MHInitiative@2/27/2014? & Hats Off to Mharrio!
Blog Column @ 279 Copyright 2014 12 January 2014
George Allen writes about MHBusiness Matters, Issues & Serious Concerns
Perspective. ‘Land-lease-lifestyle communities, a.k.a. manufactured home communities & earlier, ‘mobile home parks’, is the real estate component of manufactured housing.’
Purpose of this blog. “To be the national advocacy voice, statistical research reporter, & communication resource for LLLCommunities, of all sizes, throughout North America!’
How to Input. Critical responses & helpful ideas Welcome for future blog coverage; via gfa7156@aol.com & Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764
I.
MHIndustry Meetings @ January & February 2014
II.
MHInitiative® 2014?
III.
‘Hats off to Mharrio!’
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I.
MHIndustry Meetings @ January & February 2014
What do Rishel Consulting, the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance or COBA7, Louisville MHShow, a national manufactured housing advocacy body’s annual legislative conference, and MHInitiative®2014, all convening during January & February 2014, have in common?
A lively interest in HOW TO MARKET, SELL & FINANCE MORE NEW MANUFACTURED HOMES ON-SITE WITHIN LAND-LEASE-LIFESTYLE COMMUNITIES DURING 2014! Here’s how this might well materialize with your help:
1. Need to ‘Learn How to Advertise, Market, and Sell Homes Successfully and Legally in 2014’?, be present at Rishel Consulting’s one day seminar, 21 January at the Crown Plaza Hotel adjacent to Kentucky State Fairgrounds in Louisville, KY! 100+ already signed up. Learn from Ken & Donna Rishel (Ken is Manufactured Housing’s ‘Industry Person of the Year for 2013’!), Dennis Ohnstad, MHM®; Bill & Chad Carr; John Ace Underwood; & Eddie Hicks. To register, for $ 95., phone (312) 878-2802.
2. While the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance won’t be formally meeting in Louisville, during 21 – 24 January, there’ll be face-to-face opportunities for YOU to input three key COBA7 events and projects: a) Ask for ‘an invite’ to participate in MHInitiative®2014 (See paragraph # 5 to follow) when HUD-Code home manufacturers and LLLCommunity owners/operators convene again, at the RV/MH Hall of Fame in Elkhart, IN; b) Have an itch to describe your LLLCommunity operations experiences and create a personal legacy? Volunteer to input the new book planned this year: Lessons Learned in LLLCommunity Operations! No writing experience required; and, c) Want to attend the National FOCUS Group meeting, 2 & 3 April 2014? ‘Ask ME for an invite’, to avoid being missed later. Or phone Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764.
3. 22 – 24 January 2014 = Louisville MHShow. This is rejuvenated Midwest MHTrade Show canceled several years ago. Dozens of new HUD-Code homes will be displayed indoors, along with dozens of supplier exhibits. The Big Question This Year? How many ‘show homes’ will be Community Series Homes, or CSH Models, designed for placement within land-lease-lifestyle communities? This has been a sad shortfall with previous regional shows. Home manufacturers must realize, any major increase in annual home shipment volume, depends on filling 250,000 vacant rental homesites nationwide! Call Dennis Hill @ (770) 587-3350
4. 9 – 11 February 2014. Annual Legislative Conference in Arlington, VA. If you have a hankering for a firsthand look at how manufactured housing industry lobbying is handled in our nation’s capitol, consider participating in this event. Phone (703) 558-0400 for details and to register.
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5. 27 February 2014. Does the date ring familiar to YOU? If an industry veteran, it should! Why? On 27 February 2009, 100+/- HUD-Code home manufacturers and (then) manufactured home community owners/operators, from throughout the U.S., convened at the RV/MH Hall of Fame facility in Elkhart, IN., to address this challenge: How to Sell More Manufactured Homes Into MHCommunities!’ That’s where the Community Series Home, or CSH Model homes concept was birthed! And now, on 27 February 2014, six years later, we’re returning! Why? Read the next segment (II) of this blog posting. Might surprise you….
II.
MHInitiative @ 2014?
At RV/MH Hall of Fame on Thursday, 27 February 2014. Be there! Why?
