The event will begin with a welcome reception and dinner, followed by a full day of exhibitors and speakers.
“We anticipate a good cross-section of the industry attending from all parts of the state, as well as some industry professionals from other states who do business here,” MMHA President and CEO John Lindley said. “We have remarkable content, a fantastic environment for a professional meeting, an array of industry exhibitors, and an awards program that honors career achievements and great work done in the state of Michigan.”
For 85 years, the association has been building communities, promoting factory-built housing, and supporting the organizations and individuals in the manufactured housing industry.
Soaring Eagle is a casino and resort with conference spaces is located in central Michigan.
Thursday morning at the conference begins with a breakfast in the Black River Banquet Room, with opening remarks from association board chairman Jarrett Levine, an industry attorney who represents property owners. Lesli Gooch, CEO of the Manufactured Housing Institute, will provide an industry update and an overview of emerging opportunities in manufactured housing. There will also be a manufacturers panel, a talk from a demographer on population, social, and geographical trends that impact housing, as well as a housing overview from Eric Finnigan of John Burns Research.
Thursday afternoon provides an opportunity to visit exhibitors to learn about the latest innovations from industry services and supply professionals. MMHA is also hosting an outing at Buck’s Run Golf Club from 1-5 p.m. Painting with a Purpose, from 1-3 p.m., is a fundraiser for the Harvest Foundation, which supports students in Michigan who are pursuing careers in RV, camping, and manufactured housing.
That evening is a reception and awards dinner.
Friday morning starts with breakfast and goes into a legislative and political panel geared toward operators of manufactured home communities.
New York State in 2026 has paid a lot of attention and provided increased funding for affordable housing.
New York state is directing more than $19 million toward the construction of 56 factory-built starter homes as part of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s effort to expand affordable homeownership.
The funding, awarded through the second round of Hochul’s MOVE-IN NY program, will create new homes in the cities of Amsterdam, Auburn, Lackawanna, and Schenectady and the town of East Hampton.
The program uses CrossMod homes, which are manufactured in factories and can be built in a fraction of the time and at nearly half the cost of standard site-built construction. State officials say the typical cost to build a small single-family home onsite in New York has climbed to more than $450,000.
The new homes are expected to be sited this summer and will be sold below the cost of construction to low- and moderate-income buyers.
Four organizations received awards: the AHA Development Corporation, $3,025,000 for 10 homes; the Capital Region Land Bank, $6,655,000 for 22 homes; the Lackawanna Housing Development Corporation, $2,420,000 for 8 homes; and the town of East Hampton, $7,040,000 for 16 homes.
The latest awards bring the total number of homes funded through MOVE-IN NY to 128. The program is backed by $50 million secured in the state’s fiscal year 2025-26 budget.
Hochul has also proposed an additional $100 million in her fiscal year 2027 executive budget to further expand the program.
America’s housing affordability crisis has many proposed solutions. Few are as ready and as scalable as manufactured housing.
Modern manufactured homes compete on design, energy efficiency, and price in ways the industry has never seen. Zippy, a digitally native lender, argues it is no longer the home that is holding the industry back.
The next hurdle is the capital market that finances manufactured homes.
Ben Halliday, Zippy’s CEO, sees blockchain as a meaningful part of the answer. It brings truth, efficiency, and transparency to a market that has historically been opaque and inefficient, he said.
Paired with the company’s broader infrastructure build, including automated underwriting, digital servicing, and standardized data systems, it is a powerful stimulant to the market potential manufactured housing has long held.
“We always thought: one day we could build an originator and a servicer, and then create a marketplace, more investors bidding to buy more loans, and the market gets to grow. We shouldn’t be 6 or 7 percent of homes if a huge portion of the country wants an affordable home.”
The Cost of an Inefficient Market
In the mortgage market, trillions of dollars of assets trade hands through standardized documentation, transparent performance data, and liquid secondary markets.
Because investors can easily buy, sell, and price those assets, capital flows in from everywhere, competition intensifies, and costs compress. Borrowers benefit directly, in the form of lower rates.
Manufactured housing operates with a fraction of that infrastructure.
Loan pools are relatively difficult to compare, expensive to diligence, and slow to trade. That illiquidity means fewer investors participate, less capital competes for manufactured home loans, and the cost of that capital stays higher than it needs to be.
Higher capital costs translate directly to higher interest rates for consumers, which determines how much home a buyer can afford and ultimately limits how many homes the industry sells.
Building the Foundation
Before co-founding Zippy with Jordan Bucy, Halliday was a member of the founding team that built J.P. Morgan’s Technology and Disruptive Commerce group, where he saw firsthand the impact of capital efficiency and innovation. He also lived the manufactured housing financing problem as a community owner, selling homes and building performing loan portfolios with no efficient way to sell them. Zippy was built from the ground up to address this, one layer at a time: digital origination with no paper, a controlled data infrastructure ensuring every loan is documented and reported in exactly the same way, and servicing built to the same standard.
“We created a control infrastructure where the loans are highly uniform, regardless of whom they’re sold to, with a rich amount of data,” Halliday said. “That took years of engineering to get right. That standardization is the source of what eventually goes onto the blockchain.”
The company’s institutional partnerships reflect the same discipline. BrandFoundry, Zippy’s first strategic investor, shaped the consumer and dealer experience. FirstBank of Tennessee established the legal, risk, and compliance foundation built to stand the rigorous test of time and institutional diligence. And most recently, Forum Markets, an equity investor and platform purpose-built to tokenize real-world credit assets. Each step is intentional. Each one is an acceleration toward a larger vision for the industry, Halliday said.
