To GO or NOT to GO?’, Guidebook + Rumor has it…
Blog # 399 Copyright 2016 COBA7® @ 5 June 2016; community-investor.com website
Perspective: ‘Land-lease-lifestyle Communities, a.k.a. manufactured home communities and ‘mobile home parks’, comprise the real estate component of manufactured housing.’
This blog posting is the sold national advocacy voice, official ombudsman & historian, research report & online communication media for North American LLLCommunities!
To input this blog &/or affiliate with Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance®, a.k.a. COBA7®, use Official MHIndsutry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764.
COBA7® Motto = ‘U Support US & WE Serve U!’ Goal of its’ print/online media = ‘Not only inform & opine, but transform & improve MHBusiness Model Performance!’
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INTRODUCTION. ‘On a Personal Note’ is sincere, timely, and pertinent!
‘To Go or Not to Go?’ also sincere, timely, and personally pertinent – describing my frustrations about paying dues to, and being unduly imitated by the national advocacy body (division) I helped found between years 1993 & 1996. For details of that beginning, read Bruce Savage’s The First 20 Years!, PMN Publishing, Indianapolis, IN., 2013.
‘Guidebook for Selling & Seller-Financing New HUD-Code Homes in Land-lease-lifestyle Communities’ is the likely product of the recent Two Days of Plant Tours & Home Sales Seminars, in Elkhart, IN. Attempts at such a guidebook have failed in the past. Hopefully there’ll be a positive result this time around, as ‘home sales & seller-financing’ Lessons Learned, and penned by Adriane DeRose, MHM®, Pamela Ziemer, MHM®, Jamie Dougherty, MHM®, Kenneth Lipschutz & Danya Mallad, and Spencer Roane, MHM® are collected and published in an easy-to-use HOW TO guide for LLLCommunity owners/operators. To be distributed at 25th anniversary Networking Roundtable, 7-9 September 2016, at the Gaylord Opryland hotel in Nashville, TN.
And finally, ‘Rumor Has It’. Given the veracity of this recent rumor, will exorbitant price increases for new HUD-Code manufactured homes, be a Wake-up Call (to action), OR, Death Knell for the MHIndustry – where its’ affordable housing heritage and reputation are concerned? Think about it….Better yet, be Ready to React if/when it’s official!
I.
On a Personal Note…
MANY THANKS to the 75+ of you who, via Facebook, sent Birthday Greetings on 1 June, as Carolyn & I celebrated my 71st birthday. We spent the day sightseeing & lunching at an old stagecoach station turned B&B, in the remote rural quaint town of Story, IN – a place that describes itself as ‘an inconvenient location since 1851.’ Then shopped in Nashville, IN, before heading home for wine and cheese on the back porch.
For those intrigued by my reference to Operation Dewey Canyon, when commemorating Memorial Day. If you took my advice and googled ‘Dewey Canyon 1969’, you likely found a four minute film clip titled: ‘1969 Marine Corps Operation Dewey (Canyon)’. Know that, as you watch it, Marines shown using hand and arm signals to guide CH46 helicopters into landing zones, are HSTs (Helicopter Support Teams) from the Shore Party Company I commanded as a 24 year old first lieutenant. And several of the action sequences (e.g. firing of 155mm howitzers & Marines in the assault) continue to stimulate memories from 47 years past…
II.
To Go or Not to Go?
Sometimes Disappointed When I DO (go), & Expect to be Imitated When I DON’T (go), to NCC Division Meetings…
Next meeting of the Manufactured Housing Institute’s National Communities Council (‘NCC’) division is from 11AM to 12:15PM on Monday, 27 June, in Indianapolis, IN.
I’m sometimes disappointed when I DO (go), because…
• Rarely is input solicited beforehand, as it was in the past by Michael O’Brien, for topics members desired to be listed on the NCC meeting agenda
• And then, a set agenda, decided by someone, is distributed upon arrival at the meeting, rarely before.
• Nor is enough time allotted (e.g. only 1 ¼ hr. this time around), or proceedings controlled well enough, to cover the entire agenda, let alone added topics
• Hardly ever more than a dozen LLLCommunity owners are present at meeting; and those in leadership positions are almost always from the largest of the property portfolio firms. Consequence? Little sensitivity to the needs of small to mid-sized owners/operators.
• And worst of all, from time to time, one can expect to be publicly and verbally ambushed within an NCC meeting – recalling the 8 October 2012 NCC meeting incident, in San Antonio, TX.
And I’m oft undercut and or imitated, as a community owner, freelance consultant, and direct dues-paying NCC board member, when I DON’T (go), e.g.
• The MHM® certification program predates ACM® by three years, has trained and designated far more professional property managers, but continues to be ignored by the NCC & MHEI, as an education vehicle for LLLCommunity folk!
• The annual international networking roundtable has been so successful during its’ 24 year run, it just had to be imitated by the NCC, with a downtown Chicago event for major LLLCommunity portfolio owners/operators.
