Here it is: The Grass Roots National MH Agenda!
Blog # 437 Copyright @ 12 March 2017; community-investor.com
Perspective. ‘Land lease communities, previously manufactured home communities, & ‘mobile home parks’, comprise the real estate component of manufactured housing.’
This blog posting is the sole national advocate voice, official ombudsman & historian, research report & online communication media for North American LLCommunities!
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 633-47674
COBA7 Motto: ‘U Support US & WE Serve U!’ Goal of its print/online media = to
‘Not only inform & opine, but transform & improve MHBusiness model performance!’
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INTRODUCTION: 1) OK, here’s the list of manufactured housing industry national issues YOU recommended. Read & respond – to the national advocate entity to which you belong. 2) And in answer to popular demand – from many of YOU, here’s a primary focus for the 26th annual Networking Roundtable: ‘How to Buy, Sell & Seller-finance New HUD-Code Homes On-site in Land Lease Communities!’ 3) And, sad to say, we must continue addressing one manufacturer’s ‘less than stellar performance where their new homes going into LLCommunities are concerned’!
I.
MHI & MHARR: Here’s What We Want Done!
Grassroots National Agenda Items Identified by Manufactured Housing Aficionados & Land Lease Community Owners/operators
Well, here it is; the heady list, compiled since the FHFA’s three Listening Sessions in January, and MHI’s Winter meeting during February, comprising the manufactured housing industry’s legislative and regulatory-related agenda during 2017!
In a moment, we’ll list the more than a half dozen agenda items for you. However; first know, COBA7 plans to revisit this list several times during the next ten months, to see just how much our national advocates accomplish in our behalf.*1 So, read this weekly blog at the community-investor.com website, the Allen Letter professional journal, maybe even the Allen CONFIDENTIAL! business newsletter. The initial, online news media is FREE to you at this time; the two newsletters are for affiliates of the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance, or COBA7.
Ready to dive into this list of agenda items and issues identified by manufactured housing aficionados and land lease community owners/operators, as being Key to Business success during Year 2017? Here goes….
1. Roll back S.A.F.E. Act and Dodd-Frank legislation! These $ regs continue to restrict HUD-Code manufactured housing shipments to a paltry 60,000+/- units/year, when we could be supplying the 120,000+ needed annually, to ameliorate the critical need for affordable housing throughout the U.S. today.
2. Ensure manufactured housing is accepted and respected, right alongside other types of housing, in all federal housing and finance programs! How to do this? After 17 years, realize full implementation of the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000, a.k.a. MHIA@2000! Everyone is tired of excuses and inaction!
3. And to that end, see that HUD’s (career) manufactured housing program administrator is replaced with an appropriately-qualified, (non-career) administrator; one who’ll fully implement aforementioned MHIA@2000, and regulatory policies and procedures favored by the Trump administration – ending the overreach we suffer today! *2
4. Press for issuance of a Request for Proposal (‘RFP’), by HUD, for HUD’s program monitoring contract. This time around, ensure full and fair competition for said position; and in the process, eliminate ‘make work’ programs, etc., contained in the current contract.
5. Work closely with the Federal Housing Finance Agency (‘FHFA’) and GSEs (Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac), to ensure seasoned chattel capital loan securitization, and other secondary market support, so otherwise qualified prospective homebuyer/site lessees will not be excluded from their local housing markets.
6. Insist on immediate withdrawal of U.S. Department of Energy (‘DOE’) proposed manufactured housing energy rule from further consideration.
What’s next? That’s up to YOU! If you’re a direct, dues-paying member of either national advocate for manufactured housing, copy this list and send it to them, along with a request for information as to how they plan to address these important matters during 2017. If you don’t do this, YOU have only yourself to blame, if by year end 2017, there’s little to no progress in any or all these matters.
End Notes.
1. MHAlive! (‘think tank’) session tentatively planned for morning of 7 August, at the RV/MH Hall of Fame facility in Elkhart, IN. To ensure a personal invitation to participate, once the agenda is set, let us know now of your interest, via gfa7156@aol.com
2. Need a far better communicator in that non-career position. Recent 11 page newsletter from the manufactured housing program is likely the longest prepared and distributed to date. Why now? ‘New boss in town’ to impress. And frankly, letters and questions from MH stakeholders, during the past several years, have gone unanswered by the current career administrator.
II
COMING SOON – on 7 September 2017!
‘How to Buy, Sell, & Seller-finance New HUD-Code Homes Within Land Lease Communities!’
Yes, this was the gist of the exciting Two Days of Plant Tours & Home Sales Seminars, held during May 2016, at the RV/MH Hall of Fame in Elkhart, IN. This time around’ there’ll be no plant tours, simply the four part message teaching how to fill vacant rental homesites in land lease communities. Those four steps?
• GETTING (one’s property) READY! Curb appeal, signage, staffing, & more.
• BUYING HOMES! – from factories able to fulfill one’s housing needs
• SELLING HOMES & LIFESTYLE, via USP*1 & ‘Six Right Ps of Marketing’!*2
• FINANCING HOMES! Moving from ‘risky’ to ‘affordable’ transactions, via pre-qualification; then cash, lease-option, contract sales, private investments & more!
How is this going to play out at the 26th annual International Networking Roundtable?
Simple. Following a bevy of motivating keynote presenters and their equally stimulating topics, there’ll be parallel tracks of education. One four hour block, on 7 September, will include the four bullet point topics just described. Another four hour block, occurring simultaneously, but in a breakout area, will cover four completely different but equally engaging topics.
This year’s Networking Roundtable is in the planning stage. If you would like to be considered as a named presenter, and or have a topic or two you’d like to see covered – or cover yourself, we need to know ASAP, via (317) 346-7156.
End Notes.
1. UPS = Unique Selling Proposition! Those housing, property, and lifestyle specific qualities that separate one land lease community from another.
2. Right Product, Right Place, Right Price, Right Promotion, Right People, Right Process!
III.
And the ‘Beat Up’ On LLCommunity Customers, by one firm, Continues!
This industry observer is not a fan of HUD’s Dispute Resolution program. However, if the following abuses continue unabated, methinks DR is where one HUD-Code housing manufacturer’s product and post delivery service abuses will land them, us, the manufactured housing industry.
• Poor design & shoddy construction in singlesecton and multisection homes, e.g. walls & ceilings not lining up during installation, water leaks above windows and doors; inadequate space for air conditioning duct crossover; wall board atop light switches, and much more.
• Service management personnel do not return phone calls and reply to email messages; and when they do, give corporate staff half truths, delays, and excuses, about repairing home defects.
• Service personnel who arriving on-site to fix aforementioned problems with homes, do not come when promised, and oft don’t have the materials needed to make needed repairs.
• Senior plant management also engages in delay and stall tactics, demanding additional documentation, after preliminary paperwork has been supplied; then, stonewalling the paying of legitimate repair bills submitted by contractors.
For awhile, the manufactured housing industry, while bouncing along at it’s historic nadir (‘low point’) of new home production and shipment, appeared to pay more attention to product design and quality, as well as post-installation customer service. And now that production and shipment are picking up (81,136 new homes shipped during 2016), and with an estimated 50% of new HUD-Code homes going into land lease communities – generally not set up with service personnel like the independent (street) MHRetailrs of yesteryear, this sort of performance shortfall becomes critical and timely for the entire industry, as well as its’ homeowner/site lessees! Will we resolve this challenge within, or rely on federal regulators to do our job for us?
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