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Florida Manufactured Housing Post-Irma

By
Patrick Revere
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MH Pros Go in Search of Answers on Florida Manufactured Housing Post-Irma

In the days following Hurricane Irma, a team of unlikely documentarians hit the soggy ground in South Florida searching for answers on manufactured housing post-Irma.

They handed out water and rations, called when they could to notify emergency workers of stranded or distressed residents, and offered plenty of blessings and well wishes too.

However, the line of questioning most often, and where the cameras were trained, had more to do with homes that remained rather than those wiped out.

Leading the team was Jim Ayotte, Executive Director of the Florida Manufactured Housing Association.

“The industry fared much better than we anticipated,” Ayotte said following the visit to six communities in Naples and Bonita Springs, Fla. “There were fewer damaged and destroyed home than expected.

“The new product performed extremely well,” he said. “We did not find one home that was built and sited after 1994 that suffered any significant damage. Maybe a roof shingle or two that had come loose, but that was about it.”

A roof shingle or two, amid the piles of rubble, splintered lumber and debris that continues to fill front yards and line streets in some areas.

Florida Manufactured Housing Post-Irma

A Report from Storm-Damaged South Florida

An estimated 77 people died in or from the aftermath of the storm. Area emergency rooms a month later continued to see double the normal traffic; storm victims with severe dehydration, slip and fall injuries, or trauma from working to move debris.

“A lot of site-built homes had roofs missing, holes in roofs, blown windows,” Ayotte said. “There were boats and RVs stacked up on the side of the road. The amount of destruction in general was amazing.”

manufactured housing post-irma
An older home adjacent Jenkins’ residence.

Older manufactured homes, Ayotte said, sustained damage, most often from attached structures pulling up from high winds, and ripping away siding or roofing fascia. But even those sustained only minor damage to the primary structure. FMHA continues to ask for input from residents, community managers and owners.

Ayotte said he saw two homes that shifted on their foundations.

“We had a good cross-section of the industry, and we met with a lot of community owners and home owners,” Ayotte said. “I was amazed at how upbeat and resilient these people were.

“We really believe that we have a great product, and these storms give us the opportunity to assess the industry and affirm that we’re building and siting the homes that we want to have out there. These homes are performing just as we want them to perform.”

How One Couple Survived Irma

John Jenkins is one of the homeowners Ayotte and his team ran across during their first tour of Florida manufactured housing post-Irma.

Jenkins, his girlfriend Susie and their dog BO, waited nervously in their 2017 Destiny home, which had been delivered and installed at Riverwood Estates in Naples only a few months prior. They watched the reports as the storm shifted and hopped west. And then they went from nervous to concerned, or something just shy of scared.

The couple placed a call to Jeff Wagner, from GTS Homes. Wagner had installed the home, and answered the call. He assured Jenkins that the home was sturdy and anchored tight.

“There was nowhere to go,” Jenkins said. “If you go north, that’s the track for the hurricane. If you go east, all of those people were coming toward us. It really surprised us. We were supposed to be out of the way. But Jeff assured me that everything was new and in place. He thought we’d be OK.”

‘Serenity inside this home’

“We watched that thing come up on us, we stayed in it as the eye came over top of us, then it hit again and scraped right across before swinging northeast again,” Jenkins said. “The fierceness of the outside made the relative calm and serenity inside this home very surreal. It was very much in contrast to what was going on outside.”

Manufactured Housing Post-Irma
Flooded and debris-strewn streets in Naples, Fla.

Jenkins said his home shook a little. He saw a small leak atop the back door, which has since been replaced. His primary concern, he said, was getting hit by flying debris from other structures, automobiles and large trees.

Many homes in his community, he said, though older – from the ’70s and ’80s – stayed on the ground. That’s because of government-funded tie-downs handed out to residents following deadly Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Even without electrical and other municipal services for 10 or more days following Irma, which made landfall on Sept. 10, Jenkins and his girlfriend felt relatively fortunate.

True, they had damage to the skirting. But, the home and all Jenkins invested in it is intact.

“You can look out the back of my house and right through the front and through what used to be the living room of my neighbor’s home. That’s the typical story down here, of older built homes,” Jenkins said. “It was definitely an age thing… there’s no comparison.”

Implementation of health and safety standards for Florida manufactured housing:

Manufactured Housing Post-Irma

Bob Qurnell is co-owner of Destiny Home Builders.

“I didn’t have any house that I know of destroyed from this storm, and we sell all the way down to Key West,” Qurnell said. “Our goal is to give the customer the best possible product. I think we did that in this case and in most cases. And the industry as a whole is building and siting quality homes. We can stand to have more people understand that, particularly in the face of media reports that often paint a different picture.”

