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

June 21, 2014

YOU = ‘Making & Writing MH History!’

Filed under: Uncategorized — George Allen @ 5:31 am

COBA7® via community-investor.com Blog # 303 @ 22 June 2014 Copyright 2014

Perspective. Land-lease-lifestyle communities, a.k.a. manufactured home communities and ‘mobile home parks’, comprise the real estate component of manufactured housing.’

This blog posting ‘is a national advocacy voice, ombudsman press*, statistical research reporter, & online communications resource for all LLLCommunities in North America!’

To input this blog &/or affiliate with Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance®, a.k.a. COBA7®, use Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764

* ombudsman press. ‘Manufactured housing’s ronin; fielding inquiries, complaints, etc

Introduction to this weeks’ COBA7® blog posting at community-investor.com website

Nine blogging ‘shorts’! Culled from previous blog postings & anticipating future events

I.

A Final Response, for now, to the ‘MH vs. RV Issue’

This from a longtime blog flogger (reader): “I have to say, I’m enjoying the ‘RV vs. MH argument’, including the irony of ‘MHI & MHARR’ foisting more (building) regulations (on others). Geesch! Having personally opposed the entry of the HUD-Code in 1973, and effected in 1976, I CONTINUE TO FIND THE BEST BUSINESS REGULATOR IS THE MARKET PLACE! Is it not time (for us), to look at the ‘NAHB & RV’ industries’ combined success & market dominance, to see & learn that regulations do not win, and how good quality (shelter) products that meet needs, do?” NB

II.

Nice to be Appreciated from Time to Time…

“Thanks George. You and Carolyn will always be friends I am truly thankful to have. (And) You know how I feel about what you have done in our (MH) industry. You are the glue that keeps us all together as friends. You have made a difference! We have learned a lot and made lifetime friends.” LL

III.

A ‘Freebie’ Worth Requesting & ‘SSRD’ Worth Buying!

Creighton Weber, real estate mortgage originator with Wells Fargo Multi-family Capital Group, offers blog floggers the 32 page booklet, Manufactured Home Community Financing Handbook, ‘for the asking’. Simply phone Creighton via (248) 723-3119. This generous offer serves as an apt reminder of the availability of COBA7® Signature Series Resource Document, or SSRD # 3, the ‘16th National Registry of LLLCommunity (real estate mortgage) and chattel capital lenders and servicers’. This seminal, annually updated resource contains $ statistics, names & contact information for no fewer than ‘20 realty lenders & 20 chattel capital sources & loan servicers’! It’s the second most requested SSRD, after the (25th annual) ALLEN REPORT. And it’s available FREE to affiliates of the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance®, or COBA7®, via Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764. Select Option II @ $544.95 for a one year subscription to the Allen Letter professional journal and 12 timely SSRDs – available nowhere else ‘at any price’!

IV.

You Tell Me: An Anomaly or Re-emerging Trend?

(Anomaly = a deviation from the common rule, or something abnormal or irregular)

Following paragraph is quoted from a ‘new manufactured home Service Request’, sent to the factory, by a land-lease-lifestyle community owner selling homes on-site:

“In the multisection home, the floor at the marriage wall was even, but the ceiling of one room was ¾”-1” higher than the other. Our setup crew said the repair was to open the ceiling or room, jack up the lower ceiling, install lag bolts in the beams where the ceilings fit together, then close the openings in the ceiling or roof. He wasn’t comfortable doing work that extensive. Since factory service personnel were needed to address the issue, we also had them install, tape, mud, and paint two sheetrock panels in the living room, patch cracks in other sheetrock, and install a wider aluminum strip over the marriage wall flooring to cover erratic staples. They also addressed other similar service issues in the singlesection home. Except for the marriage wall ceiling issue, all the service items, in both homes, could/should have been flagged and fixed before the home left the plant.”

“Furthermore, the plant rep phoned to say ‘some items on your list of 71 service issues were excessive’. I didn’t know anything about such a list, so asked to see it. Well, it wasn’t ours. Evidently another buyer of their housing product brand sent in their list – so guess we’re not the only ones who need a significant amount of service after delivery.”

