Blog Posting # 749, Copyright 7 July 2023. EducateMHC
Parallel Perspectives. HUD-Code manufactured housing is federally-regulated, performance-based, affordable factory-built housing! And land lease communities (a.k.a. manufactured home communities & ‘mobile home parks’) comprise the investment real estate component of manufactured housing! EducateMHC alone is the online advocate, historian, trend tracker, and txt resource for these two business models! To input this blog or connect with EducateMHC, telephone (317) 881-3815, email: gfa7156@aol.com, or visit www.eduatemhc.com, to order Community Management in the Manufactured Housing Industry. This is the sole professional community management text in print today! And SWAN SONG is a history of land lease communities, and official record of annual MH production totals since 1955; and my autobiography, From SmittyAlpha6 to MHMaven – describes combat adventures in Vietnam and 40= years business career in MH and community ownership/management.
George Allen, CPM®Emeritus, MHM®Master, Emeritus member of the Manufactured Housing Institute (‘MHI’), RV/MH Hall of Fame enshrinee, retired lieutenant colonel of U.S. Marines, and author/editor of 20 books about MH, communities, business & management wisdom & prayer.
And the Precipitous Slide Continues!
According to EducateMHC’s ‘MH Shipment Volume @ May 2023 & Stock Market Report @ 4 July 2023’, between May of 2022 and May of 2023, there’s been a 33.8percent decrease ‘year to date’ in the number of new HUD-Code manufactured homes produced! Specifically, comparing months of May 2022 and May of 2023, there were only 2,582 new HUD-Code homes produced this past May!
So, as an industry, we’re still faced with this unsolved conundrum (‘riddle, hard question’):
Why, in the midst of a widely-recognized ‘affordable housing crisis’ throughout the U.S., are we continuing to produce fewer and fewer of the most affordable housing type (i.e. factory-built homes) available to the American home buying consumer? Still no national forums addressing this serious matter. The only tiny light at the end of this tunnel seems to be Clayton Homes using social media (e.g. Facebook) to market their single section HUD-Code housing product. Why aren’t others (e.g. CAVCO, Skyline/Champion)? Obviously, much more needs to be done – especially where ameliorating (‘making better’) local regulatory barriers to all forms of affordable housing is concerned!
You have ideas and suggestions to this end? We’d appreciate hearing them: gfa7156@aol.com
STILL CONFUSED?
You should be – if referring to the unclear and confusing musings put forward in the aforementioned (See blog # 748 last week) ‘Trojan Horse – Looming Impact’ two topic mini- treatise published recently on MHPro News letterhead with mention of MHARR.
Here’s the simplest manner, in the next two paragraphs, by which I can communicate the bewilderment I experienced reading and reading this document:
Is it good or bad, for an industry presently already in a precipitous (housing production) slide, to be able to sell and finance more new manufactured homes with ‘small dollar mortgages’ – or not? Sounds good to me. But constant mention, in said report, of “21st, VMF & MHI’ as being shills (my term) for Berkshire-Hathaway, does not help resolve this matter at all!
And, ‘removal of the requirement for a permanent chassis’, relative to manufactured housing. Here, one is asked to identify as an industry purist and Luddite (i.e. Make no changes!) OR, be open-minded to the possibility of popularizing manufactured housing (sans permanent chassis) as a new type (factory-built) housing. And, like the previous $ red herring, suggestion that removing permanent chassis is akin to the ‘bait & switch’ “CrossMod fiasco” – without explanation, does not help resolve this matter at all – either.
Yes, this proposed ROAD (‘Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream to Housing Act’) bill, as parsed by these identified writers, is that confusing and non-resolute!
And, if that wasn’t enough confusion to introduce relative to manufactured housing issues, learn now about the International Code Council (‘ICC’), and how it’s allegedly – along with the usual ‘whipping boys’ (i.e. Berkshire Hathaway, Clayton homes, et. al.), promoting widespread use and recognition of ‘off-site construction’ – structures, buildings, homes, and other variants. At a June 2023 conference in Washington, DC., off-site home building was described as “panelized systems, manufactured homes, tiny houses, recreational vehicles, modular pods, and shipping containers.” So, is this good or bad for our ailing industry? The writers of this report put it this way: “legislation…may have outcomes that are potentially harmful for HUD-Code manufactured housing?” To which I reply: ‘How so?’ Reads more like a ‘chicken little’ scenario than the result of reasoned thinking and discussion. So, are we purists and Luddites, or are we willing to risk ‘opening the MH tent’ to unexplored possibilities? That appears to be ‘the question’ afoot these days.
OK, that’s as far as we’re going this week, relative to the ‘Trojan Horse – Looming Impact’ report, a.k.a. ROAD proposed legislation. Your responses, ideas, suggestions? Gfa7156@aol.com
George Allen