Qurnell points out that factory-built homes like his have the benefit of weekly inspections from fire marshals, something few site-built homebuilders experience.

“We can’t cut corners even if we wanted,” Qurnell said. “We build a high-quality home with the same shingles, siding, shudders and many other materials used for site-built homes. Those are the points where you can get wind lift in there and the damage can begin.”

To review manufactured housing post-Irma, Ayotte traveled with a videographer/photographer, a member of the marketing team and two representatives, including Qurnell, from noted home manufacturers. FMHA presented the video produced from the first and two subsequent trips to South Florida during the recent National Communities Council in Chicago.

“When we approached him about the storm, he said ‘I felt good.’,” Ayotte said. “We couldn’t have asked for a better testimonial.”

Andrew Morrison on Tiny Home Appendix Q

By
Patrick Revere
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Tiny Home Appendix Q
The 30-foot Fiero is a 274 square-foot tiny home that sells for $75,000.

Tiny House Appendix Q is the first residential legal description for an emerging American industry.

The tiny house movement takes shape

Veteran builder and noted tiny house aficionado Andrew Morrison took the stage recently at The National Tiny House & Simple Living Jamboree to talk about the new tiny home Appendix Q, the first-ever and little-known legal description of the dwelling style that has captured the American imagination.

Tiny House Appendix Q
Tiny Home Zoning and Code Expert Andrew Morrison

Ever since he and his wife Gabriella built and moved into their sub $30,000 tiny house, paid for out of pocket, the pair has been providing insight on the ins-and-outs of tiny homes to the droves of enthusiasts who will pay to listen.

Now, Morrison and associates have managed to install the tiny house Appendix Q into the 2018 International Residential Code.

This is more than a movement within the movement. More than a clarification in black and white. This is the stamp of approval for the birth of an industry.

“I travel all around the country and there are so many people who have yet to hear about the tiny house appendix,” Morrison said during his talk at the Jamboree in Arlington, Texas. “The tiny house code is, I think, the most important thing we have going on in the industry.

“We have a pathway, so let’s start using it. Let’s go with it. It’s a big deal,” he said.

Tiny House Jamboree

How Tiny House Appendix Q Was Built

Morrison is a 20-year veteran of the building industry who in a 2015 TEDx talk provided insight toward compromised nature of traditional housing and home finance in the United States. The popular platform boosted his public profile. However, the real trick may have come in late 2016 when Morrison’s team managed to get language passed by the International Code Council in a single try.

“A friend of mine named Martin Hammer, an architect, saw a tiny home building code that was put together and it was… awful,” Morrison said.

The proposed language was deemed unusable. But its entry allowed Morrison’s team to engage the International Code Council in a two-month comment period, which, if handled well, would allow for entry of the consideration language.

Appendix Q Establishes Rules for Tiny Homes as a Permanent Residence

Tiny House Appendix Q
Tiny homes on display at the Tiny House Jamboree

Morrison, along with Appendix Q co-author Hammer, got to work on building tiny house Appendix Q with a focus on establishing the rules for a permanent residence, a home on a foundation that is built to stay as local planning allows.

“That’s one of the things we want to attain, is a house that meets health and safety code and is affordable,” Morrison said.  “Housing is becoming less and less available to us, and that has to change.”

A team of 10 presented in Kansas City, Mo., during October 2016 in front of hundreds of building officials and fire marshals. They took questions, defended their position and made changes to the language as needed. When approved by a two-thirds vote, the same language needed the same approval from more than 20,000 registered professionals nationwide.

“We were vetted, and we won,” Morrison said. “We got it done in two months and approved in the first try… it usually takes six to nine years for something this massive to be approved.”

Next Steps on Tiny House Appendix Q

While approval of the tiny house language is a massive leap forward, much work remains.

Tiny homes have gained popularity in recent years because of increasing housing costs, stagnant wages and a what Morrison views as a “grassroots movement towards minimalism”. Builders need a code for residential tiny homes. However, the code also allows local building officials to offer guidance.

On that latter point, now that Appendix Q is part of the 2018 code, it’s up to individual states & municipalities to adopt the updated 2018 code, which often lags. Most governments are working under the 2015 code, and some continue to site the 2012 code.

“It’s the code that gets approved, not the appendix,” Morrison said. “These governments need to then choose which appendices they want. Do we want the straw bale, do we want the manufactured home, do we want the tiny home code? So we need to get out there and advocate for our code.

The Morrisons meet with state representatives to talk about Appendix Q as they travel for speaking engagements. They teach and they do presentations on tiny living, and encourage people to live an inspired life.

