Blog Posting # 709. Copyright 7 October 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, and 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 educatemhc.com
GOOD NEWS & BAD NEWS
First the Good News. Institute of Building Technology & Safety (‘IBTS’), a.k.a. HUD’s official scorekeeper of manufactured housing production performance, reports Shipment Volume for August 2022 was 10,722 new HUD-Code homes! That’s UP from 8,050 homes in July 2022, and up from 9,087 homes produced during August 2021. And in toto, 16,392 ‘floors’ were shipped.
How’s Year to Date shipments compare? Well, as of August 2022, we’re at 80,431 new units for the year, compared to August 2021 when we produced 70,410 new homes. Now that’s Progress!
Production value of these homes (based on an aging formula) pencils out to $462 million for the month of August, and $3.469 billion YTD. Why isn’t this sort of information ballyhooed more within and outside our industry? Perhaps if we had more up to date formulaic methodology to use. Anyone at MHI listening? You’ve promised time and again to update Dr. Stephen C. Cooke’s ‘per home $ factor’.
Now for the Bad News. There are ten public manufactured housing-related companies, five each from the manufacturing sector and five from the land lease community portfolio sector.
Here’s a list of said firms and their slip in stock prices (except for Skyline Champion and Legacy Housing) since last month (September 2022):
Berkshire-A Hathaway @ $412,000
Skyline Champion Corporation @ $55.80
Cavco Industries, Inc. @ $214.56
Legacy Housing Corporation @ $17.76
Nobility Homes @ $24.30
Equity Lifestyle, Inc. @ $63.85
Sun Communities, Inc. @ $137.81
UMH Properties, Inc. @ $16.20
Flagship Communities @ $14.77
Manufactured Housing Properties, Inc. @ $1.70
So, how does all this appear to be trending? Well, the Manufactured housing/land lease community Composite Stock Index or CSI (formulaic total of all stock prices except for Berkshire Hathaway, plus a base number) has been in decline since August 2022, e.g.
October = $636.74
September = $677.46
August = $713.06
And this CSI decline since a year high of $790 during January 2022.
What’s going on? Regularly increasing production of new HUD-Code homes, month by month, contradicts nearly month by month declines in corporate stock prices.
ON A PERSONAL NOTE…
As some/many of you know, I was hacked this past week while attending a ‘first & only’ reunion among USMC officers I served with in 1967 – before heading off to Vietnam.
I’m sincerely sorry about the nature of the false email message you received. All is well with the Allens. I am not in dire need of help of any kind – that I’m aware of at this time.
The reunion? Boy have we (about 50 male officers) changed much during the past 55 years! Many of our number were KIA (killed in action) in Vietnam, and now old age is taking its’ toll.
Now here’s a poignant happenstance from that occasion. At one point we, along with our wives, were transported to TBS (The Basic School) in Quantico, VA., where young 2d lieutenants (a.k.a. ‘butter bars’) are trained as platoon commanders. Well, while in a huge auditorium, with 200 young officers (i.e. 20 years or so of age) on one side, and 50+ grizzled old veterans on the other side. As I looked around, the thought occurred to me: ‘Hmm. How would I have felt if 50+ WWI vets had walked into our classroom in 1967 as we trained for Vietnam?’ The age gaps are identical. That really made me ‘feel my age’.
Later in the day we toured the helicopter hanger where the president’s very special chopper is stored and maintained when not transporting him. Got to climb around inside. Same with the Osprey parked nearby (flies either vertical or horizontal vectors).
Yes, it was ‘special’, returning to where Carolyn – along with daughter Susan, spent much of the second year of our life together. Some officers reminisced bouncing (then) baby Susan (one year old) on their knee at weekend parties off base. One of them is now an astronaut in the Astronaut Hall of Fame. And remember General Peter Pace, from President Bush days? He was the first USMC officer to serve as head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and he was a member of our TBS 2-68 class.
George Allen, CPM, MHM
EducateMHC