Blog Posting # 773, Copyright 29 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, 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.
LAST WEEK = CRE; THIS WEEK = HOMEBUYERS/RENTERS
Last week I shared ‘What to Expect During Year 2024’, where commercial real estate (‘CRE’) &
investing is concerned – quoting from Real Estate Forum magazine. This week I’m quoting from
a Newsmax (January 2024 issue) magazine article penned by David Patten and titled,
‘Skyrocketing Mortgages Drive Homebuyers Out of Market’. Pp. 16 & 17. Spoiler Alert: Not the
sort of news one likes to hear heading into a new year!
“Extraordinary news arrived in the closing weeks of 2023: Nearly 34 percent of all home sales
were cash deals without mortgage loans. (This) meant buyers were spending big bucks to buy
homes and investment properties.”
“Between January 2021 and September 2023, Federal Reserve data shows interest payments
for a median-priced mortgage rose from $8,500 to over $24,300 – a staggering 285 percent
increase.”
“Goldman-Sachs analysts predict a 4 percent decline in housing starts this year. Sales of
previously owned homes will fall to their lowest level since the early 1990s….” And…
“New housing starts for single-family homes fell to a three-year low, dropping 11.3 percent
compared to July.” Meanwhile, new HUD-Code housing production, year to date (‘YTD’),
dropped 24 percent and is not expected to improve. This will likely be a seven year low, with
85,000 units produced during 2023, compared to 81,136 during year 2016. How low can we go?
Well, in year 2009 we produced only 48,789 new HUD-Code manufactured homes.
“Higher mortgages, of course, tend to force consumers to rent instead. But they might not find
much relief there these days. The double whammy of inflation and high demand is forcing
rental costs up as well.”
“Rental costs approached record levels in September – at over $2,000 a month, according to
Redfin and Rent.com Compare that to as recently as (year) 2000, when the average new rental
went for $1,499 a month.” How’s that compare with rental homesite rates in land lease
communities? Well, using the traditional 3:1 ratio, land lease community site rent in year 2000
would have been in the neighborhood of $500/month; today that figure has escalated to
approximately $666/month; and in communities owned/operated by aggressive portfolio
‘players’, expect today’s rate to be closer to $1,000/month.
So, there you have it, over a two week period of time; what to expect in the CRE world during
year 2024, and what to expect where land lease communities are concerned.
OPERATION PINEAPPLE EXPRESS
Were you, like me, disgusted with the way our nation pulled its’ military forces out of
Afghanistan during mid-2021? We abandoned tens of millions of dollars in equipment,
weapons, and related material. We also abandoned Afghani interpreters and special forces
operators who’d worked side-by-side with U.S. troops for years – leaving them to certain death.
I remember hearing, at the time, how private individuals and NGOs (non-government
organizations), mostly former military-related, clandestinely rescued hundreds of their
comrades-in-arms, along with their families – but I never knew the full story, until now.
The recently released 400 pages book, ‘Operation Pineapple Express’ by Lt. Col. Scott Mann
(now retired) tells Incredible Story of a group of Americans who Undertook One Last Mission
and Honored a Promise to Afghanistan.’ And this story is told nowhere else!
“In April (of 2021) an urgent call was placed from a Special Forces operators serving overseas.
The message: ‘Get Nezam, one of the Afghan National Army’s first group of American-trained
commandos, out of Afghanistan now.’ The message reached Nezam’s former commanding
officer, retired Lt. Col. Scott Mann, who can’t face the idea of losing another soldier in the long
War on Terror. He sends out an SOS to a group of Afghan vets (Navy SEALs, Green Berets, CIA
officers, USAID advisors). They all answer the call for one last mission.”
What happened? “Operation Pineapple Express is a true story that reads like a thriller – and
along the way, proves that guts and resourcefulness and honor did not vanish with America’s
Greatest Generation.” Steven Pressfield, author of ‘Gates of Fire’ & ‘The War of Art’.
Scott Mann established an informal, unofficial headquarters for Operation Pineapple Express,
and for several months, raised funds, and pulled together resources and personnel needed
to get hundreds of wartime comrades out of Afghanistan. The book is a day by day account of
what happened, in the eyes of the commandos and families being rescued from Afghanistan,
as well as the men and women manning Operation Pineapple Express. And surprising to me,
anyway, was the copious amount of color photographs supporting the narrative. A great ‘read’
for anyone with an interest in U.S. and military history.
Thanks to the organizers of the annual SECO conference in Atlanta, GA., I got to meet Lt. Col.
Scott Mann at their event this past fall. I find it interesting that no other national MH-related
gathering honors our military in this fashion. And it is one of the few, that I know of, national
conferences where, at the very beginning of the program, everyone stands and repeats the
Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag. We need this to happen more often in our industry!
George Allen, CPM, MHM