The Masthead

We are seeing signs of an uptick in Industry home shipments, as reported by the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) in recent months. What is the potential of the Manufactured Housing Industry today? What are the factors holding back the sales of manufactured homes? Let us take a brief survey of this timely and important topic.

In the upper Midwest area of Chicago where I am based, new manufactured housing costs tends to be about 40% or so below the price of new conventional construction that is similar in size. While the percentage of savings may vary from region to region, perhaps with lower savings in the South, higher savings in the North, we know that generally factory building can produce quality while saving money. Let’s imagine we had a cell phone called the xPhone that looked like and performed like an Apple iPhone, but was 40% lower in cost. One might imagine that the market potential for that product would be huge.

So applying that analogy to the manufactured housing industry, what are the elements or factors that support our growth, and what are the items that hinder our growth?

Industry Growth Factors include, but are not limited to:

• aging housing stock in much of the U.S.
• ever growing U.S. population
• high cost of conventional housing construction
• declining incomes
• growing population of retirees, limited fixed incomes
• the perception that Earth’s resources are limited or dwindling, and that greener more sustainable designs and building processes make good economic and public policy sense.

Hindering the manufactured housing Industry’s growth factors include, but are not limited to:

• remarketing, resale of homes; the lack of a strong resale mechanism that mirrors the real estate market hurts hampers every aspect of our Industry; starting with financing
• the appreciation vs depreciation issue
• the image issue (some of this is due to older ‘mobile home parks’ with old pre-HUD Code mobile homes, but other factors contribute, such as the media, lack of PR/remarketing, etc.)
• lack of a broad based marketing, educational, image building outreach to Americans and public officials; while a national GO RVing style campaign that worked so well for the recreational vehicle industry has been spoken about many times, it has never gone beyond the discussion stage in the manufactured housing industry as a whole
• financing and regulatory challenges
• a wide variety of skill sets among industry professionals, from companies who do a solid job of personnel development, motivation and training, to firms where the lack of same is dismal and apparent.

These lists could go on. But the point is this; the start of any growth program is candidly identifying the issues, and then just as honestly and aggressively addressing them!

The half a loaf is better than none approach has always made sense to me. Some states or area associations have done videos to promote the manufactured home lifestyle. One effort that has drawn attention and results is linked below:

We need more companies that will do, individually or in tandem with others, their own marketing and educational campaigns. We need more associations and organizations, individually or in unison with others, working to tap the incredible potential of the factory built housing world. We need some action, vs. more talk.

What is our industry’s potential?

On pages 107 – 108 of the new book, The Manufactured Housing Revolution, we see a common sense process that could grow sales to 229,600 HUD Code homes per year, to higher end range of 816,060 homes per year! That top number would represent an industry record year.

What are you willing to do to make those numbers a reality? It is your future. Let us work smarter to make that future brighter and more profitable. # #

L.A. ‘Tony’ Kovach, MHM
Manufactured Home Marketing Sales Management trade journal at www.MHMarketingSalesManagement.com aka www.MHMSM.com
tony@mhmsm.com
847-730-3692

History is often seen as a series of ‘great events.’ While great events obviously occur – the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Invasion of Normandy, the attack on the World Trade Center, the sub-prime bubble bursting in 2008 and so on – history is in fact made up of countless deeds that don’t make headlines or history books. In fact, it is numbers of individual actions or inactions that lead up to every ‘great’ historical event that ever was or will ever be.

So what does this observation have to do with manufactured housing?

Everything.

As I write this, we are at the end of July, August is upon us. We have five months left to do the everyday things that will effect the great manufactured housing turn-around of 2010! We as an Industry are up over last year in shipments! We have individually and collectively as companies and associations taken important steps that can move our businesses up, and those steps will move our Industry up!

When I wrote in the blog last Wednesday that ‘thousands’ of you reportedly wrote into FHFA to comment on the financing issue, what does that mean? That means that you, or someone like you, took the time to do an everyday thing.

Thousands – one individual event at a time – emailed or faxed FHFA. Throngs of you wrote or called your Congressman or Senators! Individual, everyday events that collectively can lead to more financing. In time that can lead us to still more sales, and that can yield good things for our customers, our businesses, associations, the Industry and our Nation.

Such seemingly small steps as sending a message into public officials, ‘those individual events,’ collectively can change the course of our Industry’s history!

Great things happen when a number of ‘little things’ happen first.