Added Language for Tiny House Appendix Q

Tiny House Appendix Q has mention of how to incorporate wheels in the build-plan.

Tiny House Appendix Q
Tiny home interior

But any incorporation in a build-plan of a trailer would require an application under Section R104.11 “Alternative materials, design, and methods of construction and equipment”.

“This allows people to supply engineered plans that will work for something not specifically addressed in the code itself,” Morrison said in comments following his presentation.

Tiny house experts now refer to anything that uses a chassis as a “moveable tiny home”. This replaces the phrase “tiny home on wheels”.  The “on wheels” reference immediately makes inspectors and others in the validation process want to call the home an RV, which is a vehicle under the RVIA/ANSI codes. The “moveable” phrase means the home can be moved but is not stationed on wheels.

Movability of a home also becomes a difficult proposition for financing. This is primarily because a lender needs to know where to find a home, if needed, for financial recourse.

Darin Zaruba, founder of the Tiny House Jamboree, views Appendix Q with tempered enthusiasm.

“This certainly is a big step in the right direction, but given that the language was unable to address tiny homes on wheels, there remains a lot to be decided,” he said. “Tiny house Appendix Q addresses the residential code, but it’s anyone’s guess the direction homes on wheels will go. Will it be RVIA or ANSI? Will we be able to write something into the appendix? Everyone has opinions and preferences, but the question hangs out there.”

However, Morrison maintains that a tiny house can have a chassis, axles and wheels and still be a permanent residence. The home must be built to the approved IRC code for the area.

The heavy lifting has been done

“We will meet the code as it’s written right now,” Morrison said.

“This was done because all of the people on the other side of the table had droves of people coming saying they want to build a tiny home, but they couldn’t do anything. There was no code,” Morrison said. “So, they needed this, and that’s important to recognize.”

Champion Modular, Inc. rekindles All American Homes® brand

By
Patrick Revere
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Champion Modular

All-new lineup of modular homes redefines ‘A Smarter Way to Build™’for today’s market

Champion Modular, Inc. has announced that — as part of its 2016 acquisition of multiple manufacturing plants and renowned modular home brands — it is revitalizing and re-launching All American Homes®.
All American Homes is a series of more than 25 ranch, bonus-ranch, cape and two-story modular homes. Each home features high-end craftsmanship at affordable prices.
The All American Homes’ began in the 1970s and, after changes in ownership and a brief hiatus, officially debuts Jan. 17–19, 2018, at the Louisville Manufactured Housing Show.
So, Champion Modular will unveil the first home in the lineup in Louisville. The Brooklyn, a three-bedroom, two-bath ranch model, showcases the latest in design, styling and smart-home technology in the industry.
“Just as with Champion’s other brands, we know the pillars that will make All American Homes a success are its innovation, premium craftsmanship and commitment to integrity,” said Mark Yost, president of Champion Home Builders. “This new line is a continuation of an undeniably rich heritage, but it is also so much more than that. It is a reflection of this brand’s evolution — an evolution that mirrors the tastes of its customers and fits their diverse wants, needs and lifestyles.”
Champion Modular All-American Brand

Demand Drives Relaunch Within Champion Modular

It was with these customers in mind that Champion endeavored to bring All American Homes back to the market. As a result, the change began with gaining insight into their valuable perspectives on what made the brand so iconic in the past, in order to make it successful today.
“Our goal was to not only reestablish the All American Homes brand, but to reinvigorate it,” reflected David Reed, vice president of Champion Modular. “To do so, we hit the road and spoke directly with many former All American customers, incorporating their feedback into our formula for success. The result is a solid product offering that integrates the preferences of its customers, but does so without sacrificing quality or affordability.”
A former customer of All American Homes weighed in on what the brand re-launch means to his company.
“All American Homes was a top modular homebuilding company for decades, so we are very happy to see it return,” said Bob Lang, owner of LaPorte Housing Specialists, Inc., in LaPorte, Indiana. “We have nothing but great memories working with All American in the past and look forward to once again championing the All American name.”
Also, All American Homes’ select building materials and amenities include cabinets by Merillat®; faucets by Kohler®; appliances by Whirlpool®; and Silver Line®windows by Andersen Windows and Doors®. Detailed product information and pricing will be available at the 2018 Louisville Manufactured Housing Show. To learn more about All American Homes, visitallamericanhomes.com.

About Champion Home Builders

Founded in 1953, Champion Home Builders specializes in a wide variety of manufactured and modular homes, park-model RVs, and modular buildings for the multi-family, hospitality, senior, and workforce housing sectors. Champion started as a single manufacturing facility in rural Michigan and grew to offer factory-built housing and other structures throughout the U.S. and western Canada. The company operates 28 manufacturing facilities throughout North America and employs more than 5,200 people.