Where Blockchain Comes In: Truth Over Trust
Halliday calls the core value of blockchain “truth over trust.” As loans are originated and serviced, their characteristics and monthly performance are written to a digital ledger. Once recorded, the data cannot be changed. An investor evaluating a pool can see the full history permanently and transparently, creating an investable benchmark against which manufactured home loan performance can be measured. It also makes historical abuses in asset-backed finance, such as pledging the same collateral to multiple buyers, effectively impossible.
“While we hope investors trust us, we are also very comfortable proving it,” Halliday said.
How Tokenization Works
Once a loan pool’s data is on chain, tokenization creates a new mechanism for trading it. Ownership interests in a defined loan pool are represented as digital tokens, each corresponding to a defined economic stake. Instead of investing $50,000 in just one home loan for example, an investor can purchase 50 tokens each representing $1,000 of a $10 million pool that spreads risk and return across 200 loans, for instance, to earn a proportional return, and sell that interest to another qualified buyer through the platform.
“If you decide to buy, it is the press of a button,” Halliday said. “You bid. The seller accepts. Ownership transfers on the digital ledger. Because we made the transaction easy, the price is a real market price, not an illiquid one.”
This infrastructure is designed to work alongside the traditional structured finance process, not replace it. Investment banks, rating agencies, and institutional loan buyers bring discipline, scale, and credibility to the asset class. What tokenization does is drive down the cost of larger transactions already happening and extend the benefits of that rigor to smaller pool sizes that have historically been too small to justify a full structured transaction. The goal is to widen the market for everyone. Both traditional and new players benefit when the infrastructure gets better.
How the Ecosystem Works
For asset managers evaluating manufactured housing credit, the combined infrastructure creates a clear participation pathway into and out of the market.
A digitally enabled originator like Zippy originates and services standardized loans, with every loan documented and tracked uniformly from day one. Loan investors provide the aggregation capital that creates homeownership. As loans season, that capital builds toward a performing pool with a clear path to liquidity, managed through an integrated tokenization platform such as Forum Markets.
A New Opportunity for Community Owners
Community owners are already experienced managers of institutional capital. Historically, supporting homeownership has meant creating arrangements largely from scratch: custom small-pool mortgage contracts, lease-purchase agreements, negotiated individually with limited to no secondary market access.
Tokenization creates an entirely new way to formalize and scale that expertise. By originating standardized loans through a digitally enabled originator, a community owner can build a branded loan pool reflecting their underwriting philosophy, their knowledge of their residents, and their standards for the communities they manage. Those pools can be tokenized in customized structures designed to meet the specific risk and return demands of their investor base, with participation shared across multiple asset managers and community partners.
This represents an AUM expansion opportunity in a separately tradable asset class that supports community growth, creates new earnings for investors, and expands access to homeownership simultaneously.
Opening the Market to the World
A more efficient, open market also opens the door to international investment. U.S. mortgage-backed assets have long attracted significant international capital. Manufactured housing, without standardized infrastructure, has been largely inaccessible to those buyers. A transparent, tokenized, compliant platform changes that directly.
Progress and Scale
Forum Markets has already purchased a portfolio of performing manufactured home loans onto its own balance sheet, holding those loans and earning the yield as it builds and validates the tokenization platform on which those assets will trade. As Forum creates the first tokenized manufactured housing loan pool, the goal is to prove the process so that when other originators and community owners want to follow, the path is frictionless.
“We were able to watch the first loans enter the ledger,” Halliday said. “It was genuinely cool to watch history in real time.”
Forum Markets chairman and CEO McAndrew Rudisill said the investment in Zippy reflects the kind of opportunity Forum was built to pursue: real-world credit assets ready to be made more transparent, more liquid, and more accessible to global capital.
“Zippy has spent years engineering the standardized origination and servicing infrastructure that makes manufactured housing investable at scale, and we’ve already put that to work, acquiring a portfolio of performing manufactured home loans onto our balance sheet as we build the first tokenized MH loan pool together. This is a company executing on a clear vision in a market with enormous untapped demand, and we’re proud to be a strategic partner in unlocking it,” Rudisill said.
Cottage Grove, a new manufactured housing community in Miami. Images courtesy of RHP Properties.
Michigan-based Operator Provides New Homes, Family Amenities
Florida has a large concentration of manufactured housing communities of all varieties, but one vital area of the state has seen no growth in new communities for many years. Miami, one of the top destinations in the Sunshine State, now has its first new community in 30 years.
RHP Properties, based in Michigan, recently announced that the first phase of construction at Cottage Grove, a new all-ages community in southwest Miami, is complete.
“We are excited to announce our newest community, offering 5-star amenities at affordable prices for families. This new housing supply is coming at a time when it is most needed,” RHP Properties CEO Ross Partrich said. “Cottage Grove provides a path to homeownership in Miami-Dade County at a price point that is otherwise difficult to achieve, while replacing capacity that has been lost to redevelopment.”
Cottage Grove’s 349 new manufactured housing sites address a critical gap in Miami-Dade County housing supply at a time when rising home prices and construction costs are putting homeownership out of reach for many families, and at a time when supply is shrinking due to redevelopment. In the past year, more than 1,100 manufactured housing sites have been removed or are slated for removal, and new manufactured housing has been virtually non-existent in Dade County for decades.
