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

Blog Posting # 769, Copyright 1 December 2023. EducateMHC

Parallel Perspectives. HUD-Code manufactured housing is federally-regulated, performance-based, affordable & attainable 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 is the online advocate, historian, trend tracker, and text resource for these two related business models! Reach EducateMHC by phoning (317) 881-3815; email: gfa7156@aol.com, or visit www.educatemhc.com; and to order Community Management in the Manufactured Housing Industry. This is the sole professional property management text in print today! SWAN SONG is a history of land lease communities & official record of annual MH production totals since 1955; and, my autobiography, from SmittyAlpha6! to MHMaven – describes personal combat adventures in Vietnam, a 45 year business career in MH and community ownership/management, and as author/consultant.

George Allen, CPM®Emeritus, MHM®Master, is only emeritus member of the Manufactured Housing Institute (‘MHI’), an RV/MH Hall of Fame enshrinee, retired lieutenant colonel of U.S. Marines, & author/editor of 20 books re MH, communities, business management & prayer.

TROUBLING STATS!

According to HUD, and published in the September/October 2023 issue of ‘Affordable Housing Finance’ magazine, on page # 10:

“8.53 million renter households, during 2021 (last year data available) were identified as being ‘worst case needs’. These households have incomes at or below 50 percent of the area median income (‘AMI’), do not receive government housing assistance, and pay more than half their income for rent, or live in severely inadequate conditions, or both!”

&

According to the Federal Housing finance Agency (‘FHFA’), “U.S. house prices rose 5.5 percent between the third quarter of 2022 and third quarter of 2023.” & “U.S. house price growth continued to accelerate in the third quarter, appreciating more than in each of the previous four quarters” – according to Dr. Anju Vajja, FFHA’s associate director of research and statistics.

MANUFACTURER FOCUS ON LAND LEASE COMMUNITIES

The ‘CAVCO Launches a National Community Sales Team’ headline in the Louisville MHShow issue of MHInsider magazine is Old News & New News. Old News because ‘manufacturer emphasis on in-land lease community new home marketing and sales’ began way back around 2010 (the year after MH hit its’ nadir level of production @ only 48,789 units), when Steve Quick of (then) Fleetwood Enterprises – since acquired by CAVCO, created a CD directory of his firm’s plants and the lines of homes they produced. This so land lease community owners/operators could direct order new homes from plants that serviced their marketing area. Also, Skyline-Champion and Clayton Homes have focused on land lease community marketing now for more than a decade. New News, because this is indeed a novel focus for CAVCO Industries. According to the MHInsider magazine story, the land lease community focused team will be fully assembled during year 2024.

Anecdotally, there are at least two other historic developments related to this challenging time (i.e. years 2000 thru 2021 – when we once again surpassed the 100,000 unit mark) in manufactured housing. First, in large part due to HUD-Code manufacturers adjusting to loss of 10,000 independent (street) MHRetailers, and focusing on in-land lease community new home marketing and sales, the percentage of new homes going from factory to on-site, increased from 15 to 40+ percent. And in 2016 the first Two Days of Plant Tours & Home Sales Seminars debuted at the RV/MH Hall of Fame in Elkhart, IN. This program has continued uninterrupted – but for one year during the pandemic – to this day. Surprising, however, this concept hasn’t been imitated elsewhere in the U.S.

SOMEONE HAS TO TELL YOU…

‘The Great Green Energy Transition That Wasn’t’ rolled across my PC screen a month ago. Here I’d like to share it with you…

“One of the textbook marketing flops of all time was the Ford Edsel sedan, which was heralded as the hot new car in the late 1950s. All the automotive experts and Ford executives said it was a can’t-miss. Henry Ford (the card was named after his son) guaranteed hundreds of thousands of sales.

But one big thing went wrong: Nobody ever bothered to ask car buyers what they thought of the new car. As it turned out, they hated it. So instead of sales of 400,000, Americans bought 10,000, and the model was embarrassingly discontinued.

The obvious lesson for the industry: You can’t bribe Americans to buy cars they don’t want. Given the all-in approach to electric vehicles at Ford and General Motors, it’s clear that Detroit never got the message.