You and your team’s choices on the use of time and every day actions do matter. They are like drops of water that in time fill the bucket.

We have plenty of issues that our great Industry faces. We have demonstrated to ourselves as manufactured housing industry professionals and to public officials that we can mobilize thousands. Because we did this once in 2010, we can do so again. If we did this well once this year, we could do it even better next time!

We have another comments issue looming in August. We need to respond again. If you responded on the FHFA finance issue, respond to this HUD on-site completion issue. If you didn’t respond to the FHFA comments issue, here is your chance to be heard on what is truly another key topic for our Industry’s future. Please don’t let someone else do it, take the time to do it yourself, and then ask others to do the same. That discipline to act on these issues can lead us to a big benefit for more home sales for our industry.

Because individual actions matter, let’s do it again.

I will invite one or more industry pros to cover the importance of this on-site completion issue. Until then, please look at what MHARR has already provided us as the start of the understanding process.

Now let me shift gears for a few moments to another everyday issue that is a key part of the great Industry turn-around of 2010.

Some months back, our featured writer John Underwood made a statement that I think bears repeating. The turn-around of the Industry begins with the turn around and sales expansion of you and your firm! When your business is growing, so is the Industry! John also said that if we were doing a better job closing sales with the prospects we are already seeing, then we would be growing our businesses in a common sense fashion. John’s message bears re-reading; catch it here.

Our MHMSM.com IT and Production Manger, Bob Stovall, made an important point in his Cutting Edge in Online Marketing Blog recently that is related. Your people are spending time during working hours surfing the web. For most companies, it happens daily. Why not use that fact to your company’s advantage? Why not encourage or reward your team to spend that time getting to know their industry better? Why not encourage people to take advantage of all the free resources here at MHMSM.com?

As I write this, July is winding down. Our statistics tell us that nearly 1000 people a day are logging onto our site, that would be nearly 30,000 logins by professionals like you a month! Why are they – or you – here? Because our readers see value! They see news and views they can use! Leaders are readers. Learners are earners!

Some day, we will look back at 2010, and see how our everyday acts added up. The great turn around of 2010 is a series of modest, everyday events. Revolutions start with a few, and then those numbers grow.

You will look back someday. Will you look back with pride that you and your team did the everyday things that added up to make a difference? Will you do so with the knowledge that common sense daily disciplines resulted over time in a great outcome?

Vince Lombardi, or any great coach or leader, started their success stories with the basic daily drills. They started with the facts and the pep talks that challenged and encouraged their teams to give and be their best!

History is a great teacher. We can learn from our own experiences and from those of others. We read books or articles, or listen to podcasts, precisely to learn from others! To be inspired by another! We don’t want to be all alone. We instinctively know, we need others in order to be a success.

Innovation – Information – Inspiration for Industry Professionals is our tag line. As in our new book, The Manufactured Housing Revolution, over 500 years of experience by Industry pros can only help you and your team! Being involved in associations, but also being involved here daily, that can only help you and your team!

But it can only do so to the extent that you get and stay involved in The Manufactured Housing Revolution! Take the daily steps that make a difference. Read an article, then apply it’s lessons. Listen to or read Factory Built Housing Industry News at Noon and daily Manufactured Housing Market reports, and see what it may mean for you and your business.

Great events start with a series of modest ones. If we want the great event to have a lousy outcome, then we should waste our time on meaningless or less important stuff. But if we want a great outcomes, then we should do those little daily steps and drills that lead us over time to fantastic victories!

Thank you for being here, and for asking your associates and friends to be here too at MHMSM.com. We do it all for the factory built housing industry that we ourselves work in and serve daily. We do it all for…

…you. # #

L. A. ‘Tony’ Kovach
Manufactured Home Marketing Sales Management Industry Trade Journal
www.MHMarketingSalesManagement.com or MHMSM.com
tony@mhmsm.com
847-730-3692

“It takes two to speak the truth, one to speak and another to hear.” – Henry David Thoreau

The insight and power possible from a single sentence, a powerful quote, is telling indeed. The quotation above is a case in point. Let us see for a few moments how this quotation applies to the manufactured home and factory built housing industries.

