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

February 17, 2023

THE BIG NEWS FIRST

Filed under: Uncategorized — George Allen @ 7:05 am

Blog Posting # 728, Copyright 17 February 2023. EducateMHC

Parallel Perspectives. HUD-Code manufactured housing is federally-regulated, performance-based, 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 text resource for these two business models! To input this blog or connect with EducateMHC, telephone (317) 881-3815, email gfa7156@aol.com, or visit EducateMHC.com, to order Community Management in the Manufactured Housing Industry (Only MH property management text available today); SWAN SONG, a history of land lease communities, & official record of annual MH production totals since 1955; and, my autobiography, From SmittyAlpha6 to MHMaven – my adventures in Vietnam & business career in MH & communities ownership.

George Allen, CPM®Emeritus, MHM®Master, Emeritus member of MHI, RV/MH Hall of Fame inductee, and retired lieutenant colonel of U.S. Marines.


THE BIG NEWS FIRST

End of year 2022 HUD-Code housing production/shipment grand total is now history. What is that final figure? Well, first let’s remember the end of year 2021 total was 105,772 units. Hint. The 2023 total is larger! But how much so? Pick a number: 112,886 or 112,882 or 112,863 or 112865. Yes, all four totals were reported yesterday, respectively, by EducateMHC, MHARR, MHI, & EducateMHC, again. How is this possible?

First off, know the first two totals, reported respectively, by EducateMHC & MHARR, are based solely on unadulterated month-by-month data supplied by HUD’s reporting agency, the Institute for Building Technology & Safety or IBTS. Why the six unit difference? At this point in time the two of us are unable to agree on our respective mathematical computation acuity.

The next two totals, reported respectively by MHI, and other with MHI methodology mirrored by EducateMHC, are in part, based on IBTS monthly-reported data, but with a twist. MHI takes the IBTS figure, each month, and deducts from it the number of Destination Pending Units (‘DPUs’) – also reported by IBTS. Then, to that reduced subtotal, MHI adds back the number of DPUs deducted the previous month. Consequences? Fairly close alignment between annualized total of IBTS monthly reported units, and those adjusted by MHI – but never the same! Why? Because there’ll always be a lag, small & large, transferring DPUs from one year into the next. And in this particular case, my ‘adjusted’ month by month annualized total, using MHI methodology, is two units different from MHI. Go figure.

So, the Big News is this: IMHO, the number of new HUD-Code homes produced and shipped during year 2022 was 112,886. This makes year 2022 the best year since 2006, when 117,510+/- new HUD-Code homes were produced and shipped. Also recall how year 2006, in industry annals, is memorialized as the year of the Katrina Factor – recalling how the hurricane significantly boosted FEMA house production for a time

Oh, and bet you’d like to know just how much those 112,886 new homes (production value only) contributed to the national economy. Well, using MHI’s formula and factor, researched by Dr. Stephen C. Cook (consultant), where he valued the average new HUD-Code home, again production-wise, at $43,126; the annualized value pencils out to approximately $4.87 billion! Now, this formula and factor are at least a decade old, so it stands to reason there’s room for update. My guess is a more accurate $ factor is closer to $60,000 per HUD-Code manufactured home, increasing annualized production value to $6.8 billion! MHI has promised to address this matter for some time. Perhaps they have, but just haven’t informed us, the hoi polloi.

And the Wall Street (& Canadian) stock markets has been looking favorably on HUD-Code housing manufacturers and land lease community portfolio owners/operators of late. On 6 February 2023, four of five public housing manufacturers saw their stock prices increase. And all five of the land lease community portfolio firms saw their stock prices increase. Overall, the Composite Stock Index (‘CSI’), tracking nine or these ten ‘players’, increased from $676.86 last month to $750.49 this month. That’s still $39 behind the all-time high of $790.07 recorded in January 2022.

If you’re not receiving our monthly ‘MHShipment Volume & Stock Market Report’, but would like to, it’s FREE by letting me know of your desire via gfa7156@aol.com or phone (317) 881-3815.


STRATEGY OR CONTRATEMPS?


OK, what I’m about to share with you is either a straight-up business enterprise strategy, or it’s simply a contretemps. What’s a contretemps? It’s an ‘embarrassing occurrence’. Got that?

This started with an email from a ‘friend in the industry’ who happens to be a deep thinker. Yes, we have some of them in the manufactured housing industry, even some among my land lease community brethren. And I hear from them from time to time – like now.

In any event, he described the recurring presence of high-end HUD-Code manufactured homes displayed on the U.S. National Mall in Washington, DC., as being ‘smoke and mirrors’. Well, first off, what’s ‘smoke and mirrors’? Generally, ‘an explanation or description that is not true or not complete, and used to hide the truth about a matter.’

Here my friend described how HUD-Code housing manufacturers ‘pitching these homes as affordable housing, to get concessions’ was misleading, since the lavish display units are not nearly as affordable as smaller, simpler lines of manufactured homes. So, is that a simple straight-up marketing strategy to sell more (and more profitable) new homes? Or is it an embarrassing occurrence, where truly affordable housing, though the theme of the event, is not present on the National Mall at all?

Our deep thinker (and I) go on to call for better education of federal and state bureaucrats relative to adopting a working definition of affordable housing; addressing the dire need to ameliorate local regulatory barriers to all forms of affordable housing; and – once and for all – realize the manufactured housing product and the land lease community lifestyle, in tandem, offer the absolute best form of affordable housing available to homebuying consumers today!*1

So, what say you? Which is it, or both? A strategic business strategy or contretemps? Let me know your thoughts via gfa7156@aol.com

End Note.

1. Working definition of affordable housing. The following definition has been commonplace since at least year 2007. “Housing is affordable when an individual or household’s annual Gross Income (‘AGI’) or local housing market’s Area Median Income (‘AMI’) – identified by postal zip code and available online via zipwho.com, can lease a conventional apartment or buy a home in this local housing market, using no more than 30 percent of said AGI, or AMI, for shelter, and related household (utility) expenses.” See p. 44 of SWAN SONG, available for purchase via EducateMHC.com


ENDING ON A LIGHT NOTE…

In a recent edition of the AMAC magazine, they identified Merriam-Webster’s 2022 ‘word of the year’ as being ‘gaslighting’. The writer goes on to say, “This outcome seems fitting considering the pervasive lies and misinformation pushed to the American people by the mainstream media and the President of the united States. At least we can be thankful the word of the year for 2022 was not ‘woke’.”








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