The five year recovery is real from the bottom hit by manufactured home producers, yet tepid compared to the MH potential. We can cheer every baby step forward, while challenging all to see that we are surrounded by opportunities to grow many times faster than the MH Industry has been.
The facts, figures, videos and commentaries in this special State of the Manufactured Housing Industry issue all point to the fact that individually and collectively, we can do much better.
We could have produced an issue twice this size, and still have topics, examples and added commentary untouched. This is more than enough to encourage an industry discussion of where we are, where we should be and how to get there. So your thoughts – private and for publication – on these articles and videos are encouraged.
Lived Experiences
A decade ago, your Masthead scribe was put in charge of supervising 7 manufactured home communities that had been losing occupancy for years. Part of the recovery plan I put on the table – which upper management largely okayed and adopted – was to reallocate budgeted dollars from one task to another….
…thus, in the next 18 months, our region lead that company, doubling the sales results of two larger regions combined. We’ve had other like outcomes since, whenever the vision and plan are properly put to work.
We are doing such growth programs today. These are done, working with willing strategic partners, via our consulting operation. The successes that flow are always a team result. So principles that worked a decade ago, works now too. In fact, we have more tools today than back then. Team work, works.
So what’s observed in those articles this month that focus on the State of the Industry and its potential – these are not mere theories – these are tested principles that should make MH owners, managers and investors cheer…
…once they are understood, embraced and energetically adopted.
Please ponder as you read the various reports. See the picture that emerges. MH is barely scratching the surface of what can be done.
Once you review the reports, decide to set time aside to discuss how your firm or organization – by re-allocating resources most already have – can go from where you are to where you should be. Forward thinkers and doers are and will be the leaders in this team effort – allies – strategic Partners in MH Progress.
We are working with firms small to large and in between. What could happen through wise action?
> Our nation’s MHCs ought to be full, have waiting lists and often see appreciation of the resident-owned homes in them.
> Our retail centers can grow rapidly and profitably.
> Factory home producers can increase production and profitably expand with confidence.
> Developments should renew anew the boom days of the past, but do it even better than before.
> Suppliers can sell more, financial services can do more too while reducing risk when the right steps are taken.
> Associations could benefit by making PEP a true reality.
Warren Buffett, Sam Zell and Jim Clayton are only some of the billionaires who “get it” about the MH potential and reality, and thus they want to do more. They are not alone! Outside investors read our pages routinely. We are getting more contacts and inquiries from firms of all sizes. Expect entries by operations of all sizes into the MH field.
MH could change in the twinkling of an eye, as it did a dozen years ago when Berkshire Hathaway first bought in.
Will you be part of it? Will you get left behind or be an also ran?
The multi-billion dollar players are on the sidelines; nibbling, bitting or waiting to make a big summer-time cannonball style splash.
Are there challenges? You bet. Easy doesn’t pay well, until you make what was once hard, easy…
Please dive into our big June issue. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks as always for your readership and my sincere appreciation for all those who support our MH Industry advancement efforts. You are reading this because others in the know who want to grow make it possible.
June 2015 Featured Articles
Featured Articles and Reports for Vol. 6, No. 8, 2015
Alphabetically by Category
COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT & FAIR HOUSING (LEGAL)
• Tornado Safety – Photos that tell you to ‘have a plan’ for your Community
by Kathleen M. Bianculli, CIC
It’s tornado season and a great time to look at your community’s plan for both tenants and employees.
•The Post That Should Not Need to be Written
by Nadeen Green, JD
FINANCING
• Senator Joe Donnelly on Preserving Access to Manufactured Housing
by Senator Joe Donnelly and others
Editor’s Note: Senator Joe Donnelly and his team provided the following for-the-record response to MHProNews’ recent inquiry about manufactured housing related finance issues.
GENERAL MANUFACTURED HOUSING INDUSTRY TOPICS
• Letter to Tony Kovach from Midwest Manufactured Housing Federation and the Louisville Show Committee
by Ron Thomas, Sr.
Dear Tony, I want to thank you for your exceptional work in promoting and providing educational seminars these last 5 years for the Louisville Show.
• Mobile Homes and Trailer Houses Are Dead …and have been for nearly 40 years
by Victor Frost
Every day our phone rings, or a customer walks into the Home Center, and they utter the words that are cringe worthy; “We want some information on your trailer houses” or “We’d like to look at some of your mobile homes.”
• Manufactured Homes – myths, reality and potential
by Tim Connor, CSP
For years the manufactured housing industry has fought to maintain and in many cases even establish itself as a viable alternative to site built homes.
• A Nation of Renters…or Home Buyers?
by L. A. “Tony” Kovach
The quarter full glass in front of you is begging to be filled. The growing demand for rental housing – and spiking rental rates – are crying out for manufactured housing to tap into those potential markets.
• Manufactured Home Lenders at the Tunica Manufactured Housing Show Sound Off
by L. A. “Tony” Kovach
The recent Tunica Show brought about an amazingly rapid move from the prior location at the now closed Harrah’s site, to what the planned location at another Caesar’s property was supposed to be before the hiccup occurred, and finally to the location that came to pass.
•Don Glisson, Jr – CEO Triad Financial Services on Dodd-Frank, HR 650 S 682 and Manufactured Housing Financing
by L. A. “Tony” Kovach
The comments that follow are the ‘full length’ comments shared by Triad Financial’s Chairman and CEO, Don Glisson, Jr..
• Manufactured Housing By State and By the Numbers
by L. A. “Tony” Kovach
In this ‘State of the Manufactured Housing Industry’ June 2015 issue, we are looking at a wide range of facts and figures, all of which should point to the current realities of our industry as well as to the potential for growth.
• Scott Roberts – Roberts Resorts and Communities – Video Insights for Manufactured Housing Industry and Investment Professionals
by L. A. “Tony” Kovach
On June 4th, this insightful video interview will be finished and launched on this page. Please check back on that date to see it, thank you!
• Realtors ® and Manufactured Housing Growth
by L. A. “Tony” Kovach
There are those who have told me that ‘going after’ getting Realtors ® involved with a retail center or MH|Community as a path to growing manufactured housing sales is a waste of time.
• The State of the Manufactured Housing Industry
by L. A. “Tony” Kovach
Manufactured housing (MH) nationally is alive and growing. Our manufacturers are producing the best homes ever.
• Rural Living – Returning to Exurban America?
by Matthew Silver
Before the meltdown of the housing market in 2008, metro areas lost 1.6 million people as the call of more wide open spaces, sprawling subdivisions and available mortgage credit drew people beyond the suburbs into exurbia, the outer ring.
• Does it Matter what we call them? Mobile Home, Manufactured Home…?
by Lea Anne Somerville
Home, Sweet, Home. Home is where the heart is. A house is just a house until we move inside, ahhhh, then it becomes a home. What is a home? Or more specifically, for the purposes of my article, what is the definition of a “mobile home?”
• Small is Better … If it’s Beautiful
by Bob Vahsholtz
There’s a bit of flak flying around about RV makers encroaching on our turf.
MANAGEMENT
• Matthew Kelly – Energy Management – Keynote Video Clip
by L. A. “Tony” Kovach
Matthew Kelly raises an interesting topic in this video clip. Beyond time management, what comes next? Kelly argues that the answer is ‘energy management.
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS, MOTIVATION and INSPIRATION
• ZigOn Personality
by Zig Ziglar
My dictionary tells me that personality is the “personal or individual quality that makes one person be different and act differently from another.”
