The nation’s largest private owner and operator of manufactured home communities has acquired 29 manufactured home communities in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan with more than 4,200 homesites for a purchase price of $184 million.
RHP Properties CEO Ross Partrich said the transaction brings the company’s total of manufactured home communities to 297 nationwide. The communities provide 71,184 homesites.
“RHP Properties is pleased to announce the purchase of the Heritage Portfolio. We are proud to be preserving affordable housing for more than 4,000 families,” Partrich said. “We also plan to improve these communities, including the addition of brand new homes.”
The planned improvements include new or enhanced amenities, playgrounds, and roads. The company also plans to bring in new homes at affordable prices, where residents can enjoy the privacy of a single-family home and all the energy-efficient features and design of today’s new manufactured homes.
“We will be making necessary upgrades to ensure these communities are brought up to the RHP Standard,” Partrich said. “We look forward to becoming active members of these communities and providing our more than 30 years of stable management and ownership experience to our residents.”
MHInsider magazine in its March/April 2021 Retail Edition composed a graphic timeline of manufactured housing retail. Each image notes eras and transitions in the evolution of MH retail, and includes the shipment levels in the manufactured housing industry for the associated years.
Evolution of Manufactured Housing Retail from 1959 through 1970
Evolution of Manufactured Housing Retail from 1974-1988
Evolution of Manufactured Housing Retail from 1992-2002
Evolution of Manufactured Housing Retail from 2006-2019
No one is exactly sure who first shared the cautionary phrase, “you never get a second chance to make a first impression,” but truer words were never spoken. Whether you attribute it to Oscar Wilde, Will Rogers or Head & Shoulders, one thing is certain: the impression you make online is more important to your business than ever.
In today’s digital-centric marketplace, nothing shapes first impressions quite like online reviews.
According to research by messaging platform Podium, 93% of consumers say that online reviews have an impact on their purchase decisions. It’s easy to understand why. Reviews are everywhere, from Google to Facebook to industry-specific websites and consumer forums like Ripoff Report and Reddit. Online reviews have gradually evolved to become a trust signal. A survey by marketing software provider BrightLocal found that eight out of ten consumers now place as much confidence in online reviews as they do personal recommendations.
Not only can online reviews make or break whether someone ultimately does business with you, they also determine whether a prospect reaches out to you in the first place. A recent study by Cone Communications found that four out of five consumers have changed their mind about doing business with a company or product after reading negative reviews online.
Even if you maintain a relatively low profile online and believe your business relies primarily on word of mouth, you’re not immune from the influence of online reviews. The Better Business Bureau points out that having a limited online reputation can be just as damaging as a bad one. Their research has shown that consumers will often question a businesses’ credibility if they can’t find out enough about it online.
Over the past year, the realities of doing business during a pandemic have placed even more emphasis on the importance of a positive digital footprint. Multiple studies have demonstrated that an overwhelming majority of homebuyers begin their home search online, and continue to turn to their internet throughout the home shopping process. This behavior has only accelerated over the past year, with virtual showings, video conferences and electronic correspondence all taking a greater role in an industry that has traditionally relied on in-person contact with the consumer.
Managing your online reputation is a critical part of the overall image and reputation you demonstrate to your customers. Accordingly, it deserves as much attention as any other aspect of your marketing presentation
So where to begin?
Before you can begin to manage anything, you need to have a complete picture of your online reputation as it currently stands.
Six Step Process to Improve Online Reputation Managment
1. Run a Google Search
Most consumers are going to start by typing the name of your business into a search engine. It’s good practice to begin by doing the same. Open an incognito window in your web browser and conduct a search on your company name, principals and community to see what comes up where. As Google tends to serve up different results based on whether or not you are logged in as well as your location, incognito mode helps to remove any unintended prejudice of the search results.
2. Check the Major Social Media Sites
Search your company name, property names and brand names on the most widely used social media channels of Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. Most social media sites encourage reviews and discussions which not only show up on their platforms but also appear in organic search results on the popular search engines.
3. Claim Your Online Business Listings
Make sure you’ve submitted or claimed your business on the major directories like Google My Business, Yelp, MHVillage, MHBuyersGuide and other relevant sites. Business listings and reviews often appear ahead of organic results when searching online, particularly when browsing from a mobile device. Many directory websites host online reviews which can frequently go unanswered by companies that have not claimed their listings.