Since 1976, new “mobile homes” have no longer been made. Yet, the search term “mobile home” is still far more powerful than the “manufactured housing” keyword search in Google, Yahoo, etc. The recent Foremost Insurance study, reported on in our exclusive INdustry in Focus Report by Eric Miller, tells us that the use of the term “mobile home” is rising among manufactured home owners! This tells us at a glance that

1. We as an industry aren’t doing the job of communicating this message to the public and

2. What communication is taking place isn’t being heard by enough people.

Ladies and gentlemen, our Industry is poised for greatness in terms of product quality, value and the demographics of the near future! But if we fail to communicate our tremendous value, then no wonder that the GSEs, FHFA or any number of federal agencies can thumb their nose at us on financing or any other issue!

In the new book – The Manufactured Housing Revolution! – that I was honored to edit and help write with over a dozen top factory built housing industry pros, the elements of success are all spelled out in those 190 pages. Yes, it is a good read. But the point I want to make is that speaking the truth must result in an effective connection with the audience.

If the industry financing faucet suddenly turned on, a number of retailers, land lease community operators, manufacturers and supplier/service firms of all types would become very happy. But how long would the euphoria last if we haven’t won the minds and hearts of the public we seek to serve? Would we merely see a repeat of the roaring 90′s, rising up to new highs, only to crash down to new lows?

To change this inevitable scenario, two things are required:

First, we must have the character and will to do what is right and prudent every time.

Second, we must have an ardent desire to serve our clients so well, to protect our lenders and vendors so well that we will never again see a Conseco-style meltdown scenario.

If we had 20,000,000 manufactured housing owners cheering for our industry, we would have financing, we would have no real problem with regulators, we’d have customers lined up at the doors and we would be singing all the way to our respective banks. As it is, how many in our own industry can we count on? I guarantee you, if you have a firm beyond mom and pop in size, the odds are sadly good that you have people in your company who don’t think well of our industry and our product. They are more influenced by the media than our own industry. That has to change if we are to reach our collective potential.

So it may sound self-serving to say that you and your staff need to become totally immersed in best practices, inspiration and pro-Industry news items found only at MHMSM.com. But that is the reality of things! If people are so busy “doing the job” every day, without at the same time becoming ambassadors for the industry, we have only more trouble waiting in the days ahead. We have to turn the 500,000 or so manufactured housing industry people into true believers! We have to serve so well that our customers become as ardent as the Apple iPhone customers are!

Yes, pick up the book The Manufactured Housing Revolution. Yes, read it cover to cover. But then keep it from gathering dust on your shelf afterwards – use it as your constant reference book. The Revolution can make you and your associates more successful than you have ever been! But it will take effort and it will take organic, fundamental change. It starts with you and your company, with you and your staff.

And that is the truth. Now it takes two to speak the truth, one to speak and another to hear it. # #

L. A. ‘Tony’ Kovach, ManufacturedHomeMarketingSalesManagement.com a.k.a. www.MHMSM.com; email Tony@mhmsm.com; voice 847-730-3692; iPhone 832-689-1729

Capitol Building, the home of the U.S. Congress. All photos by L.A.’Tony’ Kovach.

“Manufactured Housing Still Rocks!” with those words, Teresa Payne addressed the crowd at the busy L’Enfant Hotel solarium this morning, July 15th, an apt summation of this important MHI Summer Session meeting.

Some of the many ‘Who’s Who’ personalities were at this
Congressional mixer during the meeting! You can be next time too.

This will be the first of a series of reports you will find exclusively here on the Masthead blog, in articles by our MHMSM.com Industry In Focus Reporter Eric Miller’s articles and on our Factory Built Housing News at Noon podcasts by Erin Patla.

Merchandiser readers recall this DC attorney’s reports were important! You can read the Who, What, When, Where, How and Why, as she will write here!

We want to start by taking hats off to Thayer Long and the rest of the dedicated MHI staff who worked hard to make this a productive and informative series of meetings. Much more on those staff members and committee leaders work in future reports.

Some of the items you will see in the days ahead will include details on::

