COBA7® via community-investor.com Blog # 333 Copyright @ 25 January 2015
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 the primary national advocacy voice, official ombudsman, research reporter, & online communication media 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
Introduction to this week’s COBA7® blog posting at community-investor.com website:
My-Oh-My; as YOU likely know, WE – as an industry & realty asset class, are engaged in an exciting NEW ERA regarding the ‘Evolution of the Manufactured Housing Business Model, Past, Present & Future!’ & ‘Look(ing) into Manufactured Housing’s Uncertain Future’ – these being the dual titles of last week’s blog posting at this website!
So much response from nearly 1,000 blog floggers (readers), we prepared and posted a rare mid-week follow-up op/ed blog titled ‘This Has Not Happened, in this Volume, Before!’ Hopefully you read both postings. If not, scroll back into this website’s blog archives before proceeding. Then, move onto…
‘NEW ERA MH Trade Lingo, circa 2015’; ‘What this observer experienced at the MHShow in Louisville, KY’ this past week; and a heady ‘WISH LIST for YEAR 2015!’
We’ll likely revisit the ‘Evolution…’ & ‘…Uncertain Future’ responses in next Sunday’s blog posting. So, keep those responses a-coming! And respond to these three parts following, as well!
Know what? Talked to a former MHI chairman recently, and a top level executive who continues to be active in the manufactured housing industry, and they tell me they value the news & views gleaned from this blog posting and the Allen Letter professional journal. Do YOU? If not reading both, phone the MHIndustry HOTLINE today!
I.
NEW ERA MH Trade Lingo, circa 2015
It’s time to stop messing around with the way we casually and formally write and talk about (manufactured) housing. There’ll always be Luddites hanging onto ‘trailer talk’ & ‘mobile homes’, even ‘status quo you know’ folk putting ‘manufactured’ in front of everything homey and community. But that doesn’t mean YOU have to do so…
Those of us with present and future Free Enterprise business prospects anchored in factory-built housing and investment real estate, understand the NEW ERA that dawned in early 2014, and is maturing during 2015, provides a unique platform and opportunity to revisit, restart, and routinely use, nearly a dozen, image-enhancing trade terms in our routine business communication. Try these on for size…
Housing = formerly, manufactured housing
Homes = formerly, manufactured homes
Community = formerly, manufactured home community & before
that ‘mobile home parks’; and in contemporary
journalistic circles, land-lease-lifestyle community
or simply landlease community & LLLCommunity
Independent (street) MHRetailer = formerly, dealer & dealership
New Breed of MHRetailer & Lender=No single precedent, as this new trend supplants
decades old symbiotic relationship between (then)
‘dealer’ & ‘mobile home park’ owners/operators.
Now it’s communities selling & oft self-financing new & resale homes on-site to fill vacant rental
homesites
Resident = formerly, tenant; a.k.a. ‘homeowner/site lessee’
Transporter = formerly, toter
Singlesection (home) = formerly, singlewide mobile home
Multisection (home) = formerly, doublewide mobile home
Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance = formerly, all the products & services
provided to community owner/operators by GFA
Management, Inc., dba PMN Publishing
Is it really so difficult to adjust one’s use of trade terms, like these, to reflect today’s appealing new designs of homes and, in many instances, the desirability of the community lifestyle? Methinks not, but the transition must begin with YOU! GFA
II.
The 2015 MHShow in Louisville, KY.
Short takes on what & who I saw and heard this past week in Luavul…
• Overall, the MHShow was ‘OK’. Far too few Community Series Homes & far too many ‘Big Box = Big Bucks’ show-off units! And, time for a program change!
• Colorado-based real estate investor, & ARC founder, Scott Jackson is back! Just acquired a large turnaround challenge community in Indianapolis, IN. Go Scott!
