‘MHFinancing Strategies, & Anticipated Impact of GSE’s DTS Programs; & more reminiscing!
Blog # 454; Copyright @ 9 July 2017; at community-investor.com/blog
Perspective. ‘Land lease communities’, previously manufactured home communities, & ‘mobile home parks’, comprise the real estate component of manufactured housing..
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INTRODUCTION: Oops! My attempt to dress-up last week’s blog posting (#453) with a yellow rising sun background, for some reason, negated your ability to access the blog proper via left clicking on the imbedded website address. Sorry ’bout that! Suggest you now, or after reading this posting (# 454), scroll back at the end of the posting, to read blog #453, titled: REMINISCING. Some good property management tales there – ones that prompted this sharing of more such tales, from others and me, again.
Know what? This blog is a classic example of ‘Saving the Best for Last!’ How so?
Part II embodies truly exciting new news, describing the keynote presentation to occur at the Networking Roundtable, the morning of 7 September 2017, in Indianapolis, IN. Could not alert you to this before, but now know, ‘This presentation alone, is worth the registration fee to attend this popular annual event!’
But first, to further reminisce…
I.
REMINISCING, Part II.
Here’s a lightly edited submission from now retired, long time independent (street) MHRetailer and land lease community owner/operator, Bob Bross, of St. Louis
Try being a retail dealer selling homes on a full recourse finance
basis, then having the banker get mad as hell at you, about something
or other, and being determined to bankrupt you – by handing you 105
repossessions in one year! I have the tax returns to prove it!
Yikes! Must be the reason my mentors, in this business, over the years, have counseled me to avoid full recourse at every opportunity. But ‘today’, isn’t that what many land lease community owners/operators are doing when they seller-finance their on-site new home sales transactions? Bottom line? Be very thorough with one’s lending screening and qualification process. For a great tool to this end, use Spencer Roane’s ‘free’ worksheet. We stock it at COBA7: Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764, or request it via gfa7156@aol.com
And then there was this experience from Steve in California. “Awhile back I bought a 1970 ‘doublewide’ home from a heavy smoker. Collapsed floor board around toilet, paneling and draperies coated with cigarette tar (She never opened her windows, ever), original shag carpet, & Avocado colored appliances. Also a Singer sewing machine of 1897 vintage, and a 1936 Hoover vacuum cleaner. Remodeled the home and sold for a profit!”
Now, back to unique peculiarities and intricacies of land lease community property ownership and property management.
What have I seen done to ameliorate (‘lessen the consequences of’) an overworked extended aeration waste treatment plant, with weir overflowing ‘flock blanket’ in the clarifier tank – when word came down the health department inspector was making his circuit among (then) mobile home parks in a Kentucky county? Well, from behind one of the blowers, the maintenance man removed a box of Calgon dishwasher detergent powder, then generously sprinkled some atop the flock blanket. Wow! You should have seen that flock coagulate and drop down to about four inches below the water surface, just far enough to stop flowing over the weir at the end of the tank. Who’d a thought? Certainly not condoning this remedy, just describing it.
“Please fill out this Guest Card, so I can turn it in to show my boss I’m doing my job!” So said the home sales and leasing consultant, as I sat down for our Mystery Shopping interview. And know what? That’s the last she looked at the card and the ‘housing need’ information I’d printed on it. And here I thought a Guest Card was a tool to help sell more homes and lease more rental homesites! Guess I was wrong, in that case, anyway. By the way, this tale and one told last week, simply underline the necessity and value of having one’s residential, multifamily properties Mystery Shopped on a regular basis. Are you doing this?
“Your honor, I don’t have money to pay this rent and court costs.” To which the judge replied, “OK, empty your pockets onto the table there in front of you.” The defendant strenuously objected, but did so. Out came more than $300.00 in large bills; more than enough to pay the $200+ rent and court costs. Now that is going to happen only in a rural county court in southern Indiana….