Last week (i.e. early October), Honda and GM announced an end to their two year collaboration in building a platform for lower-cost EVs. Honda execs said it was too hard.

Amazingly, less than 10% of all new car sales over the last two years were EVs. This is despite the fact the U.S> government is writing a $7,500 check to people for buying an EV, and some states are kicking in $5,000 more. The Texas Policy Foundation calculates that all-in EV subsidies can reach $40,000 per vehicle. It would practically be cheaper for the government to purchase a new gas vehicle for every American car buyer.

Energy expert Robert Bryce estimate Ford has lost $62,000 for each EV it has rolled off the assembly line. That’s hardly a road to profitability.

Meanwhile, the news is even worse for wind and solar power. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that ‘clean energy’ investment funds are tanking, with some down as much as 70% in recent months. Solar has been one of the worst-performing industry stocks this year.”

George Allen, CPM, MHM

Blog Posting # 768, Copyright 24 November 2023. EducateMHC

Parallel Perspectives. HUD-Code manufactured housing is federally-regulated, performance based, affordable & attainable 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 is the online advocate, historian, trend tracker, and text resource for these two related business models! Reach EduateMHC by phoning (317) 881-3815; email: gfa7156@aol.com, or visit www.educatemhc.com; also to order Community Management in the Manufactured Housing Industry. This is the only professional property management text in print today! SWAN SONG is a history of land lease communities & official record of annual MH production totals since 1955; and, my autobiography, From SmittyAlpha6 to MHMaven – describes personal combat adventures in Vietnam, and 45 year business career in MH and community ownership/management; also author and consultant.

George Allen, CPM®Emeritus, MHM®Master, is only emeritus member of the Manufactured Housing Institute (‘MHI’), an RV/MH Hall of Fame enshrinee, retired lieutenant colonel of U.S. Marines, & author/editor of 20 books re MH, communities, business management & prayer.

OK, I Took A Week Off…

Didn’t mean to do so; but as they say ‘S___ happened.’  And now I’m back in the saddle, so to speak, sharing information, opportunities, and challenges with readers of this weekly blog posting.

This past week I got to read up on some early (U.S.) history of the manufactured housing industry. Here’re a couple of many gems I gleaned from Dr. Carlton Edwards (1911-2010) 366 pages, ‘Homes for Travel & Living’ (1977):

“The earliest records available on trailers (homes) were in 1915 when a peddler in the vicinity of New York City devised a 5^th wheel hitch for attaching his wagon to his Model ‘T’ Ford Roadster.”  P.7

“As early as the 1930s, some people used trailers for living for various periods of time. While some were used strictly for vacation travel of relatively short duration, others were used for extended vacations including winter living in the warmer climates and summer living in the cooler. Their trailer functioned as a primary dwelling the year around (sic).” P.10.

(1950s). “Since the owners lived in them the year around (sic), it was natural to call them homes rather than trailers. Therefore, the term Mobile Home came into popular use by a large number of people closely associated with trailers.” P.17

(1970s). “In recent years sites have been provided where mobile home owners purchase land rather than leasing it on a monthly or periodic basis. Some parks are cooperatives where the home owner has a share of the total development. In other cases the owner may have an individual lot for his home. However, the most common sites for mobile homes are in parks owned by corporations where the home owner leases the site and service, usually by the month.” P.22

And there’s so much more I’d like to share with you. But, if you’re a subscriber to MHInsider magazine, you’ll start to see excerpts from Dr. Edwards’ tome in my Allen Legacy column.

As you may or may not know, I’m taking time to become familiar with the writings of Carl Edwards. Besides this book, he also penned a History of the RV/MH Heritage Foundation Hall of Fame, from its’ founding in 1972 through 1993. I hope and plan to research and pen Part II of this history, extending from 1993 through 2024. Taken together, Dr. Edwards work and mine (Parts I & II) will finally provide the RV/MH Heritage Foundation a comprehensive history of this valuable repository of our industry and realty asset class histories.

