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.
- 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 248th 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.
- 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.