• Over 80 visits by Industry professionals with Congressional members took place during the afternoon on Capitol Hill Wednesday, July 14.
• A reception held on July 14 with Congressional members and staff present, to informally meet with MHI members. We plan a series of exclusive follow ups with various members of Congress here on our pages (see sample photo below).
• Discussions on key topics such as financing, the SAFE Act, regulatory issues and strategy sessions took place. MHMSM.com plans to ask industry experts for their input on the technical topics, as part of our post-meeting coverage.
• Meetings with FEMA officials, as a prelude for what can result in new business for manufactured housing and park model home builders took place.
• Meetings and presentations with HUD and DOE officials took place. Individual reports will be found on our media site in the days ahead.
• A meeting with federal Rural Housing officials took place, to brief MHI industry members on how more retailers can tap into zero down payment financing on manufactured homes, not ‘someday,’ but right now!
• Systems Building Research Alliance report on a cost effective frost free foundation system approved for Manufactured Housing.
• SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats). Yes, there are opportunities, as a good look at this flash report suggests.
• MHI PAC and other MHI division reports.
• MHEI’s plans to collaborate with Manufactured Home Marketing Sales Management.com (aka MHMSM.com) trade journal to sell book, videos and possible other cross marketing and cross promotional efforts.
• HUD’s MH Program Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Regulatory Affairs and Manufactured Housing, Teresa Payne comments at the meeting, as well as those of Elizabeth Coche and other officials associated with HUD and the new office for consumer financial protection.
• Past and present Congressmen who addressed the Industry personally at this meeting and who attended the Industry reception.

…and much more as well!

The Honorable Congressman Walter Jones, (R-NC-3) has planned a follow up exclusive with MHMSM.com to discuss Industry Related issues. Stay tuned!

In short, this was a busy, busy 3 day session indeed! Among the items we plan to look at in more depth:

• The proposal by an association leader that the industry consider putting all of the current issues pending before the government into a new single piece of legislation, which this member proposed as the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2010 (or 2011, etc.). The concept – suggested in one of the meetings – would be designed to take a more pro-active approach on Industry issues, and to combine efforts into one bill rather than take an issue by issue approach.
• Discussion on the proposal by a state association leader on a recent conference call, to create a focused lobbying presence on some key issues relating to regulatory agencies or Congress. The suggestion included the hope that MHARR and MHI could collaborate on this effort. While no commitments were made either way on this topic, MHI officials said they were open to ‘anything’ that would advance the cause of the Industry at large. There was also a statement and some concerned discussion that such a move not result in a ‘third voice’ for the Industry being created, if this proposal were to come to fruition.

Joseph H. Stegmayer, Chairman of the Board and President of Cavco with his son.

A key feature of the meeting wasn’t even on the main agenda. This was a meeting after the meeting with key federal officials to discuss how the Title 1 and other government involved lending programs could be made successful through careful, collaborative input by experienced Industry lenders and other stakeholders, such as manufactured home community operators, manufacturers, retailers and others. This was apparently the direct result of efforts at and immediately after the Congressman Joe Donnelly lead meeting in Elkhart in early June, 2010.

As is our custom, in an effort for balance in our reporting, we contacted MHARR in advance of this trip and during my stay in DC as well, to see if we could meet for comments and discussions on key issues facing the Industry. Scheduling conflicts on both ends kept that meeting with MHARR officials Danny Ghorbani and M. Mark Weiss from taking place.

On another meeting related note, the release of the new book The Manufactured Housing Revolution was met with considerable interest and praise. The vast majority of meeting attendees took a copy. HUD’s Commissioner Stevens, Teresa Payne and Liz Coche all wanted autographed copies, we look forward to their private (or public!) feedback, along with comments from others connected with our Industry.

Copies of The Manufactured Housing Revolution were seen
in all meeting rooms, as evidenced by this photo.

Speaking of others, George Allen plans to do a book review of MHMSM.com’s popular new The Manufactured Housing Revolution soon on his blog, We have already had some early and positive comments, and anticipate other reviews and comments on this timely volume.

It is also worth noting that the Consortium of Industry publishers had their second meeting on July 13th. More on that discussion with George Allen, Ken Rishel and the planned follow up with come soon.

When the bullet points of a two and a half days of meetings takes some 2.5 pages to outline, that gives you a small sense of how busy and varied the topics were! Again, congratulation to Thayer Long and the MHI team for making this happen. I’d also like to underscore the positive facts that Congressmen, HUD officials, FEMA officials, Rural Housing program officials and numerous staff for the proceeding made this a rich series of opportunities for Industry professionals.

This would be a good time to note that membership in MHI brings value to those who participate and attend such functions. Access to this level of Congressional and government officials is enhanced by participation and engagement via MHI.

Thayer Long, MHI

We will strive to bring you reporting in the days ahead that will capture the keys to all that took place. For those sitting in those meeting rooms with an open and attentive mind, you would have to walk away with the impression that the Industry is trying to come to grips with challenging issues in a very direct and positive fashion.