Giving my maintenance man a tranquilizer pistol to ‘take down’ stray dogs running in packs through our manufactured home community started as a good idea, but ended with a classic ‘unintended consequence’.. Oh, it worked fine with the larger dogs. They’d be tranquilized, then taken to the local pound. However, when they overdosed (‘killed’) a smaller, mangy, mutt – it turned out to be a resident’s prize show dog! Seriously. They filed suit, and in the end, our insurance company paid them several hundred dollars to make the problem go away.
How do you turnaround a 135 rental homesite (bank foreclosed) community, plagued with 200+ potholes in the streets, and only ten rent-paying residents in place? Two years earlier the property was full, but when the town’s sole major employer, a factory, closed its’ doors, most homeowner/site lessees departed. The remedy? Fill the potholes yourself (It’s called ‘sweat equity’), and enlist residents to recruit friends, family members, and co-workers to fill vacant rental homesites, in lieu of rent increases!. Did it work? Sure did. 75% occupancy in a few years and no rent increase for five.
Best or worst delinquent rent collector of all time? Jules was a retired wrecker driver. He worked part time for me, going door to door, collecting back site rent. He was 100% effective! Decided to covertly shadow him one day to learn his secret. His drill? Knock on the front door and step back as door opened. Told the renter what he/she owed. If there was any argument, he’d turn slightly, displaying a holstered pistol barely hidden under his jacket or shirttail. End of argument. Renter paid and Jules departed. That was the last day Jules collected delinquent rental homesite rent for me.
So, like last week, if you have similar , beyond the pale, land lease community and management tales to share, let me know via email: gfa7156@aol.com
Now, onto – by far – the most exciting blog topic in this, and previous postings of late:
II.
Current MH Financing Strategies, & Potential Impact of GSE’s Duty to Serve Programs!
= the title of keynote address, at the 26th Networking Roundtable, Indianapolis, IN.
Here’s how the keynote presenter describes the important message he plans to share during the morning of 7 September 2017:
“A decade has passed since the Government Sponsored Enterprises (‘GSE’) last purchased chattel loans, and in that time, diverse and creative approaches have arisen in an attempt to fill the void. As Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac now signal they are ready to test the market for chattel loans, this first public presentation 1) reviews current financing options and strategies, 2) explores opportunities and impact of potential GSE chattel programs, and 3) paints a picture of manufactured housing’s future in the context of chattel finances evolution.”
Yes, this is the researched & compiled overview, of present & future manufactured housing chattel capital finance, we’ve awaited, for more than a decade! It will be formally presented by the individual, well known in land lease community owner/operator circles, who performed the actual research, interviewed lending sources, and worked with GSEs, to shape this historic comprehensive presentation. No one else in the manufactured housing industry is better qualified, or has the credentials, to ‘make this happen’!
Frankly, every major HUD-Code housing manufacturer, independent chattel lending source, both national manufactured housing advocates, and land lease community owners/operators presently engaged in the on-site sale and seller-financing of new and resale manufactured homes should be present for this first public presentation of this strategic, industry-saving & restorative topic!
And the ‘icing on the cake’ of this historic keynote address, will be a panel presentation the next morning – following the popular real estate mortgage originator’s panel – of one featuring HUD-Code housing manufacturers with company finance programs, and independent third party chattel capital lenders, who’re sponsors of this year’s stellar roundtable. The aforementioned keynote presenter will moderate that panel!
To register for the 26th annual Networking Roundtable, 6-8 September 2017, use attached brochure. To sign-on as a sponsor, contact me directly via (317) 346-7156. Don’t wait on either matter! Attendance this year is strictly limited to 200, due to meeting space availability at The Alexander host hotel in downtown Indianapolis, IN.
Postscript. No promises, but there’s a good chance this presentation will be published in the near future, enabling reprint circulation to land lease communities nationwide, only just now realizing they must buy new HUD-Code homes to sell and seller-finance on-site, if they plan to continue in business during the years ahead. But don’t wait for this to ‘maybe happen’. Be present for this first public presentation of the present and future evolution of chattel capital.
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George Allen, CPM & MHM
COBA7, a division of GFA Management, Inc., dba PMN Publishing
Box # 47024, Indianapolis, IN. 46247
(317) 346-7156.