One of the things I’m planning to include in the aforementioned ‘history’, are lists of every RV/MH Hall of Fame induction class, from 1972 right on through year 2024. As you can imagine, these lists of more than 400 individuals read like a veritable ‘Who’s Who of the Manufactured Housing & RV Industries’. What an adventure this promises to be….

If you have ideas or resources that play to either the overall history of the MH industry, or land lease communities in particular, please share them with me via gfa7156@aol.com

And, by the way, Carl Edwards book is part of the George Allen Collection (of land lease community-related books and other writings) housed in the RV/MH Heritage Foundation’s library at the Hall of Fame in Elkhart, IN. Carl Edwards is a member of the 1982 class of RV/MH Hall of Fame enshrinees.

LOVE LOCKS

Ever heard of or seen ‘love locks’? Well frankly, I hadn’t until Carolyn and I recently spent a long weekend visiting my brother Mark and his wife Gretchen, at their home in Cape May, New Jersey. Right in front of our beachfront hotel there was a 15’ section of chain link fencing festooned with hundreds of small padlocks. Had no idea what was going on until we returned home, read a news story about ‘love locks’ and researched the subject online.

What are love locks? Well, they’re small engraved padlocks commemorating a couple’s love for one another, their upcoming marriage or anniversary. Once they obtain an engraved padlock (available online), with their preferred personal message on it, they affix it to a bridge, fence, or gate, then throw the key away – signifying the permanence of their relationship. Supposedly, the ‘love lock’ practice originated during WWI in Serbia.

Next exposure to ‘love locks’ occurred in a news story about how the Grand Canyon (AZ) park rangers recently outlawed ‘love locks’ at that location. Why? The sheer number of ‘love locks’ affixed to area fencing is daunting, even inconvenient. And worse yet, it seems condors are attracted to shiny metal objects – like ‘love lock’ keys, and these are dangerous to their health.

And just recently, while reading Ellery Adams’ mystery novel, The Secret, Book & Scone Society, I came across this paragraph describing a twist about placing ‘love locks’ in and around the fictional resort town of Miracle Springs: “…a long-standing tradition that encouraged lovers to hang a small padlock from the fence and toss its key onto the tracks. If the wheels of a passing train flattened the key, the person who hung the padlock would win the heart of the person they most desired, as long as they remembered to scratch his or her initials into the key.” P.19

Recently read how the city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is considering outlawing the hanging of ‘love locks’ around that town. Seems they consider them to be more of a litter or vandalism problem than a tourist attraction – or even fundraising focus.

So now you know as much about ‘love locks’ as me. Have to admit; I’ve been giving some thought to having a ‘love lock’ engraved with our initials ‘GA & CA’, along with the notation: ‘Together for 60+ years & forever’!

George Allen

Blog Posting # 767, Copyright 10 November 2023. EducateMHC

Parallel Perspectives. HUD-Code manufactured housing is federally-regulated, performance-based, affordable & attainable 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 is the online advocate, historian, trend tracker, and text resource for these two related business models! Reach EducateMHC by phoning (317) 881-3815, email: gfa7156@aol.com, or visit www.educatemhc.com; also to order Community Management in the Manufactured Housing Industry. This is the only professional property management text in print today! SWAN SONG is a history of land lease communities & official record of annual MH production totals since 1955; and, my autobiography, From SmittyAlphaSix to MHMaven– describes personal combat adventures in Vietnam, and 45 year business career in MH and community ownership/management; also author and consultant.

George Allen, CPM®Emeritus, MHM®Master, is only Emeritus member of the Manufactured Housing Institute (‘MHI’), an RV/MH Hall of Fame enshrinee, retired lieutenant colonel of U.S> Marines, & author/editor of 20 books re MH, communities, business management & prayer.

MAYBE ONLY 82,000 NEW HUD-CODE HOMES SHIPPED IN 2023!

YES, you read that right! Producing 25 percent fewer new HUD-Code homes during year to date (‘YTD’), 2023, we’ll be ‘lucky’ to hit even the 82,000 mark! How so and why? Well first off; using official Institute of Building Technology & Safety (‘IBTS’) figures, through September 2023, our industry is 25.7 percent behind where we were a year ago at this time.*1 Taking the 112,886 homes produced during year 2022, and reducing that number by 72.5 percent, calculates an 81,842 estimate for all of year 2023.