4. Search Complaint Sites
Consumer experience and advocacy websites such as Ripoff Report, Complaints Board and Trustpilot rank highly in search engine results due to scores of consumer-generated content. As a result, it’s good practice to search your organization or property names for any negative comments. Advertising agency GoFish Digital maintains a handy tool that searches over 40 complaint sites at http://gofishdigital.com/complaint-search so you can identify any issues that require attention.
5. Scan Your Existing Reviews
Better than doing all the work manually, get a free summary of your online reputation score from MH.Reviews, the online reputation management platform developed by MHVillage. Type in the name of your business or community and get an instant report on how your company appears in dozens of popular review sites and directories.
6. Don’t Forget About Your Reputation as an Employer
Employment sites such as Indeed and Glassdoor are often overlooked when managing online reputation. Current and past employees as well as interview candidates can leave reviews about their experience with your company. These tend to rank highly in online search results and are not always picked up by review monitoring tools.
Once you have developed an understanding of your current online reputation, you can begin the process of analyzing the results and identifying a plan for response and ongoing management. There will be some issues that require immediate attention and other lower priority items that will be difficult, if not impossible, to address. As the old adage goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Building a positive online reputation will take time and attention to see results.
Fortunately, there are many tools you can use to monitor your reputation, encourage positive reviews, and easily respond to any negative reviews you may receive. We’ll cover more online reputation strategies and tactics on MHInsider in the months to come.
In the meantime, continue to treat everyone how you would like to be treated and focus on making those first impressions count.
As a freelance consultant I often worked in Florida and throughout the Southeast. I “mystery shopped” land-lease communities for portfolio owners/operators, assessed hurricane damage to properties and infrastructure, and taught the basics of home sales, site leasing, and resident relations. I also networked with clients and manufactured housing trade association executives and staff.
George Allen
Persons and personalities met along the way
Mystery shopping is commonplace for conventional apartment communities nationwide, not so much for and-lease communities.
Why?
Despite the high value of their income-producing properties, property owners/operators are reluctant to spend the money to gauge on-the-job performance of on-site staff, curb appeal, and resident relations. The usual mystery shopping assignment included an unscheduled telephone “visit” to the property to discern how the phone is answered, the smile in one’s voice, and efforts to close, such as an invite caller to visit the property.
I would do a drive-through inspection of the community, photographing marketing shortfalls such as lack of signage, as well as the nature and volume of rules violations, and conduct an on-site anonymous visit and evaluation of sales/leasing efforts by staff in the information center. All of this was reported in written form to the property owner/operator, sometimes followed by an onsite re-training session.
One of my most unusual consulting assignments – ever, involved flying into Miami the day after Hurricane Andrew devastated southern Florida in 1992. My assignment was to assess and photograph damage to my client’s manufactured home communities, and report back to him. My uncle, a decorated WWII veteran, met me at the airport and served as my tour guide. All the way down the interstate, highway signs had been blown away, and exit names were painted on the roadway! In community after community we saw single-section manufactured homes askew, often stacked atop one another, sometimes three deep. Large pine trees, 40-feet tall with two-foot diameter trunks, stripped bare of branches. Bulldozers and large-volume dump trucks already were clearing debris, dumping it onto a huge, growing hill, 40 feet tall by 300 feet long. My client lost all the homes in his properties.
Being an itinerant teacher of manufactured home sales, site leasing, and resident relations often followed mystery shopping visits. These frequently occurred on-site in the hot property’s clubhouse, where several to many property managers from several other communities gathered. We taught the basics of telephone etiquette, to answer on the second ring, SMILE, qualify the caller, and invite them to the property. We also covered the importance of fresh and appropriate signage , like a WELCOME HOME sign at every entrance, and parking spots that are RESERVED FOR FUTURE RESIDENT with easy access to the information center, and the value of good resident relations and how that effort translates into a money-making equation; Good Resident Relations = More Resident Referrals = Maximum Resident Retention.
Sandalwood Park, Venice, Fla.
Beyond the Tactical Efforts, It’s the People You Meet
The networking aspect of freelance travel and work was especially enjoyable.
How so?
The persons and personalities I met and befriended over the decades, though some are retired or deceased now, were intriguing and memorable.
Martin Newby, now retired, was the founder of Newby Management, a 100% fee-management firm. Newby brought resident relations to manufactured home communities nationwide in the early 1990s. Had a chaplain on staff, and was widely known and respected for his “24 Hour Rule”, which was a mandate to address and correct every resident concern within 24 hours, or to communicate a solution and date in writing.
