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

Blog Posting # 713. Copyright 4 November 2022. 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, realty asset class historian, trend spotter, education resource, and textbook supplier for land lease communities throughout North America! To input this blog and or connect with EducateMHC, telephone (317) 881-3815, email gfa7156@aol.com or visit educatemhc.com

George Allen, CPM®Emeritus, MHM®Master, RV/MH Hall of Fame & MHI Emeritus member


What Are SFRs, & WWII Vets Quickly Dying Off

We’ve noticed it in our neighborhood; have you noticed it in yours? A greatly increased number of SFRs! Huh? That’s the abbreviation for ‘single family rentals’; you know, those homes traditionally bought and sold as conventional suburban housing, now being rented out. Well, thanks to the pandemic, and now the national economy, large investment firms are buying-up single family houses at a record rate, in some local housing markets, comprising as much as 40 percent of the volume listed and sold.

Quoting from a recent (October 2022, pp. 17-19) issue of GLOBEST. REAL ESTATE FORUM magazine, “…the US has failed to match population growth with housing expansion for years. On the single-family home side, according to a study commissioned by the National Association of Realtors, ‘While the total stock of U.S. housing grew at an average annual rate of 1.7% from 1968 through 2000, the U.S. housing stock grew by an annual average rate of 1% (during) the last two decades, and only 0.7% in the last decade’.”

Today, thanks to a variety of factors (e.g. working from home and remote learning require more space, millennials now forming new households, and increasing home prices and rising interest rates make it difficult if not impossible to ‘buy’), the single-family rental (‘SFR’) market has exploded during the past few years.

Another interesting observation has to do with why the SFR market was not an institutional market a decade or two ago. Why? “…the complexities of managing it institutionally (involved) the ‘three Ts: tenants, trash and toilets.” But now, aggregation and consolidation have eased the property management challenge somewhat. And rental agents, thanks to technology (e.g. ‘showing’ via You Tube videos, online instructions re maintenance, and cel phone aps) typically work out of call centers – never having to leave to drive around to demonstrate units.

But, in my opinion, there’s another side of this story; and it’s somewhat akin to the challenge we face when renting homes within land lease communities. If management does not keep close watch on how their tenants (residents) live, curb appeal and home interior cleaning and maintenance can get out of hand. I see this in the SFR across the street from my home: grass is cut as a last resort, several trees are now dangerously overgrown, and ‘last year’s leaves’ are still piled around the base of one tree. Oh, and we just learned a not for profit organization has converted two large homes (i.e. four bedrooms) into SFR group living units for recovering addicts. Nothing in the subdivision covenants and restrictions prevents this risky change in use.

It will be interesting to observe how the investment future of SFRs evolved during the months and years ahead.


16 Million + U.S. Service Members Fought in WW II

In a recent issue (5 November) issue of WORLD news magazine, researchers shared some salient, startling statistics obtained from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and the National WWII museum. The date goes like this:

• WWII veterans are dying at the rate of 180 per day!

• 70% of WWII veterans served in the Army, 26% in the Navy,& 4% in the Marines

• 291,557 died in battle

• 113,842 died in non-theater service

• 670,846 suffered non-mortal wounds

• 167,278 were still living as of 30 September 2022

77 years following the end of WWII, the actions and sacrifices of WWII veterans remain with us. My maternal uncle was wounded and awarded the bronze star for heroism during the Battle of the Bulge; and, Carolyn’s lifelong girlfriend Billie Ann was orphaned when her father was killed in action during that same conflict, and her mother died soon thereafter. Want to read a book that well-describes the battles fought, as the war drew to a close? I recommend Alex Kershaw’s ‘The Longest Winter’ – The Battle of the Bulge & the Epic Story of WW IIs most decorate platoon.

George Allen, CPM®Emeritus, MHM®Master
Author/consultant EducateMHC
Member, RV/MH Heritage Foundation’s Hall of Fame
Emeritus member, Manufactured Housing Institute