New Year Resolutions for 2017 & Much More!

Blog # 423 Copyright 2016 COBA7® 4 December 2016; community-investor.com

Perspective. ‘Land-lease communities, previously manufactured home communities, & ‘mobile home parks’, comprise the real estate component of manufactured housing.’

This blog posing is the sole national advocacy 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: (8777) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764.

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!’

INTRODUCTION. Hang on! This is going to be a three part ride through 1) planning for the year 2017; 2) bracing for the coming ‘continued regulation’ vs. ‘deregulation’ of manufactured housing; and, 3) triple opportunity for specialized personal and professional education in Louisville, KY., on 17 January 2017. Ready? Well, here goes…

I.

What Are Your New Year Resolutions?

Year 2017 is but a few weeks away, making this the ideal time to reflect upon, and articulate, New Year Resolutions to guide one’s thinking and actions during the next 12 months. And year 2017 is poignant (‘biting, painfully acute’), as we move deeper into the ‘17 year paradigm shift’ we’ve endured since year 2000. The difference this year? Since we know we’re well within a NEW ERA for this industry and its real estate asset class, land-lease communities (a.k.a. ‘New Breed of MHRetailer & Lender’), why not reflect the changes, to respective business models to date, in the New Year Resolutions identified and codified? For starters, here’s the way I see them:

• Support the new President of the United States of America!

• HUD-Code housing manufacturers to redouble efforts to market and sell new homes into land-lease communities, large & small, coast-to-coast! Part of this will require manufacturers to teach LLCommunity owners/operators how to specify, order, install, market, sell, affordably price, and seller-finance homes they buy from factories.

• Land-lease community owners/operators to NOT heed the siren call to ‘double one’s rental homesite rates’ during 2017; but rather, offer fair and affordable housing propositions, i.e. Where possible, keeping combined monthly PITI mortgage & site rent payment ‘together’, at or below the National Average Affordable Housing Market Rent of $849/unit – including household expenses where possible. Of course, this will not work in some high-priced local housing markets.

• Emphasize importance of – and provide opportunities to receive, professional property management training & certification, for all on-site land-lease community managers overseeing 75 or more rental homesites. Everyone to be a Certified Property Manager, Accredited Community Manager, or Manufactured Housing Manager.

• Support one or more national advocacy entities who best represent one’s business interests as housing manufacturers or land-lease community owners/operators, within and outside Washington, DC.

• And what other one(s) might be added to this august 2017 list? (317) 346-7156.

II.

Manufactured Housing Faces Another Fork in the Road?!

Last Week You Learned of the Imminent Danger of Manufactured
Housing Going from being Affordable to Non-affordable
&
Now, This Weeks Message, Has to Do with Manufactured Housing, Maybe Going from being Regulated to Non-regulated!

Here goes…Chalk the following paragraph up to being rumor, truth, or mix thereof…

A few Fall seasons ago, HUD realized, as regulator of manufactured housing, it was not receiving enough income from label fees to cover expenses, so they (reportedly) sought relief from manufactured housing regulatory duties altogether. The Government Accounting Office (‘GAO’) interviewed HUD-Code home manufacturers to gauge their reaction(s) to the query, ‘What if HUD went away?’ At that point, ‘the MHIndustry’ stepped in surreptitiously (Did you ever read about that? I didn’t.). Next thing we knew, there was a major increase in HUD inspection fees at all factories. And at that point, the ‘threat’ – or was it an ‘opportunity’, for deregulation, went away. And enhanced federal regulatory oversight began…recall how (2007) new home installation & dispute resolution legislation, moved quickly from back to front burner, during years 2015 & 2016.

Fast forward to today. The parties to the decades old MH regulatory brouhaha are:

U. S. Department of Housing & Urban Development or HUD. Relative to manufactured housing, the federal regulatory agency. An agency, until the recent presidential election, appeared hell bent on extending their oversight and enforcement reach into every corner of manufactured housing fabrication and land-lease community installation, including dispute resolution and its’ minimal number of disputes to resolve..

