CFPB White Paper, new SSRD, & Challenge/Opportunity Forms
COBA7® @ community-investor.com Blog # 317 Copyright @ 5 October 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.
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Coming soon (maybe next week): Statistical Insights & Errors mined from CFPB’s ‘’Manufactured-housing Consumer Finance in the U.S.’ White Paper, released 9/30/14
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COBA7’s New SSRD: ‘Directory of Government Enterprises, Federal Agencies, & Nongovernmental Organizations (‘NGO’s) with Ongoing Interest in Manufactured Housing and the Land-lease-lifestyle Communities!’ This has not been done before!
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‘They’re Arriving, They’re Arriving! What?’ ‘The CHALLENGE, the OPPORTUNITY’ forms distributed during National Public Forums distributed during the 23rd Networking Roundtable, 9/11/2014. If you haven’t done so yet, FAX form to (317) 346-7158 ASAP!
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‘2014 NCC Fall Leadership Forum.’ Quick & easy way to spend $1,000+ in Chicago!
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Coming Soon: Statistical Insights & Errors Mined from CFPB’s ‘Manufactured-Housing (sic) Consumer Finance in the U.S.’ White Paper, 9/30/14
TWO Official WHITE PAPERs, both describing HUD-Code manufactured housing & land-lease-lifestyle communities are published within 30 days of each other!
Hmm. Is there a message there? Sure. The MHIndustry & LLLCommunity property type were first profiled in preparation for two National Public Forums the morning of 9/11/2014 in Peachtree City, GA… And now, a second one is released @ 9/30/2014 on an even broader scale. What’s going on with manufactured housing and LLLCommunities?!
I hope our national advocacy bodies and leaders are paying attention. First, an Official WHITE PAPER published by the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance®, or COBA7®; and now, one from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB – both effectively ‘setting the stage’ for a much-needed NATIONAL STRATEGIC PLANNING MEETING this Winter! Where and Why? At an easily accessible, reasonably-priced meeting venue, in the Midwest or warmer clime, to plan and put our industry/asset class on the track to restored prosperity! An event planned and co-hosted by the MHARR, MHI, and COBA7®.
In the meantime, what’s the gist of the CFPB’s ‘Manufactured Housing Consumer Finance in the U.S.’ White paper? Here’s what they describe as being key findings:
• “Manufactured housing is disproportionately located in non-metropolitan areas.”
• “Compared with residents of site-built homes, manufactured-housing (sic) residents are somewhat more likely to be older and tend to have lower incomes or net worth.”
• ‘Manufactured homes typically cost less than site-built homes.”
• “About three-fifths of manufactured-housing residents who own their home also own the land it is sited on (sic).”
• “An estimated 65 percent of borrowers who own their land and who took out a loan to buy a manufactured home between 2001 and 2010 financed the purchase with a chattel loan.”
• ‘Manufactured-home owners typically pay higher interest rates for their loans than site-built borrowers (sic).”
• “The current state of manufactured housing production, retail, and financing reflects in part a rapid growth during the 1990s and subsequent sharp contraction.”
Beyond the intermittent use of ‘manufactured-housing’ & ‘manufactured housing’ lingo, a dangling participle, omission of a needed comma or two, and use of ‘site-built borrower’ instead of ‘site-built homeowner borrower‘– all in just these seven key findings, the White Paper does provide historic and helpful descriptions of industry trends, along with a few factual errors.
For a complete review of the CFPB White Paper, read it in an upcoming issue of the Allen CONFIDENTIAL!, the Allen Letter professional journal, or maybe here. To subscribe, affiliate with the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance® or COBA7® via the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764
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COBA7®’s ‘Directory of Government Enterprises, Federal Agencies, & Nongovernmental Organizations (‘NGO’s) with Ongoing Interest in the Manufactured Housing Industry & the Land-lease-lifestyle Community Realty Asset Class!’
This is the lengthy but apt title of another new Signature Series Resource Document, or SSRD. Available only from the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance®, or COBA7®! This ‘breaking new ground’ SSRD will be distributed as a lagniappe, in the November 2015 issue of the Allen Letter professional journal.
This first edition SSRD lists nearly a dozen GSEs, agencies, and NGOs that routinely interface with the HUD-Code manufactured housing industry and land-lease-lifestyle community income-producing property type. It also brings the total number of SSRDs, updated annually and reprinted month-by-month, to 15! The e new directory does not list national trade and advocacy bodies with an affinity for manufactured housing and LLLCommunities. Those not for profit and for profit groups are identified, along with respective contact information, in the ‘MH Trade Body Directory’ SSRD distributed earlier in the year.
No other national MHIndustry and or LLLCommunity trade or advocacy entity provides anywhere near this volume and variety of published statistical research; product, service, lender, media, association and consultancy contact information; even the Official Lexicon, ‘State of the Industry’ outline, and formal history of the industry and asset class! So it’s understandable, COBA7® affiliates are increasingly referred to as ‘MHInsiders’.
