Blog Posting # 629 @ 12 March 2021: EducateMHC
Perspective. ‘Land lease communities, previously manufactured home communities, and earlier, ‘mobile home parks’, comprise the real estate component of manufactured housing!’
EducateMHC is the online national advocate, asset class historian, data researcher, education resource, & communication media for all land lease communities throughout North America!
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INTRODUCTION:
I.
Washington’s MH Watchdog Barks!
Right to the point! The following lightly edited paragraph is quoted from 1 March1, 2021 communique from the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform:
“By tying manufactured home chattel loan participation in (Federal Housing Finance Agency’s) Enterprise Housing Goals (‘EHG’), to thus far non-existent support for such loans under Duty to Serve (‘DTS’ plans), FHFA has created a ‘perfect storm’ of malign neglect for the vast majority of lower and moderate-income American families seeking to realize the American Dream of homeownership via inherently affordable manufactured homes – directly contrary to Congress’ objectives for both EHG and DTS.”
So, what to do about this sad, ongoing ‘perfect storm’ of malign neglect on the part of FHFA & GSEs? Another brief paragraph from the same MHARR communique on March 1st, 2021:
“MHARR calls on FHFA to end this baseless charade, and (1) require market-significant purchases of mainstream, affordable manufactured home personal property loans under DTS; and (2) simultaneously restore EHG credit for such purchases, based on the known and well-documented affordability of both mainstream manufactured homes and chattel financing.”
Will this happen? No. Not unless you, as a manufactured housing businessperson or land lease community owner/operator, insist on more political pressure on whichever national advocacy entity that commands your loyalty and receives your dues monies.
Kudos to Mark Weiss at MHARR for speaking out so clearly and forcefully in our behalf in this timely, ongoing, and important matter!
II.
Off to a Too Slow Start in 2021!
Affordable housing is in very short supply and site-built housing prices jumped 11 percent during 2020, but new HUD-Code manufactured housing shipments, in January 2021, lagged behind the 8,733 we achieved during January 2020 – before the coronavirus pandemic hit!
That’s right, only 8,476 new HUD-Code housing shipments is the official January 2021 total posted by IBTS and embraced by HUD, MHARR, & EducateMHC; that’s 257 fewer new HUD-Code homes than the aforementioned 8,733 shipped during January 2020. Will we recover this ground during the next 11 months? In my opinion Yes; but ONLY IF manufacturers shorten delivery backlogs and lower unit prices as soon as possible! AND, as one land lease community portfolio owner/operator succinctly put it, after reading this month’s ‘MHShipment & Stock Market Report’,
“These (lower shipment) numbers don’t support the contention by manufacturers (plants) last year, that they were experiencing ‘significant increases in demand for manufactured homes’.”
Does the point of that observation remind you of another quote? Does me. In 1858, in Clinton, IL., Abraham Lincoln said: “You can fool some of the people all of the time and all the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” HUD-Code manufacturers, are you paying attention?
Is the ‘MHShipment & Stock Market Report’ a new media resource to you? Probably. Though researched and penned, but purposely restricted to limited distribution since 2016, it’s become, in just the past several months, a major statistical reference for the industry and realty asset class nationwide!
Once each month, soon after the Institute for Building Technology & Safety (‘IBTS’) posts manufactured housing shipment data, here at EducateMHC we compare said tallies to the previous year, estimate the production value of homes shipped, and identify emerging trends. Also visit the New York Stock Exchange and Toronto Exchange to ascertain that day’s stock prices on all nine public manufactured housing and land lease community real estate investment trusts (four of the former and five of the latter). After posting said prices in the report, we calculate a Composite Stock Index comprised of eight of the entities (not including Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.). The Composite Stock Index on 3 March 2021 was $621.91, compared to $577.00 on (pre-covid) 3 March 2020. The newest feature of this seminal report is the U.S. House Price Index for the most recent month it is available.
Want to view the ‘MHShipment & Stock Market Report’ every month? Visit www.educatemhc.com and download The Allen CONFIDENTIAL: PRIME EDITION – Current Month’s Issue.