About Champion Modular

Champion Modular is a wholly owned subsidiary of Champion Home Builders and was established in 2016 as a company strategically focused on modular construction. The company specializes in high-quality single-family homes, upscale customized homes and commercial structures. Champion Modular products are built under the All American Homes®, Excel Homes®, New Era Building Systems™, New Image Homes®, North American Housing and Champion Commercial Structures brand names.
For more information on Champion Home Builders, visit www.ChampionHomes.com.

Arlington Hosts Tiny House Simple Living Jamboree

By
Patrick Revere
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Tiny House Simple Living Jamboree
Escape's Traveler model interior

Join MHVillage and a slate of designers, builders and lifestyle coaches at the Tiny House Simple Living Jamboree Oct. 27-29 in Arlington, Texas

Get ready to explore more than 60 tiny living structures, learn from the experts, find unique simple living products and services and “Jam” with us at The Tiny House & Simple Living Jamboree at the Arlington Convention Center.

The Jamboree plays host to the nation’s latest in tiny houses, simple living and sustainability. Tiny house owners, enthusiasts and curiosity seekers will gather and celebrate with influential members of the community. There will be workshops, music, film, food trucks and a local Texas vendor fair all in a family-friendly environment.

The Tiny House & Simple Living Jamboree is the world’s largest celebration of tiny homes and simple living.

Founded in Colorado Springs, Colo., in 2015, This is the first Jamboree held in Arlington. Among The Tiny House Jamboree Builders who will be present, are Southwest Tiny Homes of Williamsburg, N.M., Leland Cabins, of Grandview, Texas, and Escape, of Lake Rice, Wis.

Tiny House & Simple Living Jamboree
Southwest Tiny Home

Tickets and admission for the Tiny House Jamboree

Advance tickets are $20 for a single day and $25 at the door, $35 for 3-day advance tickets or $50 at the door, and $80 for pre-ordered premium all-access tickets and $90 at the door.

The Jamboree includes a variety of attractions. On the slate is more than 70 homes to view and walk through! There also are builder workshops, live music shows, mixers and film screenings on tiny living. Below is a sneak peek of the Jamboree schedule!

Tiny House Simple Living Jamboree
Leland’s Lonestar floorplan

Friday 3:30 – 4:00 p.m.

“Downsizing” — Presenter Molly McNown is an expert at getting to the root of why it is so difficult to let go of all the things we accumulate in our life. She won’t tell you how to organize or be a minimalist. Instead, she’ll offer tips to lighten your load and give clarity. It’s about whether to keep your great aunt’s blue vase, your son’s baby teeth, or grandma’s chipped china. This insight will help you keep what you truly love and release that which binds you.

Saturday 10:45 AM – 12:00 PM

“Tiny House Design Tips & Tricks” — Speaker Lina Menard of Niche Consulting will share her expert design tips and tricks for the most efficient use of your space! This is just the information you need as you create drawings, plans and models for your own tiny house.

2:10 PM – 3:00 PM

“Kitchen Simplicity” — Author, chef and tiny house expert Carmen Shenk offers a can-do conversation on creating delectable food and shares the secrets that make it work for her. She provides a road map for going tiny, embracing simplicity, and eating well – even when your kitchen is small. Shenk’s new book “Kitchen Simplicity” is the first book in the Tiny House Foodie series. It will be published in the spring by H.D. Media Press.

Sunday 10:30 AM – 10:55 AM

“It Takes a Village to Raise a Tiny House” — Presenter Steven Hebberd talks about how tiny house living represents a major movement to address the problems of our isolation, but the way we build and situate our houses makes all the difference. Community First Village, the largest community of tiny houses in the country, is a response to the most extreme example of isolation in the country. It can teach us a lot about how tiny living can be a major part of the solution to America’s disease of isolation.

2:45 PM – 4:00 PM

“Traveling with a Tiny House” — Learn the ins and outs of traveling with your tiny home on wheels, whether you’re planning a road trip or just a one-time move.  The session is presented by Alexis Stephens and Christian Parsons of Tiny House Expedition, who have travelled more than 30,000 miles with their DIY tiny home!

The Tiny House & Simple Living Jamboree is a consumer show, open to the public, but will have plenty of programming for professionals. Visit the event website for further information. And keep a lookout for MHVillage, touring homes, taking pictures, talking to people and having a great time.

And thank you for the invite, Darin Zaruba, to The Tiny House Jamboree!!

Manufactured Home Shipments Up Again

By
Patrick Revere
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New Manufactured Home Shipments Up Again
New home shipments on the rise.