Florida Communities Team
This tale is well told in “Swan Song: A History of Land Lease Communities & Official Record of MH Shipments”. Here, an aggressive community development and marketing plan was articulated and implemented to quickly fill a dozen communities with an average of 100 rental homesites for Florida seniors. They accomplished this by using conventional highway billboards, attractive entrance and community signage, fresh landscaping every six months, and home sale and site leasing consultants who were thoroughly trained and effectively monitored for progress. We regularly mystery shopped these properties, where the prevailing attitude was “You came here to visit, so you want to buy; you’re not going to leave until you do!” This mantra was so effective, one of our senior “shopper” couples bought a new home from the Florida Communities Team, even though they owned a manufactured home in a nearby community!
The most notable personality, who I never met in person but did some work for his firm, was the late Maurice Wilder, founder of Wilder Management, in Tampa, Fla.
Here are some career highlights of this low profile, high value individual:
— Hailed from Decatur, IL. where he started out as an independent (street) MHRetailer — Owned ten land-lease communities and RV parks throughout Florida and Texas — Purchased the Westin Harbour Island Hotel, selling it for $46.5 million in 2014 — Owned eight office towers in Clearwater, Tampa, and Brandon — Invested in vast reaches of farmland, and was called the king of federal farm subsidies — Collected classic cars for his auto museum in Branson, Mo. — Drove a $234,000 Bentley he claimed was faster than his Corvette — Owned and raised buffalo in North Dakota, as well as ostriches, zebras, and camels in Plant City, Fla.
Maurice died in 2016, but his firm, Wilder Corporation, owns three land-lease communities in the state, and is an active member of the Florida Manufactured Housing Association.
Another longtime land-lease community owner-friend was the late Lawrence Maxwell, founder of CRF Communities, a.k.a. Century Communities, headquartered in Lakeland, Fla., with a portfolio of about a dozen properties. Larry also was the brother of John C. Maxwell, the famous Christian author, public speaker, pastor, and one of 25 authors named to Amazon.com’s 10th Anniversary Hall of Fame, for his business leadership books, each selling more than a million copies. I mention this because, in years past, while visiting Larry at his office, he’d load me down with copies of John’s latest books to read, and I always considered it a bonus to the work I performed for him.
Sunseekers, North Fort Myers, Fla.
The Northwestern Mutual Real Estate, Murex Properties Partnership
Northwestern Mutual, according to the 32nd annual ALLEN REPORT, owns 10 top-quality land-lease communities with 3,929 rental homesites in two states. And these, for the most part, are fee-managed by Murex Properties from their offices in Fort Myers, Fla. Murex, according to the ALLEN REPORT, owns and manages 7,202 rental homesites in 16 communities. The latest trade news from Northwestern has veteran loan originator, everyone’s friend, John Jacobs, confirming his retirement from the in January 2021. Steve Adler, founder and owner of Murex Properties, is a member of the RV/MH Heritage Foundation’s Hall of Fame Class of 2020 – awaiting induction in August 2021, due to coronavirus pandemic-related gathering restrictions.
The most well-known snowbird Floridian, often in Michigan during spring and summer, is military veteran Lou Vela, loan originator with Q10 Lutz Financial. I don’t know anyone in the land-lease community sector who does not know and like Lou. He’s in his mid-80s and, as they say, going strong. Given the pandemic turmoil of year 2020, he turned from originating community mortgages to commercial real estate sales, mostly selling communities and self-storage facilities. This spring he’s transitioned back to lending, but is focused on securing raw land development financing for clients. And there’s this Lou tale worth telling here. During the 1999 Networking Roundtable, when snowed-in at the Colorado Springs Marriott Hotel, Lou phoned Bill Marriott’s office to have our hotel and bartender provide the group with some beer, so we could properly enjoy the baseball World Series games being played that weekend. That is vintage Lou.
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is withdrawing the previous administration’s proposed rule that would have weakened the Equal Access Rule. The Equal Access Rule ensures that all individuals regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity have equal access to the programs, shelters, other buildings and facilities, benefits, services, and accommodations.
HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge.
“Access to safe, stable housing—and shelter—is a basic necessity,” HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge said. “Unfortunately, transgender and gender non-conforming people report more instances of housing instability and homelessness than cis-gender people. Today, we are taking a critical step in affirming HUD’s commitment that no person be denied access to housing or other critical services because of their gender identity. HUD is open for business for all.”