Bottom Line? LLLCommunity owners, who buy from this HUD-Code manufacturer, need to plan on spending at least $1,500.00 more, for inside trim and finish work, than spent with other plants and manufacturers.”

For now, let’s hope this type ‘customer service’ matter – where the LLLCommunity owner/operator is the initial homebuyer, is indeed an anomaly, and NOT a re-emerging trend from years gone by….GFA

V.

Irony of 9/11as ‘National Tragedy’, now a Public Forum!

Longtime supporters of our realty asset class’ annual International Networking Roundtable will recall 9/11/2001. That’s the day of our nation’s tragedy, the terrorist attack on New York City and U.S. Capitol. It was to have been the first day of that year’s Networking Roundtable. But as it turned out, we postponed the event until November 2001, when we enjoyed record high participation – a clear sign of Free Enterprise support for our nation and its’ president at the time!

Well this year, 9/11/2014, not only commemorates the 13th anniversary of that national tragedy, but marks an historic event for the HUD-Code manufactured housing industry and land-lease-lifestyle community owners/operators nationwide! That’s the day when back-to-back National Public Forums will be held during the 23rd annual Networking Roundtable at the DOLCE Conference Center in Peachtree City, GA. By now you likely know the two emphasis topics will be:

• Future of manufactured housing as ‘housing’ vs. trailer heritage

• Future of land-lease-lifestyle communities as ‘lifestyle’ & ‘investments’

A lineup of nationally known and respected industry leaders and asset class presenters, has been selected to guide these two forums the morning of 9/11/2014. Hopefully YOU will be in the audience, as ‘We make MHistory together!’ To ensure you are, phone the MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764 and request a Networking Roundtable brochure, or see it online at this website: community-investor.com.

Here’s a related, late-breaking, and exciting extension to what’s expected from these two National Public Forums on 9/11/2014. The strategic thinking and planning, emerging from these sequential events, will be ‘guiding principles cum methodology’, in the new book, How to Market & Sell Homes On-site in Leased Land Communities. SO; wouldn’t YOU like to be an integral part of this anticipated historic paradigm shift re manufactured housing and LLLCommunities nationwide? Thought so. See YOU there!

VI.

COBA7® Affiliates Welcomed MHI to Indianapolis

One of every eight registrants at the Manufactured Housing Institute’s Summer meeting in Indianapolis, IN., during June, were affiliates of the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance®, or COBA7®!

Why is this important to know? The presence of so many COBA7® affiliates underscores two separate and distinct realities:

• In the first instance, it’s COBA7®’s tacit recognition and support of the institute’s continuing role, via Manufactured Housing & National Communities Council divisions, as a national advocacy influence, for manufactured housing and land-lease-lifestyle communities.

• And second, since COBA7® is NOT a new, national advocacy entity, but an affiliation of businessmen and women with an affinity for land-lease-lifestyle communities, their presence their needs, relative to ongoing statistical research; distribution of valuable resources; weekly & monthly print & online communication means; superb networking & deal-making opportunities; professional property management training & certification, via the Manufactured Housing Manager® or MHM® program; and, national advocacy when need be (e.g. recent announcement of COBA7® as official ombudsman (press) for the industry and asset class), are being fulfilled by the new business alliance.

So, it’s accurate to say, a NEW ERA has indeed dawned for LLLCommunity owners/operators, of all sizes, nationwide and throughout Canada! Where today, ‘national advocacy’ = MHI. And, ‘everything else’, where LLLCommunities are concerned = COBA7®. To affiliate with COBA7®, phone the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764. More than 200 have affiliated since 1 January 2014!

VII.

On-site Property Manager Compensation Study

Gotta be careful here. But it appears the long-awaited, often back-burnered ‘On-site Property Manager Compensation Study’ has experienced a breakthrough.

