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

July 15, 2016

COBA7 Goes to Washington; New Top Ten List; &, MHAlive!

Filed under: Uncategorized — George Allen @ 4:41 am

Blog # 405 Copyright 2016 COBA7® @ 17 July 2016; community-investor.com/blog

Perspective. ‘Land-lease-lifestyle Communities, a.k.a. manufactured home communities and ‘mobile home parks’, comprise the real estate component of manufactured housing.’

This blog posting is the sole national advocacy voice, official ombudsman & historian, research reporter & online communication media for North American LLLCommunities!

To input this blog &/or affiliate with Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance®, a.k.a. COBA7®, use Official MHIndustry HOTINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764

COBA7® Motto = ‘U Support US & WE Serve U!’ Goal of its’ print/online media = ‘Not only inform & opine, but transform & improve MHBusiness Model Performance!’

INTRODUCTION.

COBA7® ‘Goes to Washington’; Creates New ‘Top Ten List’ of HUD-Code Home Shippers; and, Refines ‘MHAlive! Think Tank Agenda’ for 1 August morning session at RV/MH Hall of Fame library, in Elkhart, IN.

I.

COBA7® Goes to Washington!

‘No one in Washington, DC., knows what a land-lease lifestyle community is, let alone a manufactured home community – only a ‘mobile home park’!’

Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance® traveled to our nation’s capitol twice during the past few months to participate in public meetings hosted by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (‘FHFA’), and the Department of Energy (‘DOE’). In the first instance, proposed Duty to Serve (‘DTS’) rulemaking, relative to chattel capital and LLLCommunity finance were the foci. This past week at DOE, the focus was on ‘energy conservation standards proposed rulemaking for manufactured housing’.

Here are my ‘takeaways’ from both meetings; in the first instance (#1) ‘seasoned’ by the passage of time (a few weeks) and confidential conversations; and this week, (#2) the stark realization no one is aggressively representing the business interests of our unique income-producing realty asset class!

(#1) Try this on for size. Federal regulatory agencies and GSEs are appear frustrated at the manufactured housing industry’s reluctance & reticence to suggest new or even past, creative or mundane, means & ways, to start or increase, the flow of chattel capital from new or renewed sources (e.g. local lenders of various types) to fund loans on new home sales occurring within land-lease-lifestyle communities nationwide! It appears the chattel capital status quo, presently enriching a couple large, well-positioned & politically savvy firms, will not be challenged, let alone supplanted, by national advocates claiming to represent the manufactured housing industry at large.

The sole ‘breath of creatively fresh $ air’ occurred when Freddie Mac recently guaranteed a $3,600,000.00 mortgage on an ROC (resident-owned community) in CA

Point? This is a first time, one-off finance happenstance (‘fortuitous happening’) that could likely be replicated in the ‘home only finance’ arena with some creative thought!.

If you’d like to dig deeper into this alleged marginalization of DTS rulemaking, be present at the MHAlive! Think Tank session, 1 August at the RV/MH Hall of Fame library in Elkhart, IN.; and or the ‘2016 Chattel Capital Summit’ as part of the 25th anniversary Networking Roundtable at the Gaylord Opryland Resort Hotel & Conference Center in Nashville, TN., on 7-9 September 2016. For info on both, phone the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764.

(#2) When HUD-Code housing manufacturers start adding $2,000 – $4,000 to the wholesale price of every new singlesection & multisection manufactured home – to implement new energy conservation standards, LLLCommunity owners/operators (selling said homes on-site) will surely ask: ‘When, how and why did this happen?’ Know what the answer has to be? ‘Between 2007 & 2016, at the behest of the federal government, working with energy conservation and manufactured housing advocacy groups, but with no one truly representing the business interests (i.e. MHSales efficacy & profitability) of LLLCommunity owners/operators!’

Read kinda harsh? It was meant to be. Why? Before COBA7® attended the DOE public hearing on 13 July 2016 in Washington, DC., the 20+/- bureaucrats there, from DOE, HUD, MHI, MHARR, SBRA, DOJ & others, had no idea more than 10,000 independent (street) MHRetailers (‘distribution’ arm of the MHIndustry) had gone ‘out of business’ since the turn of the 21st Century (exceptions oft being those who also owned LLLCommunities). Nor did they know how this unique, income-producing property type is fast becoming the primary wholesale purchaser of newly-built HUD-Code homes, i.e. 25% of shipments in 2009, 40+% in 2015; and an estimated 75% by year 2020! – and who will bear the brunt, along with their homebuying/site lessee customers, of new, questionable ‘energy conservation standards’ product up-costs and prices!