The clubhouse at Cottage Grove.
The community provides convenient access to everything Miami has to offer and features brand new, modern multi-section homes in a luxury-inspired, amenity-rich setting at an affordable price point. With homes starting at $129,900, the community will offer spacious, four-bedroom single-family residences with open floor plans, multiple living areas, and kitchens equipped with stainless steel appliances and islands. There is access to two primary arterial corridors in Southwest Miami-Dade County, connecting residents to US-1 and the broader Miami metro area. Residents will benefit from the nearby 100-acre redevelopment of Southland Mall into Southplace City Center, a mixed-use project featuring retail, medical, hospitality, and residential components, as well as the proposed southwest extension of the Dolphin Expressway, enhancing east–west connectivity to the regional expressway and Florida Turnpike system across South Miami-Dade. Additional nearby attractions include the Sports Performance Hub campus, a large-scale project incorporating athletic, medical, and hospitality uses.
Cottage Grove is designed for an active lifestyle. It includes a large pool with a sun deck, a contemporary clubhouse, fitness center, yoga and lounge rooms, scenic biking and walking trails, and serene gazebos.
The playground, expansive green spaces, and gated entrance add to the community’s appeal for families. Model homes became available for tours in the early summer, with the first home sales closing by mid-summer.
Jim Joffe. Photo courtesy of the RV/MH Hall of Fame/Shawn Spence Photography.
Annual Induction Dinner in Elkhart Honors Five MH Veterans
On Monday, Aug. 17, 2026, five new members of the RV/MH Hall of Fame from the manufactured housing industry were enshrined.
Each year, five professionals from each industry are chosen for induction into the RV/MH Hall of Fame.
“Recently, the Recreational Vehicle and Manufactured Housing Hall of Fame selection committees held meetings to review in detail all the nominations submitted for consideration of induction in the 2026 class of the RV/MH Heritage Foundation,” RV/MH Hall of Fame Executive Vice President Ryan Szklarek said. “We were impressed with the number and quality of nominations.”
Below are some career highlights of the five nominees from the manufactured housing industry, followed by the list of the RV nominees.
2026 MH Hall of Fame Class. Photo courtesy of RV/MH Hall of Fame/Shawn Spence Photography.
2026 Hall of Fame Honorees
Jim Breen — Alta Cima Corporation
Nominated by longtime employee Liz Sarsam, Breen began his career in 1991 with Prestige Homes. He was initially hired to furnish and decorate model homes, within a year was brought to the sales team, and within 18 months of employment, was the top seller in the company’s 14 locations. Breen was assigned as the manager of Prestige’s lowest performing sales center, a location the company planned to close, and brought the struggling home sales operation up to the company’s most productive. In 2000, Breen founded Alta Cima, a single-location liquidation center that evolved into one of the country’s most innovative and expansive home retail businesses, under the name Factory Expo, with 20 locations in 15 states and annual sales of more than $200 million.
Jim Breen. Photo courtesy of the RV/MH Hall of Fame/Shawn Spence Photography.
“We had a unique method of selling homes,” Breen told attendees at the induction dinner. “We were a pioneering business. Nobody thought we were going to be able to pull it off.
“Fighting against all the odds and making it happen,” he said. “We’ve been proving that we could do it for the last 30 years.”
Breen also acquired Dealers Network, a separately run franchise of home sales centers that provide opportunities for professionals who want to own and operate their own manufactured home sales center. Dealer Network has 16 locations in eight states. Breen is on the executive committee for the Manufactured Housing Industry of Arizona, where he has been a member and volunteer for many years.
He is a Trustee Club contributor to the Manufactured Housing Institute and has been honored with the President’s Award through the MHIA. Supporting letters for Breen’s nomination came from longtime Arizona executive Ken Anderson, Terry Gleeson of Valley Wide Enterprises, and Adventure Homes founder Wally Comer.
“Jim’s career is a testament to his vision and work ethic,” Gleeson said. “He started by selling furniture and staging model homes before transitioning into manufactured home sales, where he quickly became the top salesman at his company. In 2000, he founded his own firm, pioneering internet sales and creating new ways for families to realize the American Dream of homeownership.”
Robert Blair Young — Blair Group
Young
Young, nominated by longtime employee Cyndi King, started his career in the early 1970s as an executive with Citibank in New York, buying home loans and providing chattel floorplan lending for retailers.
Young told the audience the manufactured housing industry changed his life.
“It changed my career and my life,” he said. “This industry gave me more than a career, it gave me a lifelong purpose.”
In 1980, he went to work for Intercoastal Communities in Florida, where he was instrumental in the development of seven communities with 1,100 homesites catering to active adults. Young established Blair Group in 1988, and built his own business in the development of 55+ manufactured home communities, largely in partnership with Palm Harbor and Fleetwood Homes. He developed five communities with 3,864 homesites.
Young has served for decades, including in leadership roles, with the Florida Manufactured Housing Institute, and is a longtime member of MHI’s National Communities Council. He has won several FMHA awards, including the President’s Award, and hosts an annual charity golf tournament that supports the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Supporting letters for Young’s nomination came from longtime executive Joe Stegmayer, industry finance expert and advocate Dick Ernst, and CEO and owner of Murex Properties Steven Adler.
“Bob was an accomplished builder/developer who provided great value for his residents, and a community they could all be proud of,” Ernst said. “Most of Bob’s residents were long-term residents, and the same could be said for Bob’s employees. If anyone demonstrated what the best of an industry could be, it was Bob.”