Manufactured Housing Institute or MHI. Self-professed national advocate for all segments of the HUD-Code manufactured housing industry, including land-lease communities nationwide. Enjoys a reputation for being conciliatory, where regulatory matters are concerned. In large part responsible, since the mid-1970s, for turning the ‘lemon’ of HUD-Code housing regs into ‘lemonade’, as the turn of phrase goes, using the federal preemption nature of HUD’s national building code to its advantage. Though some now question whether the industry’s recent avoidance of deregulation might be akin to suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, i.e. empathizing with HUD regulators (‘Its’ captor’), versus seeking ‘freedom from regulation’ altogether.

Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform or MHARR. Since 1985, the manufactured housing industry’s champion (a.k.a. The Washington watchdog!’) for less federal regulation of the factory-built housing product. Seemingly, a would-be champion of deregulation – unless they too fear the unknown consequences of free market enterprise, where the future of manufactured housing is concerned.

And therein lies the rub…

Will, under a new president with a penchant for less federal regulation of business and otherwise, the manufactured housing industry be faced with wholesale deregulation, similar to what was described – but did not come about, in the opening paragraph of this recitation? The quickest path to deregulation would appear to be: Press for bureaucratic change within HUD’s present day manufactured housing program.

Or, will the manufactured housing industry be better served, by not ‘rocking HUD’s bureaucratic boat’, in a quest for installing less regulatory-minded bureaucrats within HUD’s manufactured housing program? Now there’s a sensitive question begging a wise answer.

Hmm. Sounding like a ‘Damned if you do & damned if you don’t’ scenario with each sequential paragraph…

What do you think? I, for one, would truly like to know. I’m conflicted. And frankly, nothing would please blog readers more, than to have elected leaders within MHI & MHARR, comment as to which course of action is best for the present and future of the manufactured housing industry:

• Unchanged HUD-Code regulation of home fabrication and new home installation

• Scaled back regulation of home fabrication and new home installation

• Complete deregulation of home fabrication and new home installation

What say YOU? Well, we distributed a DRAFT copy of this blog posting to several ‘deep thinkers’ in the MHBusiness. Here’s one of the answers we received:

“Having received some advantages of HUD regulation, over local building codes, my money is continuing under HUD regulation, but with more representation/involvement by all segments of the MH industry – certainly not relying completely on either of the two current national lobbyists.”

Interesting how this comment echoes MHARR’s recent call for better national representation of all post-production segments of the MHIndustry, certainly better than what is evident today. So, one more reason to expect, during the weeks ahead a major announcement from the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance, or COBA7, a division of GFA Management, Inc., dba PMN Publishing.

If you’re not yet affiliated with COBA7, but would like to be, use the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764.

III.

Pre-Louisville MHShow, Day of Education!

January 17, 2017

Three Seminar Sessions Designed Especially for You!

All day, 17 January 2017, at the Crown Plaza Hotel on Phillips Lane, Louisville, KY., the Manufactured Housing Manager, or MHM, professional property management training & certification program. Taught by Katie Hauck, MHM, & Kathy Taylor, MHM. Cost? Only $250.00 MHM candidate. No testing. Starts at 9AM and ends at 4PM. Tuition pays for copy of Landlease Community Management text, monograph of contemporary writings, as well as MHM certificate & MHM lapel pin. Register via genevieve@roane.com or phone (317) 346-7156.

Morning of 17 January 2017, at the Crown Plaza Hotel on Phillips Lane in Louisville, KY., George Allen, CPM & MHM will lead a three hour seminar (9AM-Noon) designed for HUD-Code home manufacturers who want to learn How to Identify Land-lease Communities in all four major segmentations of the realty asset class. Open discussion relative How to Best Market & Sell New HUD-Code Homes to this Emerging Market.
To register, phone (317) 346-7156. Cost? Only $95.00 per registrant

Afternoon of 17 January 2017, at the Crown Plaza Hotel on Phillips Lane in Louisville, KY., Spencer Roane, MHM, will lead a three plus hour seminar (1PM – 4PM) introducing attendees to the basics and fine points of Lease-option Methodology, relative to seller-financing new and resale manufactured homes within land-lease communities. To register, contact Genevieve@roane.com or phone (317) 346-7156. Cost? Only $95.00 per registrant.

Then, stay over, and attend the Louisville MHShow, 18-20 January 2017.

***

George Allen, CPM & MHM
Box # 470-24, Indianapolis, IN. 46247
(317) 346-7156