8,425 New HUD-Code Homes Shipped in August 2017, An Increase of 15.3 Percent from the Same Month in 2016

In August 2017, 8,425 new manufactured homes were shipped nationally, an increase of 15.3 percent from August 2016, and an increase of 2,617 homes or 45.1 percent compared to July 2017.

All numbers are compiled and reported by the Manufactured Housing Institute.

Compared with August 2016, the trend reflected increases across the board, with shipments of single section and multi-section homes up by 19.1 percent and 12.2 percent, respectively. Total floors shipped in August 2017 were 13,063, an increase of 14.0 percent compared with August 2016.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of shipments was 92,754 in August 2017, up 23.7 percent from the adjusted rate of 74,988 in July 2017. The SAAR corrects for normal seasonal variations and projects annual shipments based on the current monthly total.

The number of plants reporting production in August 2017 was 130, one more than in the previous month. The number of active corporations was 35, the same compared to July 2017.

Compared with last year, 2017 has recorded shipment increases in the first eight months. Shipments from January through August this year totaled 60,831 homes compared with 52,536 homes in 2016, a net increase of 15.8 percent.

Keep Leads Fresh

By
Dawn Highhouse
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business-handshake

U.S. businesses spend billions of dollars generating sales leads only to lose more than 70 percent of them simply because of too much delay in making contact, according to one study.

But that’s not the only way they’re losing out on opportunities, says Brandon Stuerke, president of Advisors Edge Marketing, a specialist in marketing strategy and automation for financial advisors and other professionals.

“A study of more than 600 companies by Dr. James Oldroyd of MIT found that the odds of a lead entering the sales process were 21 times greater if the business made contact within 5 minutes of generating the lead versus contact in 30 minutes,” Stuerke says. “Another study, this one by the Harvard Business Review, found that the average response time by businesses to a generated lead is 42 hours – and that’s just for responses that occurred within 30 days.”

The excerpt above comes from an article on realtor.com. I wish I could tell you this didn’t happen in our industry, but the truth is, I hear this complaint all the time. Home buyers who are on MHVillage, actively looking to purchase a home call us directly in desperation. “I’m really interested in home XYZ,” they say, “but I can’t get anyone to call me back.”

This breaks my heart.

Keep Leads Fresh

Think of your leads like a pint of Hagan Daaz ice cream: wonderful, but also very perishable. You have to keep leads fresh. Would you leave ice cream you’ve paid for sitting on the kitchen counter for a few days? Of course not!

Leads, particularly internet leads, are just as perishable. Every moment that lead sits without being taken care of, it loses value. You’ve spent a lot of time and effort into your marketing, now’s the time to make it pay off!

Here at MHVillage, we send out roughly 50,000 leads per month to our Professional users. To get the most out of those leads, you need to respond quickly. Here’s why:

Keep Leads Fresh
Phone Lead Generation

The First Contact Creates a Bond

People are always a little afraid of the unknown. The quicker you can reach out to the buyer and create a bond, whether it is through email or via the phone, the quicker you start to build a relationship. Buyers are much more inclined to work with someone they know, and the sooner you get your foot in the door, the better.

Compare and Contrast

When buyers shop online, they start by finding something that fits their needs. Once they have that first one, they begin comparison shopping, but they always compare new finds to old ones. “Is Home B better than Home A?” and so on. If you are the first seller to respond to their inquiry, you have the opportunity to cement your home in the top position.

Build Customer Loyalty – Before They Buy

A quick response is a sign of great customer service. Show your buyer that you are there for them by answering their questions right away. If they have to wait too long to hear from you, they’ll start to feel neglected. Again, MH professionals need to understand how to keep leads fresh!

Out of ‘Site’, Out of Mind

The minute someone clicks away from your ad, they begin to forget the details. Buyers might contact sellers of several homes in one night, but by the next morning, they’ll have a hard time keeping them all straight. Are you selling the white house on the north side of town or the gray one on the south? Is it the one with the garage, or the carport and the shed? The closer you can get to them when your homes are fresh in their minds, the better.

Modern technology offers a number of great tools for helping you handle your incoming leads efficiently and effectively:

Buyers are Going Mobile, You Should Too

At a recent state association meeting, one of our clients came up to me and told me howKeep Leads Fresh he turns 75 percent of his MHVillage leads into sales contacts – he calls them immediately. This gentleman had a simple system: the leads went to an email on his phone, and his goal was to call them back within 5 minutes – preferably while they were still looking at the home online! He’s smart – in the article quoted above, that 5-minute marker is an important one.