• Illinois MHAssociation likely established a new practice, by affixing bright orange ribbons, bearing the ILLINOIS name, to their member’s show ID tags
• Jim Clayton & Kevin Kimsey were easy to spot, but a tad bit difficult to identify, as they sported Abraham Lincoln beards with gray and black color schemes.
• Sad news! Sherrie Clevenger of NADA is leaving manufactured housing next month for other pastures. Her successor? Eric Westermeyer. (800) 966-6232X238
• Day before the MHShow, 13 Manufactured Housing Managers®, or MHMs® trained & certified nearby, by Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance®!
• Kudos to ‘Maynardville Communities’, a Clayton Co. Just enough pre-show promo to motivate one (me) to visit & photograph their Community Series Home.
• This MHShow was a swan song of sorts, for retiring Wisconsin Housing Alliance executive Ross Kinzler. But with Amy in place, it’s a succession plan that’ll work
• Familiar with NextStep? I wasn’t until this show. Now working with them on pre-purchase counseling of prospective homebuyers project, and possibly more…
• I must have introduced Mark Weiss, MHARR’s newly named president & CEO, and successor to recently retired Danny Ghorbani, to 20+ friends & associates
• Here’re two startling exhibit firsts: only one community portfolio owner/operator: ROC USA; & only one real estate broker: MHRE, Inc., at this year’s MHShow!
• Greetings to Dr. Lesli Gooch, MHI’s newly named Sr. VP of Government Affairs, (703) 558-0660. Hopefully, she’ll be with us for the long haul & successful!
• COBA7® signed up several new affiliates, enroute to serving 400+ ‘MHInsiders’ by year end 2015! You affiliated yet? Call MHIndustry HOTLINE this week
• If I heard ‘lease-option’ mentioned once, I heard it a dozen times, as L-O guru Spencer Roane, MHM® circulated thru the MHShow, connecting with associates
• Looking to buy resale manufactured homes in IN & KY? Contact Tamar Pierce @ (502) 643-2920. And Jackie Tucker in Indianapolis, IN. ((317) 717-3390
• New chattel capital lender, ParkLane Finance Solutions was present, testing the market. Rick Cason @ (434) 975-5088. And they hosted Best Reception of all!
• Finally, life continues to be good, as long as Don Westphal exhibits at the Louisville MHShow! Who doesn’t enjoy stopping by and chatting with him?
OK, so when am I going to see YOU again? Depends. Due to family reasons I won’t be attending MHI’s Winter meeting in New Orleans in February.
COBA7® affiliates are clamoring for a much needed planning meeting, in late February or early March, maybe even during the MHCongress in April.
Then there’s the New York Housing Association-sponsored Northeast Super Symposium, 25-27 March in Albany, NY! I’ll be presenting the ‘Official State of the MHIndustry & LLLCommunity Asset Class!’, plus describing the latest multifamily consolidation wave. Also hear Pam Danner from HUD & Jenny Hodge from MHI’s NCC division For meeting info, talk to Nancy Geer via (518) 867-3242.
Then there’s the annual MHCongress in Las Vegas. I’ll likely be attending this year, but maybe not the NCC Forum. Why? No invitation to be a presenter, even though I’m an NCC founder and board member. But know what? Craig White, ACM® and I used to host an early morning ‘Prayer for Our Nation & Its’ Leaders’ meeting during this event. If you’re interested in restoring the practice, let me know, via the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764.
Hopefully you’re planning on attending the RV/MH Hall of Fame’s Induction Banquet on 3 August, in Elkhart, IN., when we fete Joe Kelly (Iowa MHAssociation exec) and nine others being inducted that evening.
And, of course, there’s the 24th annual International Networking Roundtable, 9-11 September, likely in San Diego, CA. Some very Special Speakers & Topics are being invited and scheduled for this Best Educational Event of the Year – with as many as 25 offerings! Hint: Some are ‘movers & shakers’ from segments of the MHIndustry in favor and support of meeting sponsor COBA7® and its’ motto: ‘U support US & WE serve U!’