Well, the first time around, 2/27/2009, we did successfully ‘break the ice’ and get HUD-Code home manufacturers and property portfolio owners/operators talking – then designing/manufacturing/ordering/shipping new homes! These manufacturers now routinely use the annual ALLEN REPORT and Direct Mail Campaigns to the 500+/- known portfolio ‘players’ to market their homes. But this time around, the challenge is different, and actually more difficult to solve. Being? ‘How to Market & Sell More Manufactured Homes Into (Stand alone) Land-lease-lifestyle Communities!’ Yes, Mom&Pop-sized/owned LLLCommunities, for the most part, are ‘emptying out’, as longtime owners/operators no longer can rely on independent ‘street’ MHRetailers, in local housing markets, to fill vacant rental homesites within their properties. So, this is a one day opportunity for HUD-Code home manufacturers, and property owners, to figure out: 1) How to identify these 40,000+/- prospective, one-off customers, 2) How to effectively sell new Community Series Homes directly to them, & 3) How to find chattel capital to finance on-site deals – and/or 4) How to engage in Lease-Options, and other ‘captive finance’ alternatives – all the while being compliant with applicable state and federal finance regulations. YES, this is a very tall order, but have YOU noticed anyone, anywhere else, in the entire manufactured housing industry ‘stepping up to the plate’ to BRAINSTORM HOW TO: 1) Market & Sell more HUD-Code homes, & 2) Fill vacant rental homesites in LLLCommunities? The answer is a resounding and disappointing, NO! So, if YOU’d like an ‘invite’ to this seminal, albeit ‘historic’ session; phone the MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764. This MHInitiative® session is One more Good Reason for YOU, as a LLLCommunity owner/operator, home manufacturer, and/or product/service vendor, serving this realty asset class, to formally affiliate with the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance, or COBA7, the sooner the better. How? Read next paragraph….
Talk to me about the MHInitiative®2014, and affiliating with COBA7, during our time together in Louisville, KY., from 21 – 24 January 2014. In brief, COBA7 Option I is a one year subscription to the Allen Letter professional journal for $134.95. Option II is the same newsletter, plus 25th annual ALLEN REPORT (A.k.a. ‘Who’s Who Among Land-lease-lifestyle Community Portfolio Owners/operators Throughout North America!’), and a dozen Signature Series Resource Documents & directories, all for $544.95. And Option III is all that’s in Option II, plus a one year subscription to the Allen CONFIDENTIAL! business newsletter for corporate presidents and CEOs, @ $944.95.
III.
‘Hats off to Mharrio!’
Have YOU seen and or read the Fall segment of the Federal 2013 Semi-Annual Regulatory Agenda (‘SRA’), detailing pending and anticipated rulemaking activities of 1) HUD, 2) DOE, & 3) EPA – pertaining to HUD-Code manufactured housing? Well, I hadn’t either; and likely never would have seen it, but for the efforts of Mharrio, there in Washington, DC. If you’d like a copy of this four page Memorandum, penned by Mark Weiss, dated 6 January 2014, phone (202) 783-4087. Tell him ‘George told me to call!’
One of several ‘concerns’ flagged in this document, reads thusly: “…instead of playing the active role…maintaining and preserving the affordability of manufactured housing – in conjunction with expert analysis and input of the MHCC (i.e. Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee’) – HUD may take the route of least resistance, and simply accept whatever ‘findings’ are concocted by DOE, which has already engaged in regulatory misconduct by selectively leaking a ‘draft’ of the proposed rule.” What does this mean t our industry and asset class? In my opinion, it’s an indication of a planned sneak attack – until reported by Mharrio – on the eminent affordability of HUD-Code manufactured housing, especially that sited within land-lease-lifestyle communities nationwide!
Where’s Mhiki? Waiting to read another view on this SRA (Semi-Annual Regulatory Agenda). How ‘bout you?
Mharrio & Mhiki? Introduced you to them two weeks ago in blog posting # 277 at the web site: community-investor.com
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George Allen, CPM & MHM
Box # 47024, Indpls, IN. 46247
(317) 346-7156