The Trump administration refused to fully implement the Equal Access Rule and proposed a rule in 2020 that would have allowed shelter programs and operators to subject transgender individuals to inappropriate and intrusive inquiries, deny them accommodations, and subject them to greater harassment, HUD said.
Action withdrawing the rule will be submitted to the Federal Register within a week.
Added Resources, and Background in Equal Access Protection
Additionally, HUD is releasing technical assistance resources prepared by technical assistance providers to HUD grantees. These resources will support HUD’s Office of Community Planning and Development grantees in implementing the Equal Access Rule.
The 2016 CPD Equal Access Rule requires that HUD grantees funded in whole or in part by any Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD) program ensure equal access to community planning and development programs, shelters, other buildings and facilities, benefits, services, and accommodations. Grantees must ensure shelter access be provided to a person in accordance with that person’s gender identity, and in a manner that affords equal access to the person’s family. The rule further ensures that, when consideration of sex is prohibited or not relevant, individuals will not be discriminated against based on actual or perceived gender identity, and where legitimate consideration of sex or gender is appropriate—for example, for shelters that serve only one sex or otherwise operate in a sex-segregated way—the individual’s own self-identified gender identity will govern.
On July 24, 2020, the previous administration proposed a rule entitled “Making Admission or Placement Determinations Based on Sex in Facilities Under Community Planning and Development Housing Programs”. This proposed rule, if finalized, would have significantly undermined the 2016 CPD Equal Access Rule.
The proposed 2020 Shelter Rule would have allowed for HUD-sanctioned, federally funded discrimination against transgender people, who face disproportionately high rates of homelessness and extreme risk in unsheltered homelessness.
First, the rule would have allowed HUD CPD-funded shelters and other facilities to create policies excluding transgender and gender non-conforming people from being placed in single-sex facilities that aligned with those persons’ gender identities. This would have created insurmountable barriers to shelter access for transgender and gender non-conforming people who already face serious discrimination and difficulty in safely accessing shelters.
Second, the rule would have allowed CPD grant funding recipients, subrecipients, owners, operators, managers, and providers to overrule the gender identity proffered by a person seeking shelter and make their determination about that person’s gender. It allowed CPD funding recipients to focus solely on a person’s sex assigned at birth and then assess that based on physical factors such as height and the presence of facial hair. This intrusive and humiliating inquiry would be inflicted on the especially vulnerable people experiencing homelessness, many of whom have experienced sexual assault or other trauma.
Equal access to HUD programs that serve people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness is essential in addressing the challenges faced by transgender and gender non-conforming persons. National research has indicated that denials of access to shelters for transgender and gender non-conforming persons based upon gender identity are commonplace. Transgender women reported being excluded from women’s shelters at high rates. In one key study, transgender housing testers called shelters in four states to ask about where they would be housed. Only 30% of the shelters contacted by the testers were prepared to house transgender women with other women, as would have been appropriate.
Transgender and gender non-conforming persons face enormous safety risks in shelters. According to a national survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality, nearly half of all transgender respondents who accessed shelters left those shelters because of the treatment they received there — choosing to live on the streets over the abuse and indignity they experienced in a shelter. This survey further reported that 25% of transgender persons who stayed in shelters were physically assaulted and 22% were sexually assaulted in shelters.
MHInsider, the premier source of manufactured housing news, will continue to update readers on what the new HUD Code final rule means for the industry, and the customers who buy and live in new manufactured homes.
After decades of minimal new development in the manufactured housing community sector the pace is increasing for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the current stock of aging properties and a need for updated infrastructure and amenities.
New manufactured home communities, built from raw land, have been hampered by zoning difficulties, NIMBY (not in my back yard) pressure, lean access to financing, regulatory burdens, and a general misconception about the value of manufactured housing.
Callaghan said he and his team have been working with increased regularity with operators interested in developing new communities, so much so that Four Leaf has formalized a new business unit within the company to manage and pursue that work.
“Cap rate compression and the demand for vacant lots has taken us to a point where we’re now spending almost as much for a vacant lot with 1970s infrastructure as a newly developed lot with new infrastructure,” Callaghan said. “The trick to land sourcing, as an alternative to existing communities, lies in finding a location where the demand for the product is met with an equal amount of municipal support. It’s as if you’re contending with two buyers, the end-user and the municipality. You need to see demand from both sides to make a project viable.”