III.
WISH LIST for YEAR 2015!
During the MHShow in Louisville, KY last week, I asked many businessmen & women for their ‘WISH LIST for 2015’. Together, they want to…
• Clearly and accurately identify the total number of new HUD-Code homes shipped directly from factories into land-lease-lifestyle communities! Knowing this would encourage increased production of Community Series Homes, or CSH Models, confirming the seven year paradigm shift away from independent (street) MHRetailers, to the ‘New Breed of MHRetailers & Lenders’ (i.e. LLLCommunities with vacant rental homesites to fill). Yes!
• Encourage LLLCommunity portfolio owners/operators selling new homes on-site, to start marketing product outside their property, to home buying prospects throughout the local housing market! Factory Expo Homes does this online, throughout the U.S. (Google it & see!), ‘Why not here?’ More sales!
• Encourage single LLLCommunity and small portfolio owner/operators to learn how to market, sell, even self-finance new and resale homes transactions on-site, to fill vacant rental homesites and sustain profitability! This alone would activate 85% of the 50,000+/- LLLCommunities not presently selling (shipping) new homes. Hard parts? Identifying and training the owners/mgrs.
• See HUD-Code home manufacturers, upon purchase of one or more new homes by LLLCommunity owners/operators (i.e. ‘New Breed of MHRetailer & Lender’), allow for allocation of some or all the ‘floor fee’ $ line item on the unit invoice, to national advocacy and or resource entity of their choice!
• See more Community Series Homes, or CSH Models, with WOW! factors & durability-enhancing features, on display at regional MHShows! In addition, home manufacturers to ensure Business Development Managers, or BDMs, are listed in ‘Official Directory of HUD-Code Home Manufacturers’ when updated and distributed during October of each year, via the Allen Letter professional journal, to COBA7® affiliates & ‘MHInsiders’ nationwide.
• Have a pre-purchase counseling and training program in place, tailored to the MHIndustry ‘experience’, and encourage routine usage by independent (street) MHRetailers, ‘company stores’, and the ‘New Breed of MHRetailer & Lender’ (i.e. LLLCommunities selling new & resale homes on-site)! Needed!
• Finally codify the lease-option alternative, for enhanced application in states where this method is permitted, making it easier for LLLCommunity owners/operators, large and small, to effect transactions on-site! In progress!
• See professional property management given more than ‘lip service’ among portfolio owners/operators of LLLCommunities nationwide! Ensure hiring of a minimum of one Certified Property Manager® as executive or regional property manager; and either Manufactured Housing Managers® or Accredited Community Managers® employed as on-site property managers.
These eight WISH LIST items came up, time and again, during conversations at the MHShow. They are not listed in any particular priority order, though the first four were most frequently cited by LLLCommunity owners/operators selling and self-financing new and resale homes on-site. Interestingly, few complained about the ‘lack of easy access to chattel capital’, almost as if they’ve learned to ‘make do’, on their own, and have moved beyond that business restriction.
Let’s hope HUD-Code home manufacturers are reading these WISH LIST items too, and take the initiative to implement the first four ASAP.
For more on these matters, read Part I (in January) & Part II (in February) of the MHIndustry retrospective & future, respectively, in the Allen Letter professional journal!
Finally, the 12 page, 26th annual ALLEN REPORT is now available for general purchase. The price is $544.95 for the report alone, OR, same price, @ $544.95 for one year affiliation with the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance®. In this latter case, the COBA7® affiliation also means you receive the Allen Letter professional journal for 12 months, and an updated Signature Series Resource Document, or SSRD, each month. February = ‘Official State of the MHIndustry & LLLCommunity Asset Class!’, February = 17th annual National Registry of Lenders – both real estate-secured mortgage originators, and chattel capital sources and servicers. Plus ten more SSRDs thru year end. To affiliate, simply phone the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764.
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