Here’s a quick tip – have an email account dedicated to your sales correspondence only. That way when you see an email come in, you know it is from a buyer and you won’t have to wade through the tons of daily spam and other nonessential email we all get in our day-to-day accounts. Have that email on your phone so you are ready to respond instantly, and keep leads fresh.

Route Calls Effectively

There are a lot of options in phone systems these days. You can route calls to your cell, to your home and even to your email. If your office system won’t support this, take a look at some of the free and low-cost systems out there, like Google Voice. With Google Voice you can have a specialized phone number for leads and have it ring multiple phones at once. You can have voicemails be shared among several phones, and you can even reply to calls with text.

Emails: If You Can’t Respond in Person, Have Your Computer Do It for You

Obviously, a personal response is better than a canned response, but a canned response is better than none at all. Most email systems will let you sent up an automatic reply. You can do your best in a pinch to keep leads fresh by crafting the equivalent of a professional voice mail message to provide your company name, business hours, driving directions, link to your website, phone number and a promise that someone will get back to them within a day.

Check Your Spam Folders

We keep a complete copy of all your leads in your MHVillage account.

If you use a public email system like Gmail, Yahoo or AOL, know that these companies try to keep their users from receiving Spam. While that effort is appreciated, it means you can lose leads if they wind up in the wrong folder. In fact, Gmail changed its settings so some important emails might have ended up in the wrong place. If you do lose one, don’t worry! MHVillage always keeps a copy of all your leads in your account.

NCC Meets in Chicago Nov. 1-3

By
Patrick Revere
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NCC Fall Leadership Forum Chicago skyline
A view from 360 Chicago atop the John Hancock Building.

The National Communities Council, a program of the Manufactured Housing Institute, reconvenes for the Fall Leadership Forum Nov. 1 – 3 at the Westin in downtown Chicago.

NCC offers strategic content to explore new ideas, examine trends and offer unique networking opportunities. The Fall Leadership Forum is organized for executive-level professionals in the manufactured housing industry.

Check-in and networking for NCC in Chicago begins Nov. 1 at 4 p.m. The following two days are programmed with not-to-be-missed speakers and seminars beginning 9 a.m. Nov. 2 and continuing through the afternoon of Nov. 3.

The deep and strategic seminar schedule includes…

Sneak Peek at NCC in Chicago

Wednesday Nov. 2 

9:15 – 10:15 a.m.
“The State of the U.S. Economy & the Role of Housing”, with in-depth analysis and discussion from Keynote Speaker Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of Miller Samuel Inc., who was named “Best Online Real Estate Expert” by Money Magazine.

1:15 – 2:15 p.m.
David Funk, director and senior lecturer in the Baker Program in Real Estate at Cornell University, will provide “An Economist’s View on Chattel Lending Trends”.

3:30– 4:30 p.m.
“Creating and Maintaining a Positive Brand in a Digital World” looks at how digital business profiles mean the difference between success and failure. Beth Monicatti-Blank, president of All Seasons Communications, highlights effective ways to respond to both positive and negative reviews while maintaining and growing a positive online business profile.

Thursday, Nov. 3

9:00 – 10:00 a.m.
“The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership” is the creation of author and speaker Mike Figliuolo, who will describe how to articulate your leadership philosophy in the form of personal leadership maxims that work as an everyday reminder on your personalized leadership approach.

11:00 a.m. – Noon
“Dealing with Disasters” covers the two major storms that hit Texas and Florida in consecutive weeks. Countless lives, properties and businesses were impacted. Florida Manufactured Housing Association Executive Director Jim Ayotte and Texas Manufactured Housing Association Executive Director D.J. Pendleton revisit what the manufactured housing industry has learned from the recovery efforts, and share what community owner/operators experienced during the storms.

Legislative Update: House Financial Services Committee passes H.R. 1699

By
Patrick Revere
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Black Hawk Estates Fair Housing
Black Hawk Estates

Legislation Aims to Preserve Access to Manufactured Housing

The House Financial Services Committee passed H.R. 1699, the Preserving Access to Manufactured Housing Act, by a bipartisan vote of 42 to 18. H.R. 1699 addresses federal regulations implementing the Dodd-Frank Act that fail to recognize the unique nature of the manufactured home financing and sales process.  This legislation ensures manufactured housing financing remains available and affordable, without eroding important federal consumer protections established by the Dodd-Frank Act.

H.R. 1699, the Preserving Access to Manufactured Housing Act, is bipartisan legislation introduced by Representatives Andy Barr (R-KY), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Bruce Poliquin (R-ME), Terri Sewell (D-AL), David Kustoff (R-TN), and Kathleen Rice (D-NY). Companion legislation S. 1751 was introduced in the U.S. Senate Aug. 3, 2017 by Senators Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Tom Cotton (R-AR), and Gary Peters (D-MI).