Seriously. This is a working group who, until 13 July 2016, was using 2014 shipment data (60,000 units shipped) in their decision-making, until COBA7® informed them the very next year, 2015, saw no fewer than 70,544 new HUD-Code homes shipped from factories – a clear indication the MHIndustry was working its’ way back to prosperity! And how this is the wrong time to add to product cost!

And there’s more, but it’ll have to wait for time to put all the pieces together for you.

If you’re an Option III affiliate of COBA7®, expect to receive a copy of the five page, single-spaced after-action report submitted by COBA7® to the DOE, making this important point among others.

II.

COBA7® Creates New ‘Top Ten’ List!

EDITORIAL NOTE. COBA7® expanded its’ statistical research & reporting scope, from the LLLCommunity arena into manufactured housing production & distribution ONLY after an MH national advocacy body, during the Spring of 2015, imitated – and continues to do so, the (then) 26 year running ALLEN REPORT. Since that time, COBA7® has exposed & explained the unfortunate difference in reporting of monthly new HUD-Code housing shipment totals supplied by the Institute of Building Technology & Safety (‘IBTS’), and parroted by HUD, MHARR, & COBA7®, but not MHI. What follows here, is the debut of a third new MHIndustry statistical reference. George Allen, CPM & MHM

The Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (‘MHARR’) routinely prepares and publishes a proprietary Top Ten List featuring new HUD-Code home shipments “…from the beginning of the industry production rebound (from) August 2011 thru May 2016, with cumulative, current year (2016) and prior year (2015) shipments….’ For example,

1. Texas 59,612 new HUD-Code homes to date (2011-2016)
2. Louisiana 20,929
3. Florida 17,647
4. N. Carolina 12,719
5. Alabama 12,700
6. Mississippi 11,538
7. California 11,091
8. Kentucky 10,920
9. Tennessee 9,046
10. Oklahoma 8,366

The latest IBTS information, for May 2016, resulted in ‘no change’ to this cumulative list

COBA7®, however, believes ‘an inquiring business public’ would like to know, from month to month, which are the Top Ten new HUD-Code home shipment states going forward, unaffected by past performance. Hence the new ‘Top Ten’ List of states shipping the most new HUD-Code homes:

1. Texas 1,096 new HUD-Code homes shipped during May 2016
2. Florida 434
3. Louisiana 403
4. Alabama 377
5. Michigan 309
6. N. Carolina 273
7. California 265
8. S. Carolina 258
9. Mississippi 252
10. Kentucky 210

The latest IBTS information, for May 2016, indicates the total number of new HUD-Code homes shipped to be 6,780; up from 6,689 new HUD-Code homes shipped during April 2016.

Bottom line? By default & design, the task of researching & compiling helpful MHIndustry & LLLCommunity statistics & data is being handled by the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance®. So, if not already affiliated with COBA7®, consider doing so today, joining hundreds of manufactured housing aficionados from throughout the U.S. and Canada. See introduction to this blog posting for details. GFA

III.

MHAlive! ‘Think Tank Agenda for 1 August 2016

We continue to refine the 14 point agenda (7 @ MHIndustry & 7 @ LLLCommunity) to be presented and parsed during MHAlive!, from 9Am – 11:30AM, at the RV/MH Hall of Fame library, 1 August 2016. Will share the detailed agenda with you next week, 24 July, in that Sunday blog posting.

For now, know MHIndustry executives & LLLCommunity owners, from CA, CO, GA, and the Midwest, have already indicated their intention to participate in the two sessions. There’s no fee; just request you let us know, via (317) 346-7156, or via email, of your intention to be present at 9AM that morning.

To purchase tickets to that evening’s RV/MH Hall of Fame Induction Banquet, phone (574) 293-2344. You’ll be glad you attended – along with 400-700 of our peers. Me too!

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