And the reason for mentioning that here, is because we’ll likely be soliciting volunteer input from blog floggers and or COBA7® affiliates, to test the practicality, accuracy, and applicability of emerging formulae to this end. Interested? Let me know via email: gfa7156@aol.com

Here’re a few hints as to the direction the Compensation Study is going. Emerging methodology, at this point, uses Area Media Income or AMI, per local housing market(s) postal zip code as a base salary starting point; property size (i.e. per rental homesite count); and, efficacy (economic occupancy = # rental homesites occupied & paid!)); and relationship re alternative forms of potential personal income enhancement (e.g. site leasing & or home sales commissions; concessioned rent; housing allowance – if any; utilities; and specialized services (via contract or extra-compensation) such as mowing & snow plowing, potable water testing, wastewater treatment & reporting). Continue to follow this unfolding story here….

VIII.

(&) ‘Write Your RV/MH Story!’

This rare opportunity to learn ‘How to Record & Share Your Memoir, autobiography and or Corporate RV or MH Story/History, even LLLCommunity, Campground/RV Park Owner/operator Legacy’, will be here sooner than think!

The morning of 4 August, RV historian Al Hesselbart and I will spend 2 ½ hours sharing the basics, and insights involved in penning and publishing one’s memoirs & autobiography (There is a distinct difference between the two), as well as research and write a firm’s corporate history and or story (for legacy &/or marketing purposes). Hopefully you’ll be there with us!

To register for ‘Write Your RV/MH Story!’ seminar, phone (317) 346-7156. To register for Class of 2014 Hall of Fame Induction Banquet later the same day, call (574) 293-2344. Basic fee is $44.95; and if you register for the banquet, the seminar fee drops to only $29.95 . What a deal! – especially considering the handouts you’ll receive….

And as we’ve told you before, Bob Vahsholtz, author of the recently released manufactured housing book, DUELING CURVES has committed to make a guest appearance that morning, staying over for lunch to answer queries, sign copies of his book, and add to the value of the 2 ½ hour writing seminar.

Think about it! When and where will the following alignment occur again? Attend this year’s 23rd annual International Networking Roundtable in Peachtree, GA. (10-12 September) and MAKE (industry) HISTORY1 Participate in the ‘Write Your RV/MH Story!’ in Elkhart, IN. (4 August), and RECORD (your) HISTORY! Who else in the manufactured housing industry and land-lease-lifestyle community asset class offers YOU two such heady personal and corporate opportunities during August and September of this year?
IX.

Camel’s Nose, or ‘Help is on the Way!’?

Once again, good ol MHARR (Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform) let’s us know, before anyone else, what’s afoot ‘inside the capitol beltway’ of Washington, DC.

“…HUD Program administrator, Pamela Danner…announcing the Home Innovation Research Labs, Inc. (formerly known as NAHB Research Center) as the new Administrating Organization (AO) for the HUD program’s Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee (MHCC).” Online correspondence dated 18 June 2014.

A couple quick thoughts while we await MHI’s ‘take’ on this breaking news, as well as further opining from MHARR:

Given Home Innovation Research Labs, Inc. (‘HIRL’) past and present (?) affiliation with the National Association of Home Builders (Rarely a MHIndustry friend in Washington, DC), does their selection as AO signal allowing the Camel’s Nose* inside the already weakened HUD-Code manufactured housing industry tent?

OR, is it…

‘Help is on the way!’ Hmm. Let’s see; how that pencils out? Since industry representation on the MHCC has been decimated (‘literally, one tenth’) during the past few years, and annual national new home shipment volume has languished at nadir level for the past five years (i.e. between 49,789 in 2009 & 60,228 – per MHARR, in 2013). Maybe it’s time indeed, to ask the NAHB, & RV industries (GASP!), for HELP! (Re-read Part I of this blog posting

As usual, focus your news-sleuthing nose here, Sunday after Sunday, for new information and updates; then read the Allen Letter professional journal for longer treatment of key topics (e.g. June issue’s Case Study expose’ re consequences of ‘too high’ rental homesite rents in LLLCommunities) This is a Must Read for every owner/operator of LLLCommunities! And when you really want to know what’s going on inside this ‘double dual industry’, subscribe to the Allen CONFIDENTIAL!, like dozens of our COBA7® affiliate peers.

End Note:

* ‘The camel’s nose is a metaphor for a situation when the permitting of a small, seemingly innocuous act will open the door for larger, clearly undesirable action.’

***

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