To ensure receiving your inaugural copy of this new SSRD, telephone the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764. Elect to affiliate with COBA7® at the Option II level for $544.95. This provides an annual subscription to the Allen Letter professional journal, and 15 SSRDs!
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They’re Arriving, They’re Arriving! What?
‘The CHALLENGE, the OPPORTUNITY’
worksheets, distributed during two National Public Forums at 23rd Networking Roundtable.
OK, but what are they saying? Here’re samplings of the first bunch that have arrived, re: The Future of Manufactured Housing, & The Future of LLLCommunities. Have taken the liberty of editing to use consistent terminology throughout the commentary.
The Future of Manufactured Housing
• How to identify and reach owners/operators of smaller (i.e. less than 100 rental homesites apiece) LLLCommunities, to sell them new Community Series Homes, or CSH Models, to fill vacant rental homesites – and teach them how to sell & seller-finance these transactions! The larger portfolio-owned properties are already well into the routine. Smaller owners, in many cases, don’t seem to know they have a problem – of if they do, how to deal with it (e.g. filling functionally obsolete rental homesites)
• Agree as to what to call our housing product going forward: manufactured housing, housing, or what?
• Get this matter out into the open (discussion): What happens if vehicular titling of manufactured homes goes away, replaced by ‘what’? What might be the tax consequences, and otherwise, for homeowner/site lessees. Good or bad for the manufactured housing business and LLLCommunities nationwide
The Future of Land-lease-lifestyle Communities
• Let’s make the most of the opportunity Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac executives offered during their panel presentation, and open discussion afterwards, to find a way, or create a new ‘finance vehicle’, whereby real estate-secured mortgages might be enhanced, value wise, by at least partial – if not full – inclusion of the value of ‘park-owned homes’ on-site in LLLCommunities being refinanced.
• Once and for all, ‘proof’ whether Allen’s 3:1 ratio, for estimating site rent to be in sync with other forms of multifamily rental housing (e.g. 3BR2B conventional apartments) in the same local housing market; or, bless some large property portfolio owners/operators preference for a 2:1 ratio, e.g. where apartment rent = $900/month; and 3:1 ration = site rent at $300/month; or, 2:1 ratio = site rent at $450/month. Yes, every local housing market has its’ own characteristics, and might well be ‘different’, but a proven guideline would be helpful to some of us.
• In 2008, Randy Rowe talked, in Tampa, about LLLCommunity owners/operators providing a fair ‘value proposition’ for our homeowner/site lessee residents. Know what? No one, to my knowledge, has ever quantified that concept. Sure would be helpful to know when, and when not, our housing and rent packages together are fair ‘value propositions’.
• At the recent Networking Roundtable, during the Lenders Panel, and during the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac panel, individuals referred to the ‘star value’ of various LLLCommunities. The Star System (Described in Woodall’s Mobile Home Park Directory) hasn’t been published, let alone be updated, since the early 1970s – that’s nearly 50 years ago! The ABClassification System was created and published, but not blessed by MHI’s NCC, in 1998. Its’ seven part methodology and letter/diamond classifications are used today by some RE brokers and appraisers. When will we ever have a universally approved and used quality classification system for land-lease-lifestyle communities?
OK, this will have to do for today. Still have a fair number of other ideas and suggestions sent to me for consideration. Of course, Nathan Smith & Dick Jennison of MHI; as well as John Bostick & Danny Ghorbani of MHARR are receiving this input. So keep your contributions a – coming, along with encouragement to MHARR, MHI, & COBA7® to jointly plan and facilitate a National Strategic Planning Meeting this Winter.
If you haven’t yet mailed your completed ‘The CHALLENGE, the OPPORTUNITY’ form to the five MHIndustry leaders listed on the verso side of the form, please do so ASAP! Your ideas and opinions are valuable!
For blank form, phone Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764.
IV.
NCC’s 2014 Fall Leadership Forum will
be 10/27-29, at the Drake Hotel in downtown Chicago. Learn from Ritz Carlton executive trainers how to run your manufactured housing business!
Feeling ritzy (showy & costly)? Early registration for NCC members is only $549.00 per person, but jumps $250.00 up to $799 after 10/26! And the Drake hotel’s rack rate is only $239/night, before taxes and other related charges. So, this two day event will cost you a minimum of only $1,047.00!
Of course, this not so modest event amount does not include one’s transportation to and from the event. BUT hey, if you live and work in Chicagoland, they’ll be minimal anyway, as or if you return home each night to forgo the luxury of the Drake experience.
Hmm. This second consecutive year venue in downtown Chicago suggests it be renamed Chicago’s Fall Leadership Forum.
In any event, if you decide to attend & spend; hope you learn something useful, like how to affect a Ritz-Carlton culture transfer to your land-lease-lifestyle community portfolio.
Interested? Telephone (703) 558-0666 & ask for Jenny Hodge.
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