Why the 25 percent reduction in production during year 2022? Well, there’s a variety of reasons (some say ‘excuses’), to wit: continued lack of personal property financing for manufactured housing (a.k.a. chattel capital and or ‘home only’ loans) sited in land lease communities and on scattered rental building sites; also high prices charged by manufacturers, allegedly due to inventory shortages during and after the pandemic. Also local regulatory barriers to affordable housing of all types. And the list goes on….

For a list of annual manufactured housing production totals from 1955 thru 2017, read SWAN SONG, available for purchase from www.educatemhc.com

Have you noticed that no one else has warned you of this severely ‘down’ year that we are in right now? I guess ‘sticking our head in the sand and ignoring what is going on around us’ is one way to face this dire situation. A better way? Demand our two national trade advocacy entities to ‘go public’ with open discussion among all industry parties, in search of possible solutions, during year 2024, to this return to 2016 performance when only 81,136 new HUD-Code homes were produced. Oh the national advocacy entities do indeed publish YTD stats, like just stated, but do not ‘sound any alarm’ as to what they mean relative to past years’ performance.

We can only take small comfort in the fact that site-built housing sales transactions in the U.S., at present, are at a 13 year low!

End Note.

1. Institute of Building Technology & Safety is the contractor HUD uses to ‘keep score’ of new HUD-Code manufactured homes produced in the U.S. Their monthly totals are reported in unadulterated fashion by HUD, MHARR, and EducateMHC.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO USMC!

It’s doubtful many blog floggers (i.e. readers of this weekly blog posting) are aware that 10 November commemorates the 248^th birthday of the United States Marine Corps (‘USMC’).*1 It’s a special day for those of us who served in the Corps; my combined reserve and active duty tour stretched from 1964 through 1992. How do I celebrate? When possible, I visit the USMC Museum in Quantico, VA., with friends or family. A special, albeit emotional, highlight for me is seeing the massive 122mm Russian field gun; one of two, that I rigged for retrograde out of the Ashau Valley (i.e. Ho Chi Minh Trail) during late February 1969. Just standing there looking at that artillery piece immediately ‘takes me back’ to the firefights, casualties, emotions of those few days. To read more about that experience, read the memoir ‘PUC Beer’ in my autobiography, From SmittyAlpha6 to MHMaven. Two other good ‘reads’ about that Dewey Canyon battle, are the late Don Myers’ Your War, My War; and Karl Marlantes’ Matterhorn.

And the very next day, 11 November is VETERANS DAY. How many of you will remember to honor and thank veterans in your business and social circles for their service to our country? For starters, I’ll be flying the U.S. & USMC flags in front of our home on Friday and Saturday. Plus, though it’s not MEMORIAL DAY, I’ll take a few minutes to quietly and reverently reflect on the young Marines who served with me in Vietnam, but did not make it home to live out their lives like me. 54 years later I can recall faces and the battles we shared during our 13 months in-country. To this day I wonder how the babies and small children of some of the lieutenants we knew – who died, turned out as adults – now in their 50s. My heart aches when I think on that.

End Note.

1. Plans are afoot for Homecoming 250, a joint US Navy & USMC commemoration of those services’ 250 birthday during year 2025. The gala event will be hosted by the city of Philadelphia, PA. Tens of thousands of veterans are expected to attend. No specific dates yet, but visit Homecoming250.org for updated information. I certainly plan to attend.

OK, I’ve Decided….

As much as I’d like to do so, I am NOT going to plan, promote, and host a Manufactured Housing Caucus during the Louisville MHShow on 18 January 2024. Yes, in my opinion, WE NEED TO COME TOGETHER SOON, to discuss and address the manufactured housing production shortfall described in the opening paragraph of this week’s blog posting. But, as I stated in last week’s blog, such convening is Best Presented when coming from one or both our industry’s national trade advocacy bodies. But will that happen? I seriously doubt it. Why? Because, IMHO, they only act when their primary $ members, HUD-Code national and regional manufacturers, tell them to do so! It’s not the ‘industry at large’ that matters here, just that sole segment. So, don’t look to me to carry this torch in behalf of manufactured housing and land lease communities. Did so, in my small ways, for 40 years.