Steve Case — Real Estate Investor, Educator, SECO Co-Founder
Case
Case, nominated by Pentagon Properties founder and SECO Co-founder Spencer Roane, has been a real estate investor in RV properties, manufactured home communities, multi-family, and self-storage for nearly three decades, early on pursuing a series of “turnaround parks” that required extensive hands-on effort in the relocation of homes, home infill, utility upgrades, and operational re-engineering. The experience helped position Case to acquire a portfolio of more stable communities that could be a long-term investment. In 2003, Case founded Mobile Home University to serve as an educational and training platform for those who wanted to come into the industry.
“I feel very humbled,” Case said in accepting the honor. “I have been able to work with some great people to make some change..”
Case is a co-founder of SECO, the annual manufactured housing industry conference held in Atlanta, and has put to use his knowledge of the industry and relationships with an array of community owners/operators, transport and install professionals, lenders, and other service and supply providers to help build the event’s educational sessions. Case has dedicated years of service to the Georgia Manufactured Housing Association. Supporting letters for Case’s nomination came from Chuck Meek of Bay Acceptance Corporation, Paul Chase of Ironhorse Communities, and Mark Titshaw, of Stonegate Management Group.
“Steve’s passion for training and mentorship is a hallmark of his career,” Titshaw said. “Drawing on his prior military service, including 20 years in the U.S. Air Force, where he served in instructor roles, he has brought that same commitment to instructing, guiding, and empowering others in the MHC space.”
Evan Atkinson — Clayton Homes of Frazeysburg
Atkinson
Atkinson came into the industry on the heels of his grandparents, who started a retail dealership in Ohio.
“They built it on hard work, integrity, and perseverance,” Atkinson said of his grandparents while accepting the honor. “Some of my proudest accomplishments have been not what we built but that we built it together.
“This award has my name on it, but it belongs to all of you,” he told his family and his team.
Nominated by Shawn Carnahan of Adventure Homes, Atkinson has spent 43 years in the retail of manufactured homes, having owned and operated Williamsburg Square from 1983 to 2015, at which time he became general manager of the Clayton Homes home center in Frazeysburg, Ohio.
In 2018, the Frazeysburg location was named MHI’s Midwest Dealer of the Year. Atkinson has been on the executive committee for the Ohio Manufactured Homes Association for more than 30 years, including several years as president. He served for 13 years on the Ohio Manufactured Homes Commission and testified on behalf of the industry several times before the Ohio General Assembly. Supporting letters for Atkinson’s nomination came from Tim Williams of the OMHA, George Gunnell, a regional manager with Clayton Homes, and Jack Zide, the current GM for the Frazeysburg location.
“I received the privilege to come work alongside Evan in 2018 as part of a succession plan (for him) to slowly step away from day-to-day operations,” Zide said. “The first day I began working with Evan I realized there were people and businesses that talked about ‘doing the right thing’ and ‘taking care of customers’ and there were people who really did it. The amount of integrity and genuine concern for customers that I have witnessed firsthand from Evan has shaped who I am and who I strive to be as a leader and provider.”
Jim Joffe — J&H Asset Property Management
Joffe
Joffe, nominated by Maria Horton of J&H and formerly of Newport Pacific, has spent 40 years in retail sales and property management, founding both Home Quest Manufactured Home Sales, a leading California dealership, and J&H, which manages more than 100 manufactured home communities. He serves on the board of the California Manufactured Housing Institute, continues to dedicate time to the Western States Manufactured Housing Association, and has served on multiple municipal task forces in LaVerne, Rialto, and Visalia.
In acceptance of the honor of induction into the hall, which comes with the patented green jacket, Joffe took immediate possession of the experience.
“I took all the tags off and slept in it last night, so you can’t take it back,” Joffe said of the jacket.
Joffe has been honored with WMA’s William E. Carr Award, a Lifetime Achievement Award from CMHI, and his dealership won Orange County Business Journal’s Small Family Business Award.
“I love every job I’ve ever had,” Joffe confessed to the event’s attendees. “I love working.”
Supporting letters for Joffe’s nomination came from Barry Cole of Manufactured Housing Insurance Services, industry attorney Michael Mihelich, and Keith Casenhiser of Bessire and Casenhiser.
“Jim Joffe is a strong leader and a deeply generous individual, dedicated to helping those in need,” Horton said in her nomination papers. “He runs programs in his communities that provide crucial assistance, including rental support and home maintenance services. His efforts help residents maintain their homes and preserve property values, ensuring the well-being of the entire community.”
The 2026 RV Inductees
Bob Been – Dealer Affinity RV | Prescott, Arizona
Bryan Brady – OEM Heartland RV | Elkhart, Indiana
Dr. Richard Curtain – Advisor University of Michigan | Ann Arbor, Michigan
Gary Enyart – Supplier Cummins | Maple Grove, Minnesota
Bill Scheffer – Association MMHRVCA | East Lansing, Michigan
Construction is changing faster than most people realize. For decades, the industry has operated in largely the same way. Labor-intensive. Sequential. Slow. But today, a convergence of robotics, materials science, and advanced manufacturing is reshaping at a fundamental level how we build.
What once felt futuristic is operational. These technologies are not decades away. They are being tested, deployed, and scaled right now. For those in manufactured housing, this is not just innovation. It is a defining moment. An opportunity to lead how homes are built, delivered, and experienced.