Callaghan emphasized that community owners have become developers by necessity, driven by the massive shortage of affordable housing. Historically that has been addressed in the manufactured housing industry through the expansion of existing communities. However, that opportunity is gated by limited land for planned expansion and availability of adjacent property that can be acquired and entitled.
Financing for new communities also continues to be a hurdle, but interest rates for commercial real estate loans remain near historic lows. Those rates and the rapidly growing demand for housing, along with housing price escalation, has captured the attention of policymakers and legislators alike.
“Despite the challenges, if you can find the right piece of property, the math works all day long,” Callaghan said. “I don’t think that was the case even five years ago.”
A Strategy Toward New Community Development
Florida, Texas, the Carolinas, Colorado, and Arizona are leaders in recent years among locales for new manufactured housing developments.
Following the sale of Four Leaf’s portfolio in 2018 sale to Yes! Communities, one of the nation’s largest community owners, the company began to aggressively acquire with a development focus in some prime locations.
Four Leaf owns and manages communities in Florida, Indiana, Michigan, and Texas. Callaghan said the new development group currently has about 2,500 sites underway, or in entitlement awaiting development. More than half of those homesites will be available for occupancy home placement and occupancy by the end of the year.
“We learned by executing smaller expansions at several of communities,” Callaghan said. “It was 20 spaces at a time developed a bit informally. Over time, however, we identified the resources and established the processes to take on bigger projects moving forward.”
The development strategy is approached as a joint venture between Four Leaf, the community owner/developer, and local governments. Callaghan said preemptive sales and marketing efforts, thoughtful staging and phasing, a designated construction entrance, and good communication with residents throughout the development cycle are just a few of the keys to success in developing new communities.
One of the largest obstacles in having new communities built during the last 25 years has been the lengthy wait in recovering investment costs
“You don’t have to bite the apple all at once,” Callaghan said. “There is an option for putting in utilities and developing homesites prior to full development of infrastructure and amenities, taking the sting out of the owner and investor wait for return on investment. If you don’t have to incur all your asphalt and concrete costs before the community is filling, you can hold back a lot of your costs. But you have to do it right, and stage it correctly, because you can’t bring in 100 new residents and ask them to live on a construction site for 12 months.”
One of the remaining challenges is getting industry involvement for a new movement, a transition from traditional MH property acquisition to a focus on new developments.
“The MH market has been red hot and no one wants to pour cold water on it, but behind closed doors we’re all recognizing that paying top dollar for obsolescent infrastructure is really dangerous to the health of the business. There has to be a next step in the evolution of the MH industry,” Callaghan said. “We’re at the point where we need to match the modern nature of the home product with modern infrastructure, property design layouts and amenities. Placing six-figure assets on ten-dollar infrastructure is bad, long term, for the industry.
This is the beginning of the end for the first-generation infrastructure, but we’re replacing those old dinosaurs with way better product, better lot configurations, and that translates to a better living experiences for residents,” Callaghan said. “You’ll know we have turned the corner when you see manufactured housing developers coming into a place like metro Detroit where massive housing demand meets a glut of old product and no new supply. All the characteristics for success are in place. That day is coming.”
How to Create a New Comfort Zone for Your Customers
What a difference a year makes!
It’s hard to believe a bit more than year ago we were in Las Vegas at The International Builders Show and Kitchen and Bath Show with over 100,000 of our peers from all across the globe. So many things that we did and enjoyed such a short time ago we wouldn’t dream of doing now.
This year the show was virtual, and despite some technical difficulties, it was a very beneficial and dramatically safer experience than it could have been otherwise.
The home center at Palm Harbor’s Plant City, Fla., location is an inviting place where potential homebuyers can find information, see homes, and have their questions answered.
As much as we all want “back to normal” it won’t be happening as soon as we’d like.
The good news is that this has been the year for more reasons than ever in which consumers understand that factory-built homes can be an excellent option for their new home. Being constructed in a controlled environment has a different, even more, positive message than it did even six months ago. I jokingly tell my clients that I have almost put myself out of business — they have been selling the homes that I have merchandised right off of the lot, furniture and all.
As a result, they have fewer homes to show. More homes are sold before they even arrive at the retail centers than ever before. As early as February, it became clear that the manufacturers have backlogs of orders that will keep them busy for the rest of 2021.
How do we use the tools that we have and keep the sales coming?
