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

February 25, 2022

LACK OF SUPPLY HOBBLES MHINDUSTRY

Filed under: Uncategorized — George Allen @ 10:34 am

Blog Posting # 678. Copyright @ 25 February 2022, EduateMHC

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, realty asset class historian, trend spotter, education resource & textbook supplier for land lease communities throughout North America!

To input this blog and or connect with EducateMHC, telephone (317) 881-3815, email gfa7156@aol.com and/or visit www.educatemhc.com Previous phone # no longer connected.

Motto: ‘U Support US & WE Serve U!’ Goal: to promote HUD-Code manufactured housing and land lease communities as U.S. # 1 source of affordable attainable housing! Be MHM certified!

INTRODUCTION: This week TMI (‘too much information’)? Maybe. You decide. If I don’t tell you, who will? (And ‘that’ question may take on even more meaning during the week or two ahead!). Whew! Our industry and realty asset class is surely a-changing! GFA


I.

LACK OF SUPPLY HOBBLES MHINDUSTRY

A 2022 Conundrum (‘hard question’) for HUD-Code manufactured housing industry! If, according to the Wall Street Journal, on 19 February, “…the biggest issue affecting the housing market seems to be the lack of supply’, WHY are HUD-Code housing manufacturers not displaying their product at regional trade shows (e.g. canceled Louisville MHShow in January 2022)? And now I learn, there will be little to no product at the Biloxi Show. Instead, HUD-Code manufacturers will be relying on booth space marketing and networking to effect contact with prospective wholesale purchasers (e.g. land lease communities and independent – street – MHRetailers) of said product. Therein lies the conundrum: But WHY?

So, what has HUD-Code manufactured housing been doing to answer lack of housing supply?

By the numbers (i.e. according to Institute of Building Technology & Safety or IBTS), during pre-covid 2018 the HUD-Code manufactured housing industry shipped 96,555 new homes nationwide.*1 At the very beginning of covid, in 2019, that number dropped to 94,615 new homes; and in the midst of covid, further dropped to 94,390. BUT, during year 2021 (semi-post covid) the industry rebounded to 105,772 new homes shipped! So, production momentum is there; just why aren’t HUD-Code housing manufacturers pushing those totals even harder? Hmm. Supply chain issues, new employee recruiting challenges, lack of home-only financing, and what else?

And the unanswered ‘elephant in the room’ question continues to be: WHY are new HUD-Code housing prices continuing to increase unabated and sans any embarrassment?

If you’d like to contribute to this timely discussion, simply email me: gfa7156@aol.com

End Note.

1. IBTS does not tally and publish annual shipment totals for manufactured housing; rather, they only do so monthly. It’s the adding together of their 12 monthly totals that provides the figures just mentioned. These numbers are NOT sullied by subtracting and then adding back Destination Pending units each month. GFA


II.

GSE REFORM, PAST & PRESENT

A recent story, by Don Layton, titled ‘Is GSE Reform Dead?’ covered a lot of territory, past and present, from two perspectives: *1

Between 2009 and 2016, influencers from a number of environments looked to replace two GSEs (‘Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac’) with ‘something different’; collectively referred to as ‘comprehensive GSE reform’. Well, these alternatives have pretty much moved on, as they reflected political philosophies of their proposers (e.g. “liberals and progressives looking for more government involvement and control, conservatives looking for less”) and bogged down, even given congressional interest in 2014.

Today, there’re two key GSE reform activities quietly underway. The “…two companies are retaining all their earnings to build capital”, making them more financially stable, easing conservatorship exit.*2

A second reform occurring is via the Federal Housing Finance Agency (‘FHFA’), the GSE’s overseer, effecting limited revisions to regulatory minimum capital rule, reining in risk of GSEs making uneconomic decisions.

Off topic, and despite recent musings to the contrary, past inaction by the GSEs, relative to Duty to Serve (‘DTS’) plans affecting HUD-Code manufactured housing, has unnecessarily crippled the industry’s ability to answer this nation’s persistent affordable housing (shortage) challenge!

End Note.

1. Housing Perspectives, ‘Research, trends, and perspective from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies/, dated 14 February 2022.