Build Beyond Earth: Construction on the Moon and Mars
If you want a glimpse of the future, look beyond Earth. Through the Artemis program led by NASA, the objective is not just to reach the Moon, but to stay there. That requires infrastructure, including landing pads, roads, and long-term habitats.
Companies like ICON are developing advanced 3D printing systems designed to build using lunar soil. This removes the need to transport materials from Earth. Their Olympus system uses high-powered lasers to transform regolith into construction-grade material, following a “live off the land” approach. They have already brought this concept to life on Earth. It 3D printed a full-scale simulated Martian habitat, Mars Dune Alpha, designed in collaboration with Bjarke Ingels Group at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
Space construction demands extreme efficiency. No waste. No redundancy. Every element must perform. These constraints are accelerating innovation at a rapid pace. The lessons learned will not stay in space. They will flow back into terrestrial housing, particularly in areas where speed, cost, and resource efficiency are critical.
Growing Buildings: The Rise of Mycelium
What if buildings could be grown instead of built? Mycelium, the root structure of fungi, is emerging as one of the most compelling materials in construction. Acting as a natural binding agent, it transforms agricultural waste such as straw or sawdust into solid building components.
The result is a material with strong thermal and acoustic performance, natural fire resistance, and minimal environmental impact. Instead of extracting and assembling, we are beginning to grow materials using biological processes.
For manufactured housing, this opens the door to scalable, low-cost, low-carbon materials that align with both affordability and sustainability goals.
Nature as Infrastructure: Moss and Living Systems
Nature is no longer something we design around. It is becoming part of the system itself.
Moss is now being used in bio-receptive concrete that allows it to grow directly on building surfaces. Unlike traditional plants, moss does not require soil or deep roots. It absorbs nutrients from the air, making it highly adaptable to vertical surfaces in urban environments.
The benefits are both practical and immediate. Air purification. Thermal insulation. Noise reduction. Minimal maintenance.
For manufactured housing communities, this presents an elegant solution. It enhances livability while reducing operating costs, without introducing complexity.
Materials That Adapt: Color-Changing Facades
Materials are becoming responsive. Researchers at the University of Chicago have developed a façade material that adjusts its thermal behavior based on temperature. On hot days, it emits heat. On cold days, it retains it. The effect is similar to adjusting layers of clothing throughout the day.
Autonomous Construction: Robots That Build
Automation is no longer limited to factories. It is arriving on construction sites.
The Hadrian X system can lay more than 1,000 bricks per hour with millimeter precision. It reads a digital model and translates it directly into physical construction.
For manufactured housing, this represents a critical shift toward industrialized construction on site. It enables consistency, reduces reliance on scarce labor, and supports scalable delivery at a time when demand continues to outpace supply.
Smart Skins: Buildings That Produce Energy
Traditionally, façades have been passive. They separated inside from outside. Today, they are becoming active systems that generate energy and optimize performance. Building-Integrated Photovoltaics embed solar technology directly into materials such as glass, cladding, and roofing. Companies like Tesla and GAF have already introduced this concept through solar roof shingles.
Combined with adaptive systems that regulate light, heat, and airflow, these technologies significantly reduce reliance on mechanical systems.
For manufactured housing, this creates a new value proposition. Lower utility costs. Greater energy independence. The ability to generate and even export energy. Homes shift from being a cost to becoming a contributor.
Final Thought
The future of construction is not theoretical. It is already taking shape across job sites, factories, and even on the moon. The real question is not whether these technologies will scale. It is who will lead their adoption. Manufactured housing is uniquely positioned to do so as it already operates at the intersection of efficiency, scalability, and innovation.
As construction evolves from manual processes to intelligent systems, the leaders in this space will not just build homes. They will redefine how housing is delivered for generations to come.
Nikki Greenberg is a globally recognized futurist and strategic executive advisor with over two decades of experience in real estate development, urban innovation, and technology-driven transformation.
MHI CEO Lesli Gooch joins MHInFocus for an interview on how the manufactured housing industry is helping people achieve the American Dream of homeownership.
MHInFocus, a short-form video series based on conversations with top performers in the industry who will provide leadership insight and inspiration for manufactured housing professionals nationwide, has released its second episode of the first season, an interview with MHI CEO Lesli Gooch.
The first season of MHInFocus is sponsored by Cavco Industries, a leader in the construction of factory-built homes, with a supporting sponsorship from Yardi property management software, and an episode sponsorship from Uniti, an agentic AI provider for the manufactured housing industry.
In addition to the first two episodes, season one of MHInFocus includes interviews with industry leaders Sam Landy, president of UMH Properties, Occupi co-founder and CEO Taylor Peake, and Cesar Mascorro, Jr., founder and president of Manufactured Home Sales Mastery.
Interviewees throughout the series share with the MHInsider audience lessons learned during their time in the industry, stories about their formative years, inspiration that carries each through their daily efforts, and thoughts about where the industry is headed and why.
MHInsider has a national audience of more than 44,000 industry professionals who will receive the new MHInFocus video interviews. MHInFocus content will land in the inbox of the publication’s controlled circulation participants once per month, in a fashion that is similar to the current MHInsider email newsletter.
MHVillage.com is where industry professionals list their homes for sale or rent, promote communities, and advertise products and services that help maintain and grow a business. The site garners about 25 million annual unique visitors and generates about $3 billion in annual home sales.
