Blog Posting # 843; Copyright 23 May 2025. EducateMHC
Know this! HUD-Code manufactured housing (‘MH’) is federally-regulated, performance-based, affordable-attainable, factory-built housing (a.k.a. one of four types of offsite construction), routinely paired with traditional stick-built housing (a.k.a. onsite construction). Plus, land lease communities (a.k.a. manufactured home communities & ‘mobile home parks’), comprise the commercial real estate (‘CRE’) component of MH. Various types of housing finance (e.g. chattel or ‘home only’ loans & real estate mortgages); describe the post-production segment of MH.
EducateMHC is the official MH historian, trade term & trend tracker, as well as perennial MH information source. Contact EducateMHC via (317)881-3815; email gfa7156@aol.com, and www.educatemhc.com, to purchase Community Management in the Manufactured Housing Industry (This book should be in every land lease community nationwide!), and SWAN SONG – History of land lease communities & official record of annual MH production levels 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, as well as freelance consulting and authoring of 30 nonfiction texts.
George Allen is the sole emeritus member of the Manufactured Housing Institute (‘MHI’), a founding board member of MHI’s National Communities Council (‘NCC’) division, RV/MH Hall of Fame enshrine, Allen Legacy columnist and editor at large for the MHInsider magazine.
MARCH U.S. HOUSING COMPLETIONS REPORT REVISITED
Here’s a more accurate rendering of the final paragraph in the last blog posting (dated 9 May 2025):
“For the month of March 2025, the U.S. Census Bureau reports 129,083 new single-family, site-built, privately-owned housing completions (i.e. 1,549,000 divided by 12 months); while the monthly grand total, inclusive of four types of offsite construction (Again, HUD-Code housing, modular units & panelized homes, plus Park Model RVs, total 11,849 units). Added together, these two monthly totals = 140,932 units for the month of March 2025. 140,943 X 12 months = 1,549,000 compared to the estimated annual completion total (of onsite construction alone) of 1,549,000 offered by the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s 142,184 more new homes in the U.S. than we’re otherwise led to believe!”
Expect to read the April U.S. Housing Completions Report the first week into the month of June.
INTO FLORIDA HOUSING?
Bet you didn’t know this: Florida’s median home price is down 3.1 percent year-over-year, and condominium median price is down 9 percent. Why? Home insurance rates continue to climb in Florida!
AND ON A BROADER PERSPECTIVE…
The latest American Housing Survey indicates 7.2 million occupied manufactured homes in the U.S.; that being 5.4 percent of all occupied housing. The survey goes on to describe manufactured homes as being ‘movable dwellings eight feet wide and 40+ feel long, built on a permanent chassis. Finally, 9.3 percent of all manufactured housing can be found in Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee.
MEMORIAL DAY IS UPON US!
How will you commemorate Memorial Day this year? Me? I’ll pause during the day and purposely remember young U.S. Marines I led into combat during 1968 & 1969 in the Republic of South Vietnam – but who did not return home to the U.S., to live out their lives like me. And I have some ready reminders, as they do every year, to remind me of those young men….
As I sit here in my office at home my eyes are drawn to five framed mementoes of those times long ago: a shadow box collage of military medals and unit patches, a 2X3’ color photo of Fire Support Base Cunningham at the edge of the infamous Ashau Valley (a.k.a. Ho Chi Minh Trail) where I was based during Operation Dewey Canyon. Then there’s an even larger color print featuring a section of The Wall in Washington, DC. In it, one of several ghost Marines and soldiers reaches out from within the monument to touch the outstretched hand of a ‘now civilian’ Marine (me) on the living side of The Wall. So poignant even after 60+ years! Then there’s the typing paper-sized picture of three young soldiers on patrol, with one carrying his ‘pig’ (i.e. M60 machine gun) at waist level ready to attack. The caption? “The old man that shuffles around town with the Vietnam Veteran hat on was at one time more bad ass than you will ever be!” And finally, there’s an 8X10 color photo of yours truly, right there in the Ashau Valley standing next to one of two huge Russian artillery pieces we’d just captured in combat.
Yes, I will have not have any difficulty remembering why, as a nation, we celebrate Memoria Day!
George Allen