Blog Posting # 780, Copyright 16 February 2024. EducateMHC
Parallel Perspectives. HUD-Code manufactured housing (‘MH’) 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 commercial real estate (‘CRE’) component of MH! EducateMHC is the online advocate, historian, trend tracker, and text resource for these two business models. Access EduateMHC via (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 MH-focused 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 as a USMC lieutenant, a 45 year entrepreneur business career in MH & community ownership/management, and as an author & freelance consultant.
George Allen, CPM®Emeritus, MHM®Master, is the only emeritus member of the Manufactured Housing Institute (‘MHI’), a founding board member of MHI’s National Communities Council (‘NCC’) division, an RV/MH Hall of Fame enshrine, MHInsider editor & columnist, Vietnam combat veteran & retired lieutenant colonel of U.S. Marines, as well as author/editor of 20 books & chapbooks re MH, communities, business management & prayer.
Yes, Some Did Have a Good Year in 2023!
Remember this blog heading from a few weeks ago? ‘Year 2023. A Lousy Year for You too?’
Well, one land lease community portfolio owner/operator reached out to me with this encouraging report:
“Last year (2023) was a VERY good year for my firm. We sold more than 30 new manufactured homes, compared to 20 in previous years. That’s a lot of new residents, and we upgraded our communities. Did so without reducing our requirements for new residents and lease-option home buyers. Our site rental operation was reasonably profitable because increases were moderate. Our portfolio of lease-option homebuyers continues to perform very well as a result of reasonable profit on home sales, attractive communities, and motivated, qualified new buyers. In fact, we’re so optimistic about the industry, and what we’re doing to upgrade and fill vacant rental sites, we’re now planning two new raw land community developments in states where we have properties.” (Lightly edited. GFA)
How ‘bout you? Care to share your good news – or otherwise, with our blog readers? Let us know via gfa7156@aol.com
Now, the CPA ‘Dumps’ on Us!
Last week I warned our industry and realty asset class of negative publicity, and continued image challenges, when we leave ourselves open to national class action lawsuits alleging widespread predatory rental home-site rates, and honor firms who garner negative reputations in local housing markets, from marketplace trust organizations – due to firm’s poor-to-marginal performance ratings.*1
Well, this week I learned of a new book release titled ‘Trailer Park America’, subtitled, ‘Reimagining Working Class Communities’. And if that trade terminology gaffe and implied suggestion wasn’t bad enough, here’s what the CPA website has to say about the book as it describes an emerging trend: ‘Highlights crimes of capitalist housing’.*2
What’s this book about? “Sociologist (& author) Leontina Hormel’s ‘Trailer Park America’ is a granular examination of an ill-fated rural, working class community in a mobile home park located a few miles outside the small town of Moscow, Idaho.” Developed in 1966, it was a popular affordable housing alternative until infrastructure issues (i.e. water & sewer) made the homeowner/site lessee residents ill. The property has since closed.
I’ve declined to purchase and read the book at this time, as the paperback edition is priced at $37.95 and case bound edition at $72.95. If you buy and read it, let me know what you think via gfa7156@aol.com. And when you’re done with it, donate it to the RV/MH Heritage Foundation’s Hall of Fame library in Elkhart, IN. Why? Because this library houses the largest collection of manufactured housing, recreational vehicle, and land lease community books and resources in the world!
Yes, our industry and realty asset class are surely under scrutiny and attack these days. What are we doing to mitigate the three legal, media and text measures cited above and in last week’s blog posting? Not much that I see or hear of on the national level! Guess our leaders are hoping all this just ‘goes away’. Not!
As a concluding aside, ‘Trailer Park America’, in my experience, is maybe the third or fourth book authored by female university sociologists. To a person, they seem to have come to the conclusion – and perhaps rightly so – that land lease communities (a.k.a. trailer parks, manufactured home communities, ‘mobile home parks’) are fertile soil for sociological-oriented studies of middle and lower class citizenry. And as an industry, IMHO, we continue to encourage this unwanted attention by the way we mismanage some communities and mistreat others. What will it take to sound a Wake Up call to our industry and realty asset class?
End Notes.
- Manufactured housing industry & land lease community real estate asset class; marketplace trust organization = Better Business Bureau.
- CPA = Communist Party of America
Now for Some Potentially Good News!
Have you heard or read about the Bonus Depreciation provision in the ‘Tax Relief for American Families & Workers Act of 2024’ working its’ way through Congress during the past few months? This Bonus Depreciation (i.e.Restoring bonus depreciation to 100%; presently at 80% in 2023 & 60% @ 2024) measure is potentially huge for land lease community owners/operators purchasing and selling or renting new manufactured homes on-site. How so?
To begin with, the Bonus Depreciation provision applies ONLY to community owners who rent or market new homes via lease-option. Independent (street) MHRetailers are not eligible for this. Bottom line? Who would not want to benefit from 100% depreciation the year new homes are purchased for on-site renting or selling?
Let your Congressman know of your enthusiastic support for this pending legislation!
Quotation of the Week
Are you a fan or critic of DEI? That’s short for diversity, equity & inclusion. We’ve certainly
heard much about it in the national news these past several months, especially with the
university ideology scandal perpetrated by the Israeli War. The following is quoted from the
February issue of ‘Newsmax’ magazine.
“The mantra of diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) has been denounced… (and now) call it
divisive, exclusionary, and indoctrination.”
I give this quote space here, because I’ve heard DEI ‘preached’ at MH seminars during
year 2023. And I’ve heard entrepreneur business owners/operators decry the ideology, as it has
caused problems within their business enterprises. And finally, who hasn’t seen the mock
tombstone photos on Facebook bearing the message: ‘White Couples on TV – 2000 – 2015: RIP’
George Allen, CPM, MHM