.”
So, YOU on board with ensuring the DOE regs are ‘DEAD ON ARRIVAL (‘DOA’)?’ If so, YOU must contact MHI’s Policy Department via (703) 558-0675 and ask how YOU can participate in their Call to Action program right now! I’ve already done so.
LATE BREAKING NEWS! Deadline has been extended from 25 October to 26 November 2020! That gives YOU and ME more time to submit written comments relative to DOE’s Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (‘SNPR’) concerning manufactured housing energy conservation standards.
II.
YOU WOKE?
What do the following words have in common?
America, Mute, Freshman, Straight, Depressed. War. Policeman. Handicapped parking, Mr & Mrs., You guys. Long time, no see. Rule of thumb. Hold down the fort.
According to FIRE, a.k.a. Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, “they’re all included in a list of ‘words to avoid’, compiled by Colorado State University’s Inclusive Communications Task force.” And while not banned, per se, they’re words faculty and students are encouraged to avoid, in favor or words that make everyone feel welcomed and ‘safe’.
Don’t know about you, but I’m increasingly pissed off at the wokeness that seems to be occurring these days, especially where the use of personal pronouns is concerned. While completing an application, for something, recently, I was asked to indicate what pronouns I identified with, not whether I was a male or female.
III.
DO YOU REALIZE?
The date, 1 January 2022, is fast approaching, when there will be no annual update to the ALLEN REPORT. We did not survey the 500+/- known owners/operators of land lease community property portfolios this fall, so I have no statistics to compile and write into what would have been the 33rd annual ALLEN REPORT. What does ‘having no updated ALLEN REPORT’ mean to you and me?
• No historical perspective of contemporary land lease communities. In the 32nd edition we identified the seven types of shelter now commonplace on rental homesites.
• No historical perspective relative to HUD-Code housing shipments during the past 50 years, and how our industry sullies its’ ‘cred’ by reporting two totals each month.
• Overall total of rental homesite counts among reporting portfolios, and number per portfolio; as well as number of land lease communities owned and or fee-managed.
• Volume of rental homes and contract sales per property portfolio.
• Average national physical occupancy among reporting property portfolios.
• Average national Operating Expense Ratio (‘OER’) among reporting portfolios.
• Status of professional property management certification among portfolios.
• Growth in rental homesite count to date (i.e. between 1994 & 2020) among all real estate investment trusts (‘REITs’) during the past 26 years. Who will tell you now?
• And in the 32nd ALLEN REPORT, a list of a dozen Evergreen Issues (i.e. ‘always present, always important!’) re manufactured housing and land lease communities.
That’s pretty much what’s ‘leaving the body of land lease community knowledge and statistics’ researched and faithfully reported during the past 32 years. Hopefully someone will come along, in time, and shoulder the mantle (‘covering’) of this unique income-producing property type and popular real estate asset class.
After all, and to date, the ALLEN REPORT opened the door to annual Networking Roundtables, two monthly subscriber-supported newsletters, a weekly blog, the Manufactured Housing Manager (‘MHM’) professional property management training and certification program, as well as a host of Resource Documents such as the National Registry of ALL Lenders, and directories of freelance consultants, MH factories, national and state trade associations, as well as GSE & NGO organizations influencing manufactured housing and the asset class.
GFA
George Allen, CPM, MHM
EducateMHC