Macro, Micro, & More…

Blog Posting # 605 @ 25 Sept 2020; Copyright 2020: Educatemhc.com

Perspective. ‘Land lease communities, previously manufactured home communities, and earlier, ‘mobile home parks’ comprise the real estate component of manufactured housing!”

EducateMHC is the online national advocate, asset class historian, data researcher, education resource, & communication media for all land lease communities throughout North America!

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INTRODUCTION: This week’s blog posting is a ‘twofer’! Receive and read one right here. The other one, blog # 604, must be requested via email message to gfa7156@aol.com So, what’s going on? I penned a tripartite story titled, the ‘Very Bad Boys of Manufactured Housing’. In it I identify a gangster, serial killer, and mass murderer – all who, at one time or another, made their living in land lease community business environs. Not wanting to offend anyone, by wholesale distribution of this blog, I decided to make it available on a ‘per request basis’. It really is ‘quite a tale’. Hence, if you’d like to receive and read blog # 604, let me know via gfa7156@aol.com and I’ll respond, with article attached thereto. GFA

I.
Macro, Micro, & More…

Have you noticed, more and more commentary, from the secular and business press, writes how healthy the housing market it these days – despite the coronavirus pandemic. Well, here’re a couple gems I gleaned from ‘Cash In on a Housing Revolution’, by James Glassman, in the current issue of the Kiplinger Personal Finance magazine.

‘COVID-19 will change the home-buying landscape for the better, in part by creating more homebodies. During the epidemic (sic), homes became the center of nearly all family activity – recreation, entertainment, dining, education and work. Equity in a family home is the number-one asset for households, accounting for about one-third of net worth, collectively.” P.28

And this….

‘Exodus to the country. According to the National Association of Realtors, buyers want to move farther out so they won’t be so close to neighbors who might be infected, now or in the future. The mayhem that followed police violence this spring has also led to some disenchantment with urban living, but the nation’s three largest metropolitan areas – New York, Los Angeles and Chicago – were already losing population.” P.28

Bringing this matter ‘closer to home’; specifically, the manufactured housing business, here’s what John Ace Underwood, founder of SellingEDGE, observes and opines to independent (street) MHRetailers:

So long as people have jobs and the demand is as high, rising home prices typically are no reason to panic, as they affect all retailers equally. However, when you couple rising home prices with seriously prolonged build times, now you have a problem. Those who aren’t paying attention to profit margins on EVERY deal and believe they can make up for lower profits by increased sales volume will find themselves in financial purgatory before they now what hit them.” Email correspondence.

Know what? Most, if not all what consultant Underwood pens here is correct and telling. However, when adding land lease communities to the mix, with their increased volume of on-site new HUD-Code home shipments (i.e. up from 24% in 2009 to 40% in 2015), being sold and seller-financed or lease-optioned, there’re two matters to consider:

• Rising home prices and prolonged build (manufacturing) times have waved-off some owners/operators from buying new homes until prices and lead times stabilize. One more reason monthly MH shipment totals are plateaued and now dropping.

• While profit margins are certainly important, many if not most land lease community owners/operators who sell and seller-finance on-site, routinely accept smaller margins, if any, to get new homebuyer/site lessees in place and paying rent – counting on the annuity nature of said payments, over the long haul, of say, 20 years or more.

Now, more than ever before, HUD-Code housing manufacturers should sit down and talk with land lease community owners/operators about the present and future of manufactured housing and the real estate asset class, where target markets are concerned – less geographically oriented, but using purchasing indicators like Area Median Income (‘AMI’). Bottom line? Will we continue trying to crack the ‘big box = big bucks’ housing sale code (Keeping in mind only six CrossMod™ home were purchased and mortgaged – by one of two GSEs – during all of 2019); OR, redouble our commitment to truly affordable housing? Strange to me, how more and more new stick-built homes are going up, while our monthly (and annual) manufactured housing shipment volume, once again, declines. Why aren’t we discussing and strategizing about this?

As I’ve said before, I’d be pleased to volunteer as planner and host of the aforementioned ‘sit down’, this year or early next, at the RV/MH Hall of Fame in Elkhart, IN. If seriously interested, email me via gfa7156@aol.com; or if you just want to talk about the matter, phone the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764.

And this in conclusion. How’s the old Eldridge Cleaver bromide go? “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re darn sure part of the problem!”

II.

MHIndustry ‘watchdog’ MHARR Sounds the Alarm!

‘Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac Have Learned Nothing From Their Subprime Debacle’

So reads the title of the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform’s (‘MHARR’) communique for September 2020. Too many salient, thought-provoking, convicting passages contained therein to repeat here. Bottom line for me? While many of Mark Weiss’ comments disturb (trouble) me, I find myself wondering: ‘Why isn’t anyone else in the manufactured housing industry’ plowing the same regulatory ground? He’s either accurate or he’s not. If the former; well, we only have ourselves to blame if we don’t heed his warnings. If the latter, then someone should step forth and set the record straight.

If you’d like to read these four single-spaced typeset pages, email Mark via (202) 783-4087.

III.

Is Your Firm Eligible for Inclusion in the 32nd annual ALLEN REPORT?

The deadline (10 September) has come and gone, but if you respond to this reminder SOON, we can still include your land lease community portfolio firm in the 32nd annual ALLEN REPORT, planned for distribution during January 2021.

Eligibility? If you own and or fee manage 500+ rental homesites or a minimum of five land lease communities (any size), you’re eligible!

What to do? Email me at gfa7156@aol.com and request the 32nd annual ALLEN REPORT questionnaire. Will get it to you right away!

George Allen, CPM, MHM EducateMHC