Your sales office is where you begin your in-person customer experience, perhaps the only physical tool you have for now to sell your homes. Here is a checklist of five things to evaluate within your home center or sales location when you are thinking about selling more homes in 2021.
1.Welcome Home
When a customer drives past your location, why are they driving past and not coming in? What incentive do they have to spend time with you instead of just doing a Google search and seeing your homes online? A well landscaped and welcoming sales center is a critical investment. Ensure that the paint or siding is fresh and that the office is easily accessible and ADA compliant. Do you have a porch area and furniture where you can sit outside and learn more about the customer and their needs while you look out over the new models? Is there room for more than one family member to wait for a sales team member without feeling uncomfortable?
Creating multiple greeting spaces is a priority right now.
2.First Impressions
When a customer walks up to your front door, are they greeted by an inviting, well-designed reception area, or is it furnished with sofas and furniture that came out of storage or from a model you sold long ago? The sales center should be one of the first things you think about, not an afterthought. An easy, inexpensive way to greet guests is to have a signboard at the door that you can use to welcome people who have appointments with you— greet your customer on the sign by name, like Welcome Smith Family! This makes your customer know you put time and effort into their visit and it encourages drop-ins to make an appointment next time, as well.
3.Moving on Up
Breeding discontent with a buyers’ current living situation is a subtle way to help them decide that it is time for a new home of their own. You want the finishes, furniture, and decor in your sales center to be just a step up from what your buyers have, not intimidating, but something they can aspire to. A sales office is a great place to partner with a local furniture store. I am a huge believer in marketing partnerships and giving a complementary company a place to showcase what they offer. This is a win for everyone, including your customer. In return, ask them to promote your business at their location just like you are happy to promote them.
4.Decision Makers
Treat your sales center like a sales center, not just a place that your sales team spends time between leads. Do you have inspiration or storyboards on the walls? Do you tell your story and why they should be comfortable and buy from you instead of the competition? When I was active in merchandising site-built homes, we often didn’t have an actual home to show prospective clients. We would use actual materials from our homes to build refreshment spaces or tables, the flooring that was available in our homes would be used on the floors in the sales center, and the wall colors would be ones that we currently offer in our homes. I would love to see manufactured home builders do something like this for our retailers.
5.Closure
Your closure room should be a celebration room; it is where the customers’ dreams come true! Is this a pleasantly designed space, or is it just a corner with old files stored around it? Please don’t let it be the place your team uses to eat lunch. You ask a customer to spend up $100,000 or more with you, please go as far as you are able to let them know they are special and that you appreciate them and their business. Stock a fridge with a non-alcoholic refreshment, like sparkling cider, and have disposable champagne glasses on hand. It’s a beautiful way to celebrate them making one of the most significant milestones in their lives. You and the entire family can participate!
The Palm Harbor Village Model Center in Plant City, Fla., is an excellent example of a well-designed sales center. It has tremendous visibility right on the frontage road of Interstate 4 and is the largest model center in Florida. It is in front of the builder’s manufacturing facility, and the 33 acres and 22 furnished model homes make quite an impression. I have visited a few times and it is always beautifully landscaped with a large lake in the front that some of the houses are sited around. They also do a great job on the website for the center. A factory tour video is highlighted so you can see how your new home will be constructed. There is a lot of information, and they have actual photos of the models at the center – all professionally decorated and displayed. I also love the scrolling “News This Week” on the site where they share and congratulate new Palm Harbor homeowners. It’s a creative, personal touch.
Now is a great time to rethink your sales office strategy for the spring selling season. Don’t be afraid to ask your team and customers for their input as well — a different perspective can make all of the difference in how your view the selling process.
A 55+ manufactured home community that rose from the ashes in St. Lucie County, a short drive from Fort Pierce, is extending a hand to pull up its adjacent sister community, which will bear a new name and an array of amenities for families in South Florida.
Seventeen years ago residents in St. Lucie County ducked and covered as a system of Atlantic storms — Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne — pounded the southern coastline, driving area residents from their homes, including those at Sandhill Shores.
“A lot of homes were destroyed and people weren’t able to come back home,” YES Communities Senior Vice President Shawn Harpin said. The Denver-based community ownership group inspected Sandhill and its adjacent property, interested in the possibility of a purchase.
“We went down to get a feel for the asset and the surrounding area,” Harpin said. “I remember saying out loud ‘This is a great location’. You’re a couple of golf strokes from an outdoor recreation area, Savannas State Park, with camping, boating, fishing, and picnic facilities, and it’s a five-minute drive to downtown Fort Pierce.”