“MHInFocus continues the tradition of creating meaningful formats for manufactured housing professionals to refine their businesses and better understand why we do what we do for the housing market and for the consumers who are looking to buy our homes,” MHVillage Co-President and Chief Business Development Officer Darren Krolewski said.
Each season of MHInFocus will consist of…
Five episodes
A series of easily consumable 3- to 4-minute videos
A landing spot to revisit the content outside of the email inbox
Information on sponsors and sponsorship opportunities
For more information on the MHInFocus video series, visit MHInFocus.com, or contact MHInsider Publisher Patrick Revere at patrick@mhvillage.com or (616) 888-6994. The MHInsider advertising and sponsorship sales team can be reached at (877) 406-0232.
JPMorganChase has announced a substantial increase in capital allocated toward affordable housing.
‘American Dream Initiative’ Up by More Than $200 Billion… considering innovative construction options such as modular and manufactured homes as possible new loan product offerings
JPMorganChase intends to deploy over $750 billion through 2035 to increase housing supply and support homeownership in the United States. This marks a nearly 40 percent increase in the firm’s housing capital deployment compared to the past decade, and includes financing for 1,000,000 affordable housing units and helping 500,000 homebuyers purchase homes.
The announcement is part of JPMorganChase’s American Dream Initiative, a multi-year effort to expand opportunity to millions of Americans and future generations through targeted investments in local communities. As the nation’s largest multifamily lender and residential bank mortgage lender, JPMorganChase has a track record of expanding affordable housing supply and supporting homeownership, bringing the scale and expertise needed to help address the country’s housing challenges.
In the firm’s role serving all housing stakeholders, JPMorganChase will deepen collaboration with policymakers and community partners to accelerate and scale state and local solutions — such as streamlined zoning, building codes, permitting, expanded tax credits, and public-private partnerships — that help create more housing at all income levels. With the right policies in place, the firm intends to provide more capital for housing and home buying to ultimately help improve housing access and affordability across the country.
“An affordable and resilient housing market is essential to driving economic growth and increasing opportunity,” said Michelle Herrick, head of commercial real estate for J.P. Morgan. “We’re focused on helping more people access quality housing they can afford — and we’re working across the real estate community, local governments, and nonprofits to scale housing solutions throughout the U.S.”
JPMorganChase’s American Dream Initiative is a multi-year effort to expand economic opportunity by scaling local solutions that help the economy work for more people, the firm stated. Through the initiative, the firm provides financing, facilitates capital, offers advice, training and tools, and advocates for policy solutions to help people start and grow small businesses, find affordable places to live, save and plan for their financial futures, get good jobs, access quality healthcare and strengthen local institutions.
“Homeownership has always been at the heart of the American Dream. Owning a home can transform lives — providing stability, helping families build wealth, and creating a sense of community,” Grzebin said.
said. “Our goal is to make the path to homeownership clearer and more accessible for more people, wherever they are in their financial journey.”
Through expanded financing and policy engagement, firm will help build or preserve 1,000,000 affordable housing units and help 500,000 customers purchase homes.
-JPMorganChase
Bring Scale, Expertise to Tackle Affordability
By directing more than $750 billion in capital toward this initiative with a broad suite of financial solutions and local expertise, the firm is reinforcing its support for renters and homeowners at every stage of their housing journey, including through:
Expanding housing financing: Increasing capital deployed through available tools such as debt, equity, and grants to build or preserve housing supply, in partnership with developers, owners, non-profits, and governments, including financing 1,000,000 affordable units over the next decade.
Increasing homeownership opportunities: Helping 500,000 customers — including 200,000 first-time homebuyers — purchase homes by increasing mortgage lending by more than 40 percent, hiring 850 new home lending advisors, introducing new digital tools, and considering innovative construction options such as modular and manufactured homes as possible new loan product offerings. The firm will also work with organizations to help lower mortgage costs and improve long-term affordability, including through down payment assistance.
Advancing policy advocacy and research: Using data-driven insights to identify gaps in the market, the firm will leverage the JPMorganChase PolicyCenter and Institute to translate research into evidence-based policy recommendations and to direct our resources to where they will have the greatest impact. The recently launched Building Blocks series examines state and local policy opportunities to increase housing supply.
“We know we have a role to play in helping the American Dream to be more achievable, that’s why we’re looking at all the ways that our firm can take action,” Grzebin said. “Since we’re involved in virtually every facet of the housing industry, we can leverage opportunities across the firm to help grow and sustain manufactured and modular home development, whether that’s investing in the companies that are doing this work or serving as their bank.”
Create Ecosystem for Affordable Housing
To help ensure capital can be leveraged most effectively to support the housing ecosystem, drive affordability and expand access to homeownership, the firm will expand support for pro-growth housing policies that reduce barriers, accelerate housing production, and allow for additional lending, including:
Increasing housing supply: Supporting the implementation of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which includes dozens of provisions that will help expand housing affordability, streamline development processes, and improve pathways to homeownership for families across the income spectrum. JPMorganChase has supported a number of these provisions, such as the Accelerating Home Building Act, the Housing Supply Expansion Act, and the Helping More Families Save Act.
Expanding access to homeownership: Continuing to support efforts to harmonize standards and processes among key housing finance institutions and federal programs to reduce costs and improve efficiency in the secondary mortgage market, while expanding the role of private capital in the mortgage market to increase competition, liquidity, and access to affordable credit—changes that help lower costs for borrowers and improve access to homeownership.
