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

Blog Posting # 719. Copyright 16 December 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 to order From SmittyAlpha6 to MHMaven book.

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

YES, ‘The Sleeping Giant (MH) Is A-Stirring!’

There was a well-attended Zoom meeting last Thursday, and another one scheduled for this week. The central topic, both times – was & will be, the loosely-described ‘Defining Our Image’ task force presentation scheduled for 19 January at the Louisville MHShow. Specifically, is the manufactured housing industry looking towards an Awareness, Lead Generation, or ??? campaign? To that end, there’ll be a luncheon on 17 January, likely at the MHShow host hotel in Louisville. Watch this blog for more information during next couple weeks.

By the way, ‘The Big Three C’ housing manufacturers have voiced support of this emerging program!

As you might suspect, there’s quite a bit of verbiage flying around, offering thoughts as to what might be included, excluded, and otherwise. A recent email suggests, wisely, that “,,,there has to be a definable return on investment we can measure….” Will this be accomplished via polls before, during and after a campaign, or simply the volume of new home sales?

My input to date? For such a whole-industry program to be successful, IMHO, there needs to be a charismatic heavy-hitter executive involved in the leadership of this initiative. At some point it’s likely MHI and MHARR will become involved, so the leadership issue is and will be critical.

And the a-stirring continues. Send me your input via gfa7156@aol.com


One of MH’s Oldest Families Loses a Member

Adriane Christina DeRose owned and managed Carefree Homes, a land lease community and independent MHRetailer, in Pendleton, Indiana, since 2008. During the past 15 years she served as state chairperson of IMHA/RVIC (Indiana), and as Capitol City Chapter president. Her firm was also a member of the Manufactured Housing Institute (‘MHI’).

Adriane, during the 1990s, was a member of Mud Creek Players (Indianapolis), participating as actress and director. She appeared in leading production roles in the Philadelphia Story, Little Shop of Horrors, Arsenic and Old Lace, Crimes of the Heart. And her thespian passion also found her in the lead role of Annie Get Your Gun, and she starred in a 1987 film, Two Wrongs Make a Right.

Adriane is survived by her mother, her partner Dennis Jourdan, and several siblings.

Adriane is also the youngest daughter of the late and legendary Robert A. DeRose, founder of DeRose homes, an early manufacturer of ‘mobile homes’, then manufactured homes. Robert DeRose was a 40 year member of MHMA-MHI, and the first manufacturer to install ‘house style’ bathrooms in MHs in 1949. He then pioneered forced air heating and prefinished metal siding exteriors for this type factory-built housing. He also developed the Carefree land lease community mentioned earlier. Robert DeRose was inducted into the RV/MH Heritage Foundation’s prestigious Hall of Fame in 1988 (Elkhart, IN.).

Victor DeRose, an attorney, and one of Robert’s sons, continues to be recognized as a HUD-Code manufactured housing expert and resource to national advocates for the industry.

What’s so special about this family’s legacy? Simple. How many successful MH businessmen and women do you know who’ve actively participated in two or more major segments of the manufactured housing industry – including land lease communities, over an extended period of time? I can think of three – and like the DeRose family, all have passed onto new ownership, There’s Charles Fanaro with his Saddlebrook Farms in Grayslake, IL. & DWG manufacturing firm in Indiana. And Commodore Homes, in IN., before its recent sale to CAVCO. Before Jim Clayton sold to Berkshire-Hathaway, he manufactured and sold HUD-Code homes, and owned more than a dozen land lease communities. Who does this today? No one I can think of right now.


FACEBOOK HUMOR…

Picture Santa Claus and an average-looking middle-aged man sitting side by side on a bench. The man looks at Santa and says, “Hey, last time I saw you…you brought me socks and shaving cream in Kunda Har Province.” Santa, without pause, turns to the man and replies, “Marine recon, two tours in Nam.” Man responds, “Who’d a-thought, Santa was an operator!”

Well, it’s funny to those of us who’ve spent Christmas on a foreign battlefield. It reminds me of the photo on my office wall showing a bare-chested Marine with belts of ammo across his shoulder, cigarette dangling from his mouth, as he carries an M60 machine gun at low port. The caption? ‘The old man who shuffles around town with the Vietnam veteran hat on was at one time more bad ass than you will ever be!’