2. “As of 9/30/2021, the GSE’s, between them, have a net worth of $67.5 billion, a much-improved position over the near zero figure of a few years earlier.”

III.

EVERGREEN ISSUES OR PECCADILLOS?


Evergreen (‘always relevant’) Issues, relative to the manufactured housing industry and land lease communities, have long been of lively and important interest to me as an observer, businessman (now retired) and writer/historian. To that end, I maintain a list of 18+/- Evergreen Issues updated at least annually. If you’d like me to email you that file, simply request it via gfa7156@aol.com

Anyway, it’s become apparent to me during recent months there’re other ‘always relevant’ pairings of perspectives worthy of identification and examination. I’ll briefly describe each one and leave it to you to decide if it rises to the level of being an Evergreen Issue or not.

Overvaluation of mid-sized and large land lease communities, oft driven by new investors from outside the manufactured housing industry; almost always resulting in excessive rental homesite rate increases soon after ‘closing’ of deals. And this phenomenon is inflamed, in my opinion, by simple greed on the part of some, but not all, property sellers. What’s the idiom? ‘It takes two to tango!’ And that certainly is the case in these sorry situations, forcing homeowners/site lessees to become victims.

There’s a recurrent shibboleth (‘slogan’) going ‘round these days; specifically: ‘Raw land development into land lease communities is the answer to the affordable housing shortage!’ Not so. Raw land development is LOCAL housing market driven – for better or worse. If city/county ‘fathers’ really want such a rental community nearby they’ll help finance the project and deal with NIMBY, LULU, & BANANA attitudes.*1 Why recurrent? Same shibboleth the last go-round, back in 1992 when J. Wiley & Sons published Development, Marketing & Operation of Manufactured Home Communities.

We lost 10,000+/- independent (street) MHRetailers at the turn of the century (i.e. when we lost easy access to chattel capital for new home sales financing), and community owners/operators learned how to ‘buy, market & sell new homes on-site’. Well, as they say, ‘the worm has turned’ and new MHRetialers want ‘back in’ the communities – but will not do so as long as community owners/operators compete with product and pricing. What’s the challenge? Community owners/operators oft sell at slightly above cost, to fill vacant rental homesites. MHRetailers won’t risk losing customers by sending them into discounted price environments. What to do? Practice what I did, as a community owner, back in the late 1970s thru the 1990s. Engage in the ‘Care & Feeding of MHRetailers’ via regular visits to sales centers, with business cards, trifold brochures, and freshly baked cookies in hand. At one time in Indianapolis, all 18 MHRetailers (now down to two) had coffee mugs on their desks and leather-like binders in hand for writing deals, all with my property logos prominently shown. Oh yes, and my assurance I would not steal their prospective homebuyers.

Know the peccadillo that bugs me most? Our realty asset class’ inability to support and sustain in person training of on-site and regional property staffers as professional property managers! Every other type of commercial real estate investment, from multifamily rental properties, to shopping centers to office buildings make it a point to ensure their employees – managing high-priced properties, are all trained and certified as professional property managers. But not land lease communities! I trained and certified 1,000+ Manufactured Housing Managers, in person, between 2011 and 2021. Today there is no regularly scheduled in person training and certification of this sort! So sad!

End Note.

1. NIMBY = ‘Not in my back yard’, LULU = ‘locally unwanted land use’, & BANANA = ‘build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone’


IV.

CONGRATULATIONS ART TUVERSON!

“Congratulations to Art, and Berkadia Small Loans, for their recognition as GlobeSt Real Estate Forum’s 2022 Rainmakers in Debt & Equity.”

The magazine article goes on to state that “…Art Tuverson represents a unique niche in the multifamily housing industry, specializing in manufactured housing communities and the RV resort industry.”

V.

DID YOU KNOW?

Median sales price for new homes in the US is now at $350,300. Up 15.4% from last year! The FHFA , however, in a recent press release, put the increase at 17.5%.

Rumor has it a major land lease community portfolio owner/operator is acquiring, or has acquired, one of – or the largest, MH appraisal, marketing, and communication firm in the industry.

In next week’s blog posting I’ll tell you what you might well miss if/when you attend the MHCongress in April 2022.

And that’s all for today folks!

George Allen, CPM, MHM
EducateMHC

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