Photos courtesy of YES Communities.
The Market is Hot in South Florida
Harpin said if anyone was to inquire in March about the pace of sales — the expectation for continuing to fill one property, and developing another amid the challenges of the pandemic — he would have cringed a little, maybe, and certainly would have hesitated.
Today, the story is told.
Sandhill was about 30% occupied when YES Communities purchased the property in August of 2017, and it since has added about 130 homes.
“We are 70% occupied now and we’re hoping to have the community full in the next two years,” Harpin said.
“In this area on average there’s been a 23% in drop in inventory from a year ago. Housing prices are higher than 2006. Additionally, as the impact of the pandemic eases, the demand for housing, especially affordable housing, will increase,” he said.
When the eviction moratorium drops, it’s going to change not just for us, but all around. The demand for housing, especially affordable housing, cannot be overstated.”
Homes at Sandhill Shores come from across the state line in Waycross, Ga., from Clayton’s home building facility there as well as some from the ScotBilt Homes facility.
Sandhill sits on more than 58 acres and eventually will have 375 homesites. It is a gated community, with a gym, shuffleboard, swimming, outdoor pergola kitchen, putting green, horseshoe pit, pickleball, fire pit, and game room.
All of the homes are for sale, Harpin said. But the community does have a small number of park-owned rental homes as well.
The demand for housing is so high that YES is reviewing the option to convert many of the RV slips in Sandhill back to manufactured housing homesites. And it purchased the adjacent community and built a plan to have it complement the existing housing stock for homeowners and renters with families.
The New Community That is Savannas Ridge
The neighboring community to Sandhill, just across a small canal, once was a place called Pleasure Cove. The communities were planned and zoned at the same time, under the same ownership. Pleasure Cove changed hands from its original ownership, was held up by a management company, went into receivership, and was fee-managed for a time before development was halted.
“We knew the company that was looking to sell the property, and Steve Schaub and I were talking about it, and we could tell they wanted something positive to come out of it,” Harpin said. “We made the purchase, got city approval and right now we are in the assessment stage, cost and timewise, on what it’s going to take to bring this community up to what we want it to be. We are hoping by the fourth quarter of ‘21 we’re breaking ground.”
The community has underground utilities and a former clubhouse with “good bones”. Savannas Ridge and its 32 acres will have 209 homesites, a renovated clubhouse, swimming, and a playground for individual residents and south Florida families.
Two Manufactured Home Communities with Ties to Open Land
“We want to work with the city to provide a connection from the communities to the city greenbelt,” Harpin said. “That’s been part of the vision from the beginning, and it’s something I feel confident we can achieve given the relationship we have with the city and surrounding community.
Harpin said some of YES’ success in the area is attributed to is the city’s realization that YES is a partner with many of the same goals, not just an organization looking to get in, win a buck, and get out.
The connection between what Savannas Ridge will be and what the public recreation area is creates a lifestyle mix that both retiree residents at Sandhill and all-ages residents the emerging community value.
The locale is the common denominator that will make each property a success.
“Savannas Recreation Area is a rare wilderness area, and just happens to be our neighbor in Fort Pierce,” Harpin said.
Sun Communities ranks among the top community owners measured by number of homesites.
Manufactured Home Communities Ranked in Order by Largest Number of Homesites
Attendees at the NCC Spring Forum in Las Vegas look over MHI’s display of the Top 50 Manufactured Housing Community Owners.
The National Communities Council is a leading organization in the manufactured housing industry, representing the community owners, operators, managers, developers, lenders, and suppliers.
NCC is a division of the Manufactured Housing Institute, the only national advocacy organization representing all facets of the manufactured housing industry. In most years, MHI announces the top community owners during the NCC Spring Forum at the Congress and Expo of Manufactured and Modular Housing, often held in Las Vegas.
The NCC serves its members by being an effective advocate with policymakers, media, and the general public. It strives to improve the business climate for its members by increasing professionalism and education within the industry. The NCC also is among the industry’s most reliable sources of data used to create more opportunities for the successful development, operation, and marketing of land-lease communities.
Top 50 MH Community Owners and Operators
Sun Communities, Inc. – Southfield, Mich. – 83,294 homesites
Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – Chicago – 73,700 homesites
RHP Properties, Inc. – Farmington Hills, Mich. – 60,163 homesites
In 27 retail sales locations across the South and toward the mid-Atlantic, Regional Homes Senior Vice President of Operations Charles Stricklin is witnessing a trend among homebuyers: There are more of them, and they want to move in today.