If you haven’t already done so, please check out Hometown America’s Greg O’Berry’s post on a time sensitive topic, submitted yesterday evening and that went live the same day. Greg’s comments were a direct result of discussion during the National Communities Council (NCC) meeting. This would be an appropriate time for me to personally invite meeting attendees, public officials and MHI staff to consider sharing their perspectives publicly via our Industry Voices Guest Blog.

My personal thanks to all who took the time to share a few minutes with me, to the many who had positive or encouraging words to share about our MHMSM.com trade journal. In turn, I want to thank the dedicated writers and team members at MHMSM.com who made this trip for me possible, because good people kept the wheels of our electronic platform ever moving ahead! The reality of a solid team doing their respective functions well made my trip to Washington with family for this timely event a reality.

HUD’s MH Program Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary,
Office of Regulatory Affairs and Manufactured Housing, Teresa Payne.

Hats off and our thanks to one and all involved! # #

The facts. Just simply the facts. 24,680 readers here in May 2010 can’t be wrong! We have THE MOST: top-featured writers, from Adams to Ziglar! The most industry news, including PODCASTS of NEWS AT NOON. Podcasts are already among our top accessed pages, perhaps why we are starting June 20% higher than May! More great features…

…are coming this month, with the start of our exclusive INdustry in Focus Reports.

Issue number 9 is here! The podcasts of the new feature articles will start next week! If you haven’t signed up yet for our podcasts, do it now at this link. Check it out free, and see why industry pros like you are listening to MHMSM.com podcasts while they shave, get ready, are in their car, at their desks… wherever they want to take their IPods or MP3 players!

I get pretty jazzed as I think about all that is taking place and coming up here at MHMSM.com. We will introduce you to our featured writers for June and their topics in a few moments. But let’s look each other in the virtual eye, clasp hands and understand this. We need each other. 24,680 industry pros like you are here, many logging on daily or multiple times a week! Why?

Because you find Industry News and Views You Can Use. If you care about the Factory-built housing industry, you are here, period. If you want to grow or improve, personally or professionally, there are great places to be, and this is one of them. We care – our expert writers, podcaster, reporter, editors, IT and staff care! So we are bringing ALL THE BEST to you.

Let’s review. The most:

• Top industry expert writers
• Feature writers who are industry association members
• Podcasts of featured articles
• Podcasts of factory-built housing NEWS AT NOON on each regular business day

Plus:

• The start of INdustry in Focus Reports, exclusive added insights or entirely unique stories brought to you here at MHMSM.com
• A record 24,680 readers in May, plus June starting 20%+ higher
• Podcasts, NEWS AT NOON and our sign up/registration page are now all in the top 10 pages on our busy Industry Ezine site

If you want to grow your results, stay informed and get ahead, make us your top stop online every work day, or catch up on weekends like thousands already do!

With no further ado, let’s look at our big June issue’s new featured articles.

Featured Articles
and Reports for June, 2010

Once again, we bring you “All the Best:” Top-Talent professionals from A for Adams to Z for Ziglar! Let’s get started with your big June line up…

Joe Adams – Marketing
• A Journey in Successful Marketing

Chad Carr – Management
• The Second Pillar: Getting the Deals Right

Tim Connor – Management
• Training – Investment or Cost?

Tim Connor – Sales
• Do You Have a Lost Sales Strategy?

Nadeen Green – Legal, Fair Housing
• Neologisms

Edward Hicks – Financing
• Title I HUD Code Home Financing Reform?

Chrissy Jackson – Land Lease Community Management
• Upgrading Your Community – Part 3

L.A. ‘Tony’ Kovach – A Cup of Coffee…
• A Cup of Coffee with… Richard Weinert

L. A. ‘Tony’ Kovach – Post May 2010 WHA Meeting Photo Report
• Overcoming Challenges and Difficult Times

Greg McClanahan – Soft Skills and Personal Development
• Be the Change

Mike Moore – Sales
• Buyers and Sellers – A Dysfunctional Relationship

George Porter – Manufacturing
• The Future

Ken Rishel – Industry Finance Commentary
• Manufactured Housing Finance Summit

Dave Shanklin – Finance, Lending
• Mixed Signals: Are the Manufactured Home Lenders Loosening or Tightening Their Guidelines?

Bob Stovall – Online Marketing
• Squeezing Out a Lead

John Underwood – Sales
• To Train or Not to Train

Donald Westphal, ASLA – Community Corner
• Attractive Garage Additions

Zig Ziglar – Motivation
• Zig on Success: What It Is and Isn’t