; Copyright 2019; www.educatemhc.com
Perspective. ‘Land lease communities, previously manufactured home communities, and earlier, ‘mobile home parks’, comprise the real estate component of manufactured housing.’
This blog posting is sole national advocate, official ombudsman, historian, research reporter, education resource & online communication media for North American land lease communities
To input this blog, &/or affiliate with EducateMHC, formerly Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance, or COBA7, use Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764
Motto: ‘U Support US & WE serve U!’ And, goal for online media? To inform, opine, and help transform and improve manufactured housing and land lease community performance!
INTRODUCTION: 2019 has become the ’Best of Times & Worst of Times’! How so? ‘Housers’ (i.e. policy makers) view HUD-Code manufactured housing as a practical solution to this nation’s affordable housing crisis! That’s the good news. At the same time, however, social action warriors, academic ethnographers, and not for profit tenant-focused bodies are attacking the industry and realty asset class on several fronts. Part I recasts Prosperity Now’s ’10 Facts Show MH is an Affordable Homeownership Solution’ (Octo 2018). Part II summarizes collective attacks manifested in a trade publication article, special report, and new ‘tell all’ book. If you’re not already on board to defend our industry and realty asset class, you’ll surely be by the time you finish reading and reflecting on the content and consequences of this blog posting! GFA
I.
Telling Our Own Story…
No one knows manufactured housing better than we who manufacture, transport, site, sell, and finance the most affordable housing in the U.S. today!
Prosperity Now, formerly CFED, a social and housing activist entity, recently updated their ‘Manufactured Housing: Top 10 Truths’ resource retitled: ’10 Facts That Show Manufactured Housing is an Affordable Homeownership Solution’. It’s worth reviewing their mixed bag of views regarding homes and communities:
1. Manufactured homes are not mobile
2. Today’s manufactured homes are well-designed and constructed
3. Manufactured housing is home to a significant number of Americans (20 million)
4. Manufactured housing is energy efficient
5. Manufactured housing is a stable housing option
6. Manufactured housing is found across the United States
7. Most manufactured homes are located on individual lots, not in ‘trailer parks’
8. Owning a home on rented land is a precarious situation, but residents can own and operate their own parks
9. Residents of manufactured home parks can own and operate their own communities. See ROCUSA.com
10. Manufactured homes can appreciate (presumably in value. GFA)
Now it’s time to tell our own story. Save and use these ‘talking points’ when appropriate.
• ‘Manufactured housing as a high quality & affordable homeownership solution’
• Manufactured housing is designed with today’s homebuyer in mind, relative to size and configuration (e.g. singlesection or multisection), with a plethora of site-built housing features.
• Manufactured housing is built in compliance with a federal preemptive building code in place since 1976.
• Manufactured housing is built in factories, under climate-controlled conditions, by trained and supervised employees, using inventoried building supplies and appliances protected from the weather and pilferage.
• Manufactured housing is highly energy efficient
• Manufactured housing is transportable to the site of installation, but quasi-permanent or permanently sited, with an expected lifespan of 50+/- years.
• Manufactured housing has the potential to appreciate (increase) in value when properly installed and well-maintained on building sites conveyed fee simple or rental homesites in well-managed privately or resident-owned land lease communities
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• Manufactured housing, when permanently installed on a building site or rental homesite, in states allowing conversion of ‘titles’ to ‘deed documentation’ of ownership, pay real estate taxes. If not so located, but titled, homeowner pays a generally lower personal property tax or license fee, depending on local practice and jurisdiction.
Yes, HUD-Code manufactured housing is certainly an affordable housing solution, but also much more!
II.
Someone Else Is Telling Our Story…
‘YOU, WE, ARE ALL NOW UNDER ASSAULT! (And some of this is, frankly, self-inflicted!)’
The title hints at a recently published article, special report, and 250 page new book, that collectively ‘take the land lease community realty asset class to task’ for a host of reasons, including ‘park closures’ & sordid (‘mercenary’) consequences thereof, as well as perceived predatory rental homesite rate increases, and other offenses, at the hands of ‘Private Equity Giants (Converging) on Manufactured Homes’ (Actual title of the special report).
The subtitle, in turn, alludes to a recent email letter distributed, by yours truly, to the ten ‘private equity giants’, and additional property portfolio owners/operators not singled out in the special report. Why the email correspondence? It has been obvious, to date, that no national advocacy entity, claiming to represent land lease communities nationwide, has alerted owners/operators to the assault already underway!
If all this arouses your curiosity, be sure to read the April 2019 issue of the Allen Letter. Why? Key parts of the special report: ‘Private Equity Giants Converge on Manufactured Homes’ are featured, as is the full book report on Dr. Esther Sullivan’s MANUFACTURED INSECURITY, ‘Mobile Home Parks & American’s Tenuous Right to Place’. In the latter instance you’ll read of numerous instances where this present day business trauma has been self-inflicted.
Bottom line? To combat negative press coming from several quarters (e.g. MHAction; Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund; Private Equity Stakeholders Project; Prosperity Now (previously CFED) – reread part I of this blog posting; social activists, academic ethnographers, even some homeowners/site lessees living in land lease communities, ‘be forewarned so as to be forearmed, when the naysayers come a-calling!
To subscribe to the Allen Letter and or the Allen CONFIDENTIAL! Business newsletters designed specifically for land lease community owners/operators, visit www.educatemhc.com And if you’d like to talk about this sorry matter, share information, or suggest remedies, simply phone the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764.
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George Allen, CPM, MHM
EducateMHC
Box # 47024, Indianapolis, IN. 46247
(316) 346-7156