“It’s just been escalating, particularly over the last two years,” Stricklin said. Regional Homes, based in Flowood, Miss., runs the majority of its retail home sales operations in the state, though they also have locations in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and North Carolina.
The organization employs about 200 people, and last year they moved about 2,500 homes.
“The whole year in 2020 just continued to improve, improve, and improve in sales. No one thing happened that blew us up; it’s just been consistent growth,” he said.
Actually, each of the last three years has proven to be new record-sales years for Regional Homes. Sales in 2020 were up 10% from the prior year, Stricklin said. And while the buyers are aplenty, the most notable change in recent years has been the diversity of the buyer and their willingness to take advantage of the current financing terms.
Regional Homes provides manufactured homes for customers in four states, has a broad customer base and meets a wide range of homebuyer needs.
“I’ve been in the business 33 years, and I’ve been in this market from Texas to Florida, too, and what I see happening here, now, it’s more of an increased ability to purchase driving this,” he said. “The rates are very amicable for buyers today. The lower payment allows a customer to buy when they might not have been able or willing before, and those who are more firmly in the market are in a position to buy more house.
“A customer with strong credit and a good down payment can get a rate on a 23-year chattel loan at about 5%,” Stricklin said. “If you had that same really strong customer three years ago, you could get a 7 or 7.5% rate, and that makes a big difference in your monthly.” According to Stricklin, it is similar with a customer who has some debt, or doesn’t have as good credit, or as solid of a down payment; the rate three years ago would have been 12%, now it’s 9%.
Up to the Challenge
Of course, operating conditions in 2020 and early 2021 have been less than favorable, with coronavirus precautions putting a strain on production and the myriad of unique considerations needed for meeting with potential buyers.
“But we’ve got good partners in manufacturing, and we’ve bought in volume to try to counter that aspect,” Stricklin said of the extended backlog. “We still have to wait longer than we want, but because of those relationships, I feel like we’re able to do better than many retailers can from order to delivery.”
Backlogs and wait times were growing well before the pandemic, too. This compelled Regional Homes founder and President Heath Jenkins in 2018 to become a minority investor and part-owner in Hamilton Homes in Alabama, thus securing a regional segment of the production pipeline. For years, Regional Homes has also done business with Cappaert, Champion, Deer Valley, and Winston Homes to keep a wide array of offerings available for their manufactured home buyers.
What Are Homebuyers in the South Asking?
Stricklin said a majority of Regional Homes’ sales are single-section homes, often entry-level homes for first-time homebuyers, with a mix of empty nesters as well. Most buyers have land waiting, so land-home financing is about 20% of the business, with chattel lending making up the remainder.
“Kitchens and master bathrooms still sell homes, and family space would be the next consideration,” Stricklin said. “Those are the driving factors for most of our customers.
“We have one of the best and educated teams in the country when it comes to providing a variety of financing options and putting the buyers into the right house,” Stricklin said.
Many first-time buyers in the area were gifted or inherited land, such as split parcels that can be used as a downpayment. And the minimal zoning and regulatory climate in most of the small towns and rural areas of the South make it easier to place a manufactured home.
Regional Homes gets many of its entry-level homes from Hamilton, Cappaert, and Champion’s facility in Benton, Ky. Stricklin said buyers in the Florida Panhandle and the newly opened markets in North Carolina are more likely to ask for multi-section or modular homes. Regional Homes buys those homes from Deer Valley, Winston, and Champion’s facility in Dresden, Tenn., to satisfy that demand.
“We have plenty of customers who want what they want, and they’re willing to pay for it,” he said. “They’re looking for a last-purchase home with some higher-end materials. Deer Valley buyers are nearly all what you might call a custom home buyer, which is 5 to 8% of our sales, but it’s growing, and it’s largely because of those interest rates.”
In fact, the higher-end Deer Valley, Winston, and Champion homes begin to hit a price-point that almost competes with the site-built market. Regional Homes offers diversified product lines to meet customers’ wants and desires in each market, and the number of markets continues to grow.
“We’re happy to have expanded our footprint,” Stricklin said. “We’ve worked hard. This year, 2021, will be our first full year with North Carolina, one location, and we added three locations in Louisiana last year.”
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“Our selection committees held meetings to review...