• And the 27 year ALLEN REPORT, also predating the NCC, is now imitated by that division’s ‘Largest 50 Owners & Operators’ list. Is nothing respected in the manufactured housing business & LLLCommunity real estate asset class?
What would I like to see on the 27 June NCC division meeting agenda, for discussion?
• Chattel capital. Discuss restoration of easy access – if possible; other potential sources; even hybrid forms of financing on-site new home sales transactions, e.g. lease-option, post titling, etc…
• Small to mid-sized LLLCommunity owners/operators. How to attract them to join NCC and voice their needs, as more and more of them know they must now buy new HUD-Code homes, sell & oft seller-finance them on-site, if they’re to remain profitable in this difficult business climate – given the disappearance of 10,000 independent (street) MHRetailers during the past 15 years!
• Discontinue ‘Largest 50 Community Owners & Operators’ list. Why? Errors and oversights, in latest edition, discouraged potential new members from joining.
• Propose bylaws change – or, if need be, create NCC division bylaws; among other things, permitting proxy voting by direct, dues-paying MHI members.
• Announce and encourage purchase of LLLCommunity portfolio owner/operator Al Schrader’s autobiography, ‘No Respect At All’…A PATH TO MILLION$, as it’s a ‘good read’ and he’s donating all $ proceeds to the RV/MH Hall of Fame!
So, with all that ‘said & done’, would you spend $429.00 to attend the MHI meeting, including NCC division meeting, in Indianapolis, IN., on 26-28 June?
Well, I’ve decided to do so! Why?
FIRST; the meetings are in my backyard. SECOND, there’s a guest speaker scheduled, whose research is, in the words of MHI, to help lay “…a foundation of professional and authoritative industry data.” – ”As MHI seeks to improve industry data and statistics….” In my opinion, MHI can start that quest (‘pursuit’) NOW, before the June meeting, by simply reporting monthly shipment volume of new HUD-Code homes in the same manner as the Institute for Building Technology & Safety (‘IBTS’) – the MHIndustry’s official scorekeeper. HUD, MHARR & COBA7® already do so! And THIRD? Well, I just don’t need any more surprise usurping of products and services long supplied to land-lease-lifestyle community owners/operators by the Community Owners (7 part) Business Alliance®, or COBA7®. Call it ‘protecting one’s turf’, if you will. And FOURTH; if I don’t go, as a single LLLCommunity owner, there’ll likely be no one else speaking up in behalf of the ‘85% of 50,000+/- LLLCommunity owners/operators’ whose properties number fewer than 100 rental homesites apiece!
See you in Indianapolis later this month! MHI and I, Welcome your Support! GFA
III
.
Guidebook for Selling & Seller-financing New HUD-Code
Homes On-site in Land-lease-lifestyle Communities!
Guidebook, if it materializes as planned, will be the legacy of the first Two Days of Plant Tours & Home Sales Seminars, held last in late May at the RV/MH Hall of Fame in Elkhart, IN. The six presenters have already been asked to submit outlines and or narratives of their respective seminars:
GETTING READY!
BUYING HOMES!
SELLING HOMES!
FINANCING HOMES!
Some of the unique features also being planned for inclusion in this ‘first ever’ new home HOW TO sales guide, for use in LLLCommunities, are as follows:
• Excerpts from Al Schrader’s autobiography, ‘No Respect At All’…A PATH TO MILLION$. He comments expertly on the ‘state of the MHIndustry’ and describes his firm’s evolution from ‘contract sales’ thru to ‘captive finance’ and beyond. If you haven’t read it yet, you really should. Only $25.00 postpaid. Just phone (317) 346-7156. All $ proceeds go to the RV/MH Hall of Fame!
• The ‘Six Ps of Planning’ & the ‘Six Right Ps for Marketing New Homes in LLLCommunities’
• Characteristics of Community Series Homes and where to order them…
• National Registry of All Lenders; chattel capital & real estate-secured
• Directory of Major Factory-built Housing Manufacturers
• Official MHIndustry Lexicon, Glossary.
The goal is to have the guidebook printed and bound in time for distribution at the 25th anniversary Networking Roundtable, 7-9 September, at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville, TN. If you’d like to ensure an ‘invite’ to this highly popular 2 ½ day event, phone the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764 and ask to have your name placed on the reservation list.
IV.
Rumor Has it…
The new Department of Energy (‘DOE’) rule relative to energy use will, reportedly, jack the price of a new singlesection manufactured home by at least $2,226 maybe $4,000.And jack the price of a new multisection manufactured home by at least $3,109 maybe $6,000. Whew! And know what? These estimates, last I checked, do NOT include or reflect testing, enforcement, and regulatory compliance costs! True or False? Methinks we’ll soon learn more as said rule is released. It will be interesting, even ‘telling’, to observe just how our two Washington, DC., trade advocacy groups address, and SELL or OPPOSE, these anticipated exorbitant price increases to HUD-Code manufactured homes
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George Allen, CPM®, MHM®
Box # 47024, Indianapolis, IN. 46247
(317) 346-7156.