Advancing tailored, local solutions: Learning from the firm’s work across local markets, advancing solutions that make it easier, faster and lower cost to build housing. This includes policies that allow more housing to be built in residential areas; unlock underused land sites for housing; modernize building codes to enable more efficient construction approaches; and streamline permitting by removing redundancies.
In an effort to advance these policies and mobilize stakeholders to drive solutions, the firm will also join as chair of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s newly formed Housing Advisory Council, which will serve as a business-led forum for new collaboration, stronger public-private partnerships, and development of recommendations to help shape housing policy at the local, state, and federal levels.
Increase Housing Supply in San Francisco
JPMorganChase is building on its long-standing support for the Bay Area, including San Francisco, by working with local business and civic leaders to help advance the city’s efforts to expand housing supply and affordability.
As part of the American Dream Initiative, JPMorganChase plans to support new and expanded public-private partnerships with housing stakeholders and real estate developers and owners. Together, the firm aims to help deliver more housing across the Bay Area, including a focus on units priced within reach of middle-income households.
A recent example is the Sophie Maxwell building in the Dogpatch neighborhood’s Power Station development, where the firm provided financing that helped deliver 105 permanently affordable apartments for middle-income residents. Working closely with public officials and alongside other private sources of funding, the firm helped make a high-quality project feasible at a lower cost per unit, demonstrating how innovative capital structures can help bring needed housing to market.
Building on the success of this model, the firm is expanding its efforts by:
Providing nearly $200 million in financing for a 342-unit residential building at Power Station, continuing site momentum after the successful completion of the Sophie Maxwell Building, which was financed through an innovative J.P. Morgan bond solution in 2025.
Making up to a $15 million equity investment in Fifth Space’s new “Essential Housing Fund” to build affordable housing units in San Francisco, including an expected 250 units in Potrero Hill.
Supporting the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Foundation, in collaboration with Terner Labs, ULI district councils, and other research institutions, to analyze key housing data for actionable local policy recommendations.
Helping to pilot, de-risk, and scale solutions that help to increase housing supply, including through $6 million in new grants to the San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund, Community Vision Capital & Consulting, San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association and The Housing Action Coalition, and Housing California.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said the city has too many families that struggle to make rent, and that the city administration is working every day to help them remain residents.
“Building housing is a critical piece of that work, and we’re taking an all-hands-on-deck approach to make that happen,” he said. “JPMorganChase’s investment in housing reflects their commitment to San Francisco’s future, and these projects with hundreds of new homes show what we can do when the private sector and the city come together to tackle the issues that matter to families.”
J.P. Morgan’s Global Chair Noah Wintroub said the firm has a decades-long history of supporting San Francisco’s housing ecosystem, working with developers, community organizations, and local government to help bring more housing to market. Through the American Dream Initiative, the firm is poised to do more.
“With the right public policies in place, the firm can provide more capital for housing, scaling solutions that help expand supply and affordability,” Wintroub said.
Michael Moritz, chair of Crankstart, said that a city that cannot house its teachers, nurses, firefighters and bus drivers loses its soul.
“We’re glad to work with JPMorganChase to back an ambitious and impatient team devoted to building high-quality homes that hard-working San Franciscans can afford,” he said.
Fifth Space CEO Enrique Landa said the unique partnership brings together the capital and expertise needed to solve the city’s housing challenges.
“San Francisco’s housing crisis is real. We can keep debating it, or we can build,” Landa said.
The market has responded en masse to the landmark housing legislation that passed in mid-July. Housing professionals across the spectrum have hailed the legislation and what it may mean for filling out the missing middle in domestic housing.
“Public service should not be about those of us in public service. It should be about the journey we took to get here. For me, that journey was as a kid born in poverty to a great mother who believed in faith, perseverance, and opportunity. If we do our part, more kids today being raised in situations and circumstances similar to mine might have hope in the American Dream.”
Removal of the requirement for all manufactured homes to be built on a permanent chassis, clarification on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as the primary and final regulator for the manufactured housing industry, and provisions on zoning for manufactured housing have been part of the dialogue between manufactured housing professionals and lawmakers for years.
“This achievement reflects years of work by housing advocates, industry leaders, community organizations, and policymakers from both parties who recognized the urgent need for action,” National Housing Conference President and CEO David Dworkin said.
“This legislation affirms that manufactured housing is central to meeting the nation’s affordability challenges, including through its dedicated focus on ‘Manufactured Housing for America.’ By reinforcing a proven federal framework that enables high-quality homes to be built efficiently and placed in more localities, this bill clears the way for meaningful progress in delivering attainable homeownership,” MHI CEO Lesli Gooch said. “We appreciate the leadership that brought this effort across the finish line in Congress and look forward to working with the administration on enactment and implementation.”
The American Land Title Association issued a statement lauding the bill that “represents a significant step forward in expanding America’s housing supply, modernizing federal housing policy and improving access to the American dream of homeownership.”
At a time when housing affordability remains a top concern for families across the country, it said, this new law demonstrates that leaders in Washington can come together around practical solutions that help homebuyers, homeowners, and communities.
“ALTA congratulates Chairman Tim Scott, Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren, Chairman French Hill, Ranking Member Maxine Waters and congressional leaders for advancing this historic legislation,” ALTA CEO Chris Morton said. “This is a big win for the American people. Homeownership is one of the most important ways families build stability, security and generational wealth, and the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is an important step toward helping more Americans achieve that dream.”