During the Committee’s consideration of the legislation, Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee Chairman Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO), H.R. 1699 sponsor Representative Andy Barr (R-KY), and original cosponsors Representatives David Kustoff (R-TN) and Bruce Poliquin (R-ME), delivered strong remarks about the federal regulations that have impeded consumers – particularly those living in rural areas – from obtaining financing for manufactured homes and urged their colleagues to support this important bill.

Testimony on Access to Manufactured Housing

Rep. Barr emphasized the importance of manufactured housing as an affordable housing option.

“If this legislation was to pass, we will no longer face a situation where the federal government is protecting people right out of their home. Instead, more Americans will have access to affordable manufactured housing again. And, I believe greater access to affordable housing should and can earn the support of both Democrats and Republicans. Affordable housing in rural America is not a Democrat or Republican issue – that is an issue of the American Dream.”

Of the 60 members on the Committee, only two members spoke out against the bill.

Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN), whose districts include 1.7% and .5% of manufactured homes respectively, expressed concerns that the bill will remove consumer protections.

Additional champions of H.R. 1699 speaking in support of the bill rebutted these concerns: Representatives Keith Rothfus (R-PA), Trey Hollingsworth (R-IN), French Hill (R-AR), Bill Huizenga (R-MI), Robert Pittenger (R-NC), and Steve Stivers (R-OH). H.R. 1699 currently has 58 bipartisan cosponsors.

MHI’s Role in providing Access

H.R. 1699, the Preserving Access to Manufactured Housing Act, seeks to modify the definition of “high-cost” loans so that manufactured home loans are not unfairly swept under this designation simply due to their small size. It also amends the SAFE Act and the Truth in Lending Act to exclude manufactured housing retailers and sellers from the definition of a loan originator so long as they are only receiving compensation for the sale of the home and not engaged in financing the loans.

The Manufactured Housing Institute’s efforts to aid in passing the Preserving Access to Manufactured Housing Act are multi-pronged.

MHI seeks opportunities to move the legislation through the regular legislative process and also to attach the language to other legislative vehicles. MHI has succeeded in having the House of Representatives vote in favor of this language numerous times with bipartisan support.

The number of successful votes in Congress on this provision, and the inclusion of similar language in the House Financial Services Committee Chairman’s Dodd-Frank reform package (H.R. 10) and the Fiscal Year 2018 Appropriations package, are the result of MHI’s persistent efforts.

Please contact MHI’s Government Affairs Department or MHIgov(at)mfghome.org with any questions or concerns.

Community Owner Presents on MHP 2.0

By
Patrick Revere
-
Jefferson Lilly presents on manufactured home community management during the 2017 event in Marietta.

Park Street Partners’ MH Pro Jefferson Lilly Counsels Community Owners to Stay Ahead of the Curve with MHP 2.0 Talk

The manufactured housing market abounds with seminars, tutorials, books and boot camps on how to acquire properties. Community owner Jefferson Lilly offered SECO17 attendees an overview of the next steps with MHP 2.0.

“Many of us have attended or been through a self-taught boot camp,” Lilly, of Park Street Partners, said. “We’ve bought a park or two, and we’ve read books that tell us why this is a good business.

“I don’t know anyone who’s really teaching how to grow an organization for this business,” he said.

Lilly started in the manufactured housing community business in November 2005, and founded Park Street Partners with Brad Johnson in 2014. He told the SECO audience that business has been good, but 2017 has proven to be the year of organizational growth.

Park Street Partners has more than a dozen properties and 2,000 home sites, including a pair of new communities in Kansas that recently closed.

“I found myself really buried in paperwork,” Lilly said. “We were fundraising, handling asset management, answering calls from managers and some tenants.”

The People for Mobile Home Park 2.0

“We didn’t start hiring people until this year, and frankly, we should have done it earlier,” Lilly said. “I urge everyone to hire ahead of the curve.”

MHP 2.0 People
Jefferson Lilly shows the MHP 2.0 hiring strategy he would follow if he a do-over.

This year, Park Street Partners has hired a chief financial officer, an asset management professional, an accounts payable clerk, an acquisitions associate and currently is hiring an inside sales manager.

The CFO is a $100,000 per year salaried position, and so are the asset and acquisitions managers, the latter two positions based on varying degrees of performance-based income.

“Our asset manager has deep experience managing managers, and deciding how much we’re going to be investing back into the parks. As we get ramp up buying houses, she’s going to do some of that too,” Lilly said. “The acquisitions associate is any Ivy League graduate who came to us from the military and having served overseas.