Lest you think I exaggerate, consider this: Thanks to past national meetings, caucuses, and gatherings, we now see 40 percent of new HUD-Code homes going directly into land lease communities for marketing and sale (That’s up from 15 percent at the turn of the century); popularity of Community Series Homes (‘CSH’) now built by manufacturers and purchased by communities (i.e. featuring front load porches, durable features, and more); community owners/operators now adept at selling homes on-site (i.e. Recall the ‘Six Right Ps of Marketing’*1); and, 27 years ‘run’ of MHI’s National Communities Council division – there was no such national advocacy for communities before 1993-96. And frankly, the list could go on; we’ve come a long long way together; but again, IMHO, our whole industry and realty asset class has entered an era of malaise. The question has become: ‘Who will lead us out of it?’

End Note.

Blog Posting # 766, Copyright 3 November 2023. EducateMHC

Parallel Perspectives. HUD-Code manufactured housing is federally-regulated, performance-based, affordable & attainable 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 is the online advocate, historian, trend tracker, and text resource for these two related business models! Reach EducateMHC by phoning (317) 881-3815, email: gfa7156@aol.com, or visit www.eduatemhc.com; also to order Community Management in the Manufactured Housing Industry. This is only professional community management text in print today! SWAN SONG is a history of land lease communities & official record of annual MH production totals since 1955; and my autobiography, From SmittyAlpha6 to MHMaven – describes personal combat adventures in Vietnam, and 45 year business career in MH and community ownership/management, also author and consultant.

George Allen, CPM®Emeritus, MHM®Master, in only Emeritus member of the Manufactured Housing Institute (‘MHI’), an RV/MH Hall of Fame enshrinee, retired lieutenant colonel of U.S. Marines, & author/editor of 20 books re MH, communities, business management & prayer.

A LITTLE TITILATION ANYONE?

You into RVs big time? Well, if you are, you might just want to read the feature article I researched since January, and submitted for publication on 1 October. It’s titled ‘RVs as Affordable Housing’. To the best of my knowledge, no one has delved into the use of recreational vehicles as permanent affordable housing! I was able to document several-to-many instances where this is already occurring throughout the U.S. Even though I granted the publication First North American Rights to the article, they’ve encouraged me to share it whenever and wherever possible – wanting to get the message out and conversations started. So, if seriously interested in this subject, simply request a copy via email: gfa7156@aol.com

And now as I finish this 2023 writing project, another appears to be landing on my doorstep. Just this past week, a housing consultancy contacted me, soliciting my assistance to explore ways in which HUD-Code manufactured housing and recreational vehicles might be melded, in terms of product proper and siting – both on building sites conveyed fee simple and in land lease communities where homeowners rent sites for their homes. The aforementioned soon-to-be-published article is a step in that direction, but the matter requires continued deep thinking on my part and of others. Do you have thoughts on this timely, even critical subject? Specifically, how to increase the supply of affordable housing in the U.S., via manufactured housing, recreational vehicles, various types of ADUs (accessory dwelling units), etc…

Yet another titillating phone conversation this past week involves a well-known insurance company who used to provide semi-annual studies relative to manufactured housing marketing. Turns out they might just be considering a return to our industry, maybe even our real estate asset class, during the year ahead. I hope to be contributing to this ‘return’.

Manufactured Housing Caucus

I know, I promised. Promised to soon make a firm decision about whether to plan and host a half day Manufactured Housing Caucus on 18 January 2024 at the Louisville MHShow. And so I intended – but have yet to settle the issue once and for all. Maybe with next week’s blog posting. You see, IMHO, given the paucity of national leadership relative to the gathering ‘storm clouds’ potentially affecting our industry and property type, I’m willing once again, to step forward and host such a meeting. On the other hand, if I continue doing so – hosting such key meetings, then our national advocacy entities will likely never step forward and do this – until too little and or too late. So, which path to take? I honestly feel I’ll be ‘damned if I do & damned if I don’t’! What do you think? Send your input to gfa7156@aol.com 

George Allen