Bill Owens, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders, applauded Congress for its work.
“By reducing regulatory barriers, helping builders increase supply, and expanding opportunities for homeownership and rental housing, this landmark law is an important step toward easing the nation’s housing affordability crisis,” Owens said. “We look forward to working with the administration and Congress to implement it.”
Congressman Wesley Bell from Missouri characterized ROAD to Housing as a transformative piece of housing legislation.
“The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act will do so much for the people of the St. Louis region, the state of Missouri, and millions of Americans across the country,” he said. “I hear all the time from folks in the district about the housing crisis in America. This bill will help people build generational wealth through homeownership and give them a shot at a foundational piece of the American Dream.”
Todd Gloria, the mayor of San Diego and president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, thanked lawmakers for following through on the effort to provide more attainable housing.
“Congress answered the call with bold, bipartisan action to help communities build more homes and expand access to housing people can afford,” Gloria said. “America’s mayors applaud this landmark legislation because we know the solution is clear: we need more homes, and we need them now.
“This bill represents the most significant step Congress has taken in decades to confront our housing affordability crisis — but it cannot be the last,” he said. “Mayors are on the front lines of this challenge, and we stand ready to partner with leaders at every level of government to turn this legislation into real results: more homes built, costs lowered, and families given a fair shot at the future.”
Congressman French Hill from Arkansas, who is the chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services, said the new law confirms a long-held belief in what Washington lawmakers can do.
“When I first ran for Congress, I set out to author and pass legislation that improves the lives of central Arkansans and prove that Washington could still work for the American people,” he said. “Having this historic housing bill become law today is the realization of those goals, that by working together, debating in good faith, and putting the interests of Americans ahead of politics, good policy can become law.
“This legislation strengthens community banks, modernizes building codes, and cuts red tape. More houses will be built, more families will enter the market, and homes across the country will be more affordable,” Hill said.
Emre Altinok, left, and Francesco Decamilli, the founders of Uniti.
Pathlight-led round accelerates Uniti’s expansion across every operationally intensive real estate sector, bringing agentic AI to the operators running the industry’s most demanding portfolios.
Uniti, with an agentic AI layer for global real estate operators, has announced $12 million in Series A funding led by Pathlight, with participation from MetaProp and existing investors Prudence, Flex Capital, Alate, and RE VC. In addition, individual investors in this round include Romain Huet (OpenAI), Lenny Rachitsky, and Gokul Rajaram.
Headquartered in New York, Uniti deploys AI agents to run the playbook manufactured housing operators have already built. Series A funding is early-round capital for a proven small business to accelerate growth.
Uniti co-founder and CEO Francesco Decamilli said manufactured housing has quickly become one of the company’s fastest-growing markets.
“In just over a year, we’ve gone from no presence in the industry to supporting more than 230,000 home sites with AI agents that help operators automate everything from home sales and leasing to resident support, maintenance, and collections,” he said. “We’ve seen meaningful improvements in inquiry-to-tour conversion, move-in rates, and operating efficiency. We’re still in the early innings and have an ambitious roadmap to deepen our investment in the sector as AI becomes an increasingly core part of how manufactured housing communities operate.”
Real estate is one of the world’s largest and most operationally complex industries, the company stated in yet many operators still rely on fragmented software, manual workflows, and large operations teams to coordinate leasing, maintenance, resident communications, collections, payments, and support. While systems of record have digitized these processes, the work itself remains largely manual.
The round accelerates Uniti’s expansion across self-storage, senior living, multifamily, manufactured housing, and flexible workspace, bringing agentic AI to real estate’s most demanding portfolios. Uniti deploys AI agents that handle the full breadth of real estate workflows, from sales and leasing to support, maintenance, collections, payments, and reviews.
The agents run across voice, SMS, email, chat, and WhatsApp, integrated with 15-plus property management systems and customer relationship management (CRM) platforms. Rather than replacing existing systems, Uniti sits above them as an AI orchestration layer — coordinating every AI agent, customer interaction, and operational workflow through a single control plane, regardless of the underlying software stack.
“Property managers are, at their core, operations people,” Decamilli said. “They live and die by process, consistency, and execution. What we’ve built is the infrastructure to codify that playbook and run it perfectly, every time, at any scale. No missed calls, no skipped workflows, no off-script responses. And once the playbook runs itself, operators can scale without limits.”
Uniti is live with customers including Regus, StorQuest, RHP Properties, Storage King USA, Fora, and others. Across its customer base, the company is delivering measurable operational and commercial results, including:
214 percent ROI for one enterprise self-storage operator
94 percent of pilots converting into long-term customer contracts
306 percent net revenue retention as customers expand across additional properties and workflows
“We operate hundreds of locations, and the standard we hold ourselves to doesn’t change whether we’re at location one or location one hundred,” Storage King USA CEO Brian Cohen said. “Uniti’s AI agents now handle 100 percent of our inbound calls across all our locations. The team that used to manage that volume is now focused on the work that drives the business. The ROI has been undeniable.”
Mahdi Raza, a general partner at Pathlight, said that real estate is among the most operationally complex industries and has been in need of a solution.
“It has been waiting for infrastructure built around how operators actually work,” Raza said. “Uniti has built the agentic layer that runs the full operation, not just a single workflow, across every vertical that matters. Francesco and Emre move with unusual conviction, and the results their customers are seeing make that clear.”
Three Days for Manufactured Housing Professionals at Soaring Eagle in Mid Michigan
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