“He’s responsible for outreach to brokers and mobile home park owners,” Lilly added. “That’s also a six-figure compensation position, but more of a 30-percent base and 70-percent variable on performance. I think he’ll make more than I do this year, hopefully.”

The inside sales manager position pays in the $30,000-plus range and will round out Park Street Partner’s hiring for the short term.

“Dawn from MHVillage has talked about how important it is to return a call in five minutes or less, and I can say we have not done that,” Lilly said in regard to the inside sales person’s responsibilities. “What we’d like to do is answer the call on the first or second ring.”

Project Management for MHP 2.0

Owners and Investors MHP 2.0 Jefferson Lilly SECO17
Owners and Investors listen in on community ownership strategies at SECO17.

Lilly warns that a cell phone is not a system, and neither is an email account. As a business grows, these common components become unwieldy and “can be a disaster”, he said.

Park Street Partners works in cloud-based Asana, a widely used project management platform.

“Every park is a project with tasks associated,” Lilly said. “We have a Monday call and we talk about all of these assigned tasks and where we are with them, and what needs to be done for the most direct path to profitability.”

The group also uses Slack for communication Q&A and knowledge sharing across their properties.

MHP 2.0 Accounting

Rent Manager is a solution for a wide variety of accounting tasks, more than many owners may realize.

“How many vacant pads do we have, who’s paid what, are the late fees in? This is not just for rent accounting, it’s for everything including paying the plumber,” Lilly said. “Everything but our appreciation tables are in Rent Manager.”

A check scanner function allows Park Street Partners to deposit, report and track rent checks, and updates associated accounts.

“I also understand utility readings can be brought in, and that’s the goal and where we’re going,” Lilly said.

Property Management for MHP 2.0

Each park has a Dropbox account and invitation for managers who need access, uploading leasing agreements and sharing photos and videos.

“We can see pretty accurately the condition of our parks without having to get on a plane,” Lilly said. “You can see what the park looked like a year ago and what it looks like now, and hopefully you’re making progress.”

Lilly said the platforms they use are cloud-based, typically are free or very low cost. They built a website with Square Space for $100, use Grasshopper for a centralized phone network, and are getting property details loaded to Google, Bing and MHVillage.

Park Street Partners also has a BYOD policy – Bring your own device. They do not have an IT department.

“The vision is that we build Park Street Partners to be a very responsive organization. Part of that is the organization remains flat. We don’t want to have too many meetings. We’re driven by results,” he said. “It is so important that you have the data to measure results. You need to be able to see what the occupancy rate is and know that it’s right.”

Drone Footage for MH Communities

By
Patrick Revere
-
drone footage A tightly knit community in Arizona serves as workforce housing.

Nicely Made Media Produces High Flying Drone Footage for Manufactured Home Communities, Events & Products

Carson Nicely founded Nicely Made Media as a photography agency in Los Angeles in 2011. It was no time at all before he was off, and flying, with state-of-the-art drone footage.

Drones and drone-created media material is big business today, and Nicely has shot and produced marketing materials with a drone more than 1,000 times. His customers include Habitat for Humanity, Next Step Homes, more than 50 manufactured home communities nationwide, Havaianas footwear, Leap Foundation and Beauty Blender.

“It’s like playing a video game. They’re a lot of fun,” Nicely said. “That’s the way I sell it. I ask a potential customer to watch a video, and they will sit and view the entire thing. Then I can say, ‘Imagine if you had that on your home page’.”

Drone Footage
Still shot of drone footage from SECO17

Drone Footage is a Storytelling Medium

But drone video involves more than a fly-over or two.

“I like to help tell a little story,” he said. “We’ve come a long way since we started. We work with a lot of event planners who would like to have footage of the event while it’s going on.”

drone footage
Carson Nicely and his drone

Nicely’s drones operated by remote control send a signal back to a tablet that enables live streaming footage and still photography. The 4k camera captures 30 frames per second. It can fly as much as two miles from the origination point, and stays in the air for 30 minutes on a single charge.

This week Nicely is working on documenting SECO17, a gathering of manufactured housing community owners in Marietta, Ga. He has a history in the industry. Nicely’s father Chris Nicely worked for many years with Clayton Homes and presently is CEO of Next Step Homes.

Clients can schedule a shoot as much as six months in advance. Nicely can work nationwide, and prefers two weeks of lead time for a project.

“We’ll get you a finished product within three business days. It’s something that’s quick, but it’s still high quality,” he said. “We can provide raw files in a day.”

In addition to photo or video, Nicely can modify the file to add information. For instance, on a home flyover, he can have price points, makes and models, or square footage cues pop up from individual homes as a video progresses.

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