Blog Posting # 705. Copyright 9 September 2022. 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, 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 and or visit www.educatemhc.com
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We get letters! Nary a week goes by that we don’t receive one or more reactions to blog content, along with ideas on how to solve various manufactured housing industry challenges.
Well, this past week, after we talked – once again – about the extravagant sales prices of land lease communities, along with consequential exorbitant rental homesite rate increases, we received the following heart-tugging letter from a conscientious fee management firm exec.
“I managed a 75 rental homesite community in Indiana for 14 years, taking it from rundown chaos to beautiful, well-managed property. We had people banging on our door wanting to move-in. And we couldn’t rehab manufactured homes fast enough to meet the need.
Well, it sold three months ago for an astronomical price. The new owner claimed to be unable to afford professional property management – so our services were terminated. Now I receive text messages from residents desperate for help – reporting their leases not being honored, drastic rent increases, yards overgrown with weeds, little on-site management; and what there is, having a nasty attitude.
It grieves my heart, but there’s nothing I can do legally, to help these people. They were cared about and nurtured under our management, but now they are being ‘raped & pillaged’, as you described in your blog last week. You and I have been around the manufactured housing industry for several decades. I now see the value of these communities about to plummet, as some folk who can afford to do so, move their homes elsewhere; others will abandon their homes; and those leasing or renting will walk away when their leases expire. Word gets around when a community becomes an undesirable place to live!
It grieves people like me, who have lived and breathed manufactured housing, and have it ‘in our blood’, to see short-lived, opportunistic (new) owners raping our resident base and giving our industry a ‘trashy’, ‘shyster’ type reputation. Many of us have worked hard to change the negative perspective of our industry, only to have our reputation shoved back several notches by those who give little attention to the operation of these properties, and only care about the bottom line.” (Lightly edited.)
And yet another epistle chastises me for “…bringing up the fact buyers are overpaying for our asset class – which in turn, drives up rental rates….” But the writer goes on to say, “I like the idea of pegging site rent to the cost of a three bedroom apartment” in the same local housing market as a land lease community.
And this writer ends his commentary with this salient observation: “I can’t tell you how many times I hear municipalities begging for someone to build affordable housing. Just do not mention manufactured housing or you will lose their attention quickly.” (Also lightly edited. GFA)
Well, some of us – hopefully many of us, will soon be packing our bags and making the trek to Stone Mountain, GA., for the 11th annual SECO Conference. For more information, google SECO. I make few manufactured housing-related business trips anymore, since retiring during August 2021. For me to spend personal funds (I’ve liquidated all our business entities) for travel and lodging, an event had better be pretty good and worthwhile. I feel SECO meets this requirement. Hope to see you there too.
The week before SECO will find Carolyn and I in Woodbridge, VA., attending the first reunion of USMC officers I trained with during late 1967 & early 1968. It will be a bittersweet experience. Many of the young lieutenants I trained with that year wound up being Killed in Action in Vietnam. While I’ll be happy to renew old friendships, after 55 years, we’re already reminiscing about friends we lost back then but, to date, have not had an opportunity to honor. Sure, their names are engraved on The Wall in Washington, DC., and many of us have made ‘rubbings’ thereof, but not said a proper ‘Good-bye’ to them or the few spouses and children they left behind, e.g. Marcus Fiebelkorn and his wife and now grown child. In my case I’ll see John Dietz, who I entered the USMC officer program with in 1964; Chris Ray who was a fellow platoon commander – but not Dick Brooks, a USNA grad, who was a platoon commander in the same company, but has since died. One of our group is an astronaut who’s been inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame. Yes, I’m looking forward to the event, but wary of emotional consequences.
If you’re going to be in Indianapolis on the 15th of September, plan to swing by Capitol Supply between 11Am & 3PM to participate in their Open House. Anyone ask you why you’re there, tell them ‘George sent me!’ I will be there too. GFA
George Allen, CPM, MHM
EducateMHC