NEW LEASE REQUIREMENTS FOR LAND LEASE COMMUNITIES
Blog Posting # 660 @ 18 October 2021: EducateMHC
Perspective. ‘Land lease communities, previously manufactured home communities, and earlier, ‘mobile home parks’, comprise the real estate component of manufactured housing!’
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INTRODUCTION: Just realized I’ve been penning this weekly blog posting for nearly 13 years! It started back in the latter days of the ‘Manufactured Home Merchandiser’ magazine (2008), the year before manufactured housing shipments hit rock bottom, the nadir year being 2009. Anyway, here’s the news of today (Part I), tomorrow (Part II), and maybe/maybe not another book for you to read sometime in the future. GFA
I
NEW LEASE REQUIREMENTS FOR
LAND LEASE COMMUNITIES
On September 13, 2021, Freddie Mac issued a Press Release pertaining to its’ financing of land lease community purchases. Per that Press Release, the GSE is implementing eight tenant protections as a condition on all future transactions involving the GSE.
1. Lease length & Ability to Not Renew. One year renewable lease term, unless there is ‘good cause’ for non-renewal.
2. Rental Increase Notice Period. 30 day written notice of rent increases.
3. Grace Period for Rental Payments. Five-day grace period for rent payments and the right to cure defaults on rent payments.
4. Tenant’s Sale of Home Without Relocation. Right to sell home to a buyer that qualifies as a new tenant in community, without having to first relocate it out of the community.
5. Tenant’s Sale of Home after Eviction. Right to sell home in place within 30 days after eviction by the community owner.
6. Tenant’s Right to Sublease. Right to sublease, or assign the site lease, for the unexpired term to the new buyer of the tenant’s home without any unreasonable restraint, so long as buyer/sublessee qualifies as a tenant within the community.
7. Tenant ‘For Sale’ Signs. Right to post home ‘For Sale’ signs that comply with community rules and regulations.
8. Notice of Planned Community Sales. Right to receive at least 60-days notice of planned sale or closure of the community.
Of course these eight tenant protections will be required only when a land lease community mortgage is being guaranteed by this GSE.
II.
Four Ways Runaway Housing Prices Might Affect the U.S. Economy
In a communique from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, Don Layton writes of an “astounding increase of 19.2 percent” in the Housing Index during the past 12 months, leading him to observe these have become nothing less than ‘runaway home prices’. Then he asks, more than rhetorically, is the impact such runaway home prices will likely have on our national economy. He cites four; the first one positive, the next three not so much so.
1. Helping GDP (Gross Domestic Product) to grow. “Household consumption is the biggest source of GDP, and is influenced not just by the wages and other income of the typical family but by the household’s net worth. This is known as the wealth effect….” Given the meteoric rise in the Housing Index, this translates into more than $50,000 per household – increasing their willingness and capability to spend more if they wish to do so.
2. Making income inequality noticeably worse. Especially between the homeowner population, as the Housing Index continues to increase, and the35 percent of American families who rent their residences and do not enjoy the residual benefits of this rise in wealth. “Thus, ‘have’ and ‘have not’ is increasingly becoming synonymous whether a family owns their home or not.”
3. Pushing down the homeownership rate. “…a family looking to buy their first home is suffering a major decline in purchasing power.” This has much to do with the 22.5 percent increase in house prices since the pandemic began (offset somewhat by lower mortgage rates), leading to a net increase of more than 10 percent. This will especially impact the first time would be homebuyers.
4. Inadvertently causing reports of inflation to be misleadingly low. This is a complicated, difficult to explain, phenomenon – having to do with the manner in which the federal government computes inflation rate, along with the aforementioned increasing Housing Index coupled with decreasing mortgage interest rates. Suffice it to say here that the present five percent inflation rate (per U.S. government) may or may not come down if/when the supply chain issues are resolved.
It behooves each and every one of us to be alert to news and accounting reports that address one or more of the preceding four potential impacts on our national economy and lifestyle.
III.
‘SMITTYALPHA6’, A NOT SO SMALL TALE
By now, most of my friends – in and out of business environs, and family, are familiar with the book title: ‘From SmittyAlpha6 to MHMaven’. Writing that collection of memoirs (i.e. ‘short stories’) into my autobiography was a project decades in the making. And if I have a single thing to be grateful for, where the pandemic is concerned, it’s having 400 days of self-quarantine with Carolyn, during which we read books, did jigsaw puzzles together, and I finally put pen to paper. Now I’m trying to self-motivate to begin reading through, by coincidence, 400 letters I penned and sent to Carolyn during years 1968 & 69. I know there are more ‘SmittyAlpha6’ (i.e. my radio call sign while a company commander in Vietnam) tales contained in there to, once again, share with family and friends. But I also fear some of the memories they might stimulate….Guess I’ll have to wait and see.
Point in telling you all this? If reading this 200 page non-fiction book interests you, make it a point to order it soon. Only a few dozen copies remain from the initial printing and there are no plans, at this point, to do a second printing. So, to order, visit www.educatemhc.com
George Allen, CPM, MHM
Educatemhc