Near the end or ‘the bottom’ of the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) email that follows, MHI has the following statement. “MHI News & Updates is a bi-weekly, members-only publication with important updates on federal legislative and regulatory activities, association accomplishments, industry events and other items important to our membership.” However, per a source deemed reliable, this MHI email goes out to some non-members as well as MHI members. Be that as it may, for the email sent out by MHI after 3 PM Eastern on Friday December 22, 2023, it contained items that included MHI’s pitch for themselves, Cavco Industries (CVCO) new HUD approved duplex manufactured home, as well as a push for people/organizations to join their membership, or to spend money on MHI “education” and “MHI events.” Apparently missing in this email is any mention of their stunning, recently announced MHI meetings policy, which is explored in a new Masthead article linked here. Also missing in this email is any obvious mention of the fact that under so-called MHI leadership the manufactured home industry has just apparently suffered the worst downturn in recent manufactured housing industry history, as production year to date per the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) data and analysis is down year to date through October 2023 some “23.8%.”
On a national basis, the U.S. manufactured housing industry appears to be on track for the worst year since 2016.
More specifically, MHARR published official HUD statistics on 12.4.2024 that said in part the following. “Just-released statistics indicate that HUD Code manufacturers produced 8,393 new homes in October 2023, a 3.4% decrease from the 8,649 new HUD Code homes produced in October 2022. Cumulative production for 2023 is now 75,040 homes, a 23.8% decrease from the 98,506 homes produced over the same period during 2022.”
By way of factual and evidence-based contrast, on MHI’s refreshed website, there is a news segment. It shows no data at all for manufactured home production that is publicly available on this data. Members only can access that data which requires a login and presumably membership dues and MHI “acceptance” of a firm for membership.
MHARR’s home page provides at-a-glance headlines for their news, analysis, and commentary. Tabs for various sections of their website include a link to years of monthly data summaries that are publicly available on HUD code manufactured home national production. The top ten states are also published for that month which more recently indicates the same States production for that month in the prior year. Put differently, by intention and/or happenstance, going to MHARR’s website reveals fact in evidence that sheds light in actual industry performance as measured by the numbers of new HUD Code manufactured homes being built in a given month and year to data.
Again, by contrast, there is apparently no similar data published on the MHI website on this date that is publicly available to non-members, or any who lack a login.
Both organizations have their respective invitations to join their organization. dues are the lifeblood that keep an organization afloat. But in the case of MHI, they also offer for a fee education and events. A close look at the MHI IRS Form 990 reveal that they often make apparently more net income than outgo for the events they organize on an annual basis.
MHI’s home page has tabs for various topics, something MHARR or other trade groups does too. As with all third-party content presented by MHProNews, this is being provided under fair use guidelines for media.
Part I – MHI 12.22.2023 Emailed “News and Updates” Content Highlights
After years of oversized logos periodically mocked by MHProNews, MHI has finally reduced the size of their logo over their header. Their 12.22.2023 email looked and/or read as follows. Their 5 events link has been removed, as it apparently took a reader to a page that doesn’t actually give the 5 2023 events that they say connected members to public officials. Others have been removed too, but the text is as shown. Each segment will be unpacked in Part II that follows.
From: MHI [mailto:info@mfghome.org]
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2023 [About 3 PM ET]
Subject: {Newsletter} Cavco Releases First HUD-Approved Manufactured Home Duplex, MHI 2023 in Review
2023: MHI Membership Makes a Difference
MHI helped members build their businesses in 2023 by:
Connecting members with key decision makers at 5 events with presentations from our industry’s regulators and national experts on the economy and buyer behavior;
Releasing fresh consumer research that showed 81% of manufactured homeowners report a “very positive” or “positive” overall feeling about their home;
Upgrading the MHI website, ManufacturedHousing.org, with updates planned to include content for policymakers, the media and consumers;
Training more than 600 people for manufactured housing careers as installers, community managers and salespeople;
Producing customizable promotional material to help members recruit new talent to the industry; and
Creating resources for members to assess business opportunities across the country, such as a map of zoning law restrictions and state fact sheets detailing the number of manufactured homes by Congressional district and total number of shipments to the state.
Make 2024 the year you join MHI! Learn more about membership here.
Cavco Releases First HUD-Approved Manufactured Home Duplex
Cavco Industries, Inc. announced a significant innovation in the manufactured home industry with the launch of the “Anthem,” the first nationally available, manufactured duplex approved by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
This approval comes after the first comprehensive update to the HUD code in over a decade, a direct result of MHI’s advocacy efforts.
The update allows duplexes such as the Anthem series, and marks a significant advancement in providing affordable housing.
Read more on ManufacturedHousing.org.
…
Part II – Additional Information with More MHProNews Analysis and Commentary
Those two ‘news’ and update’ segments provided less that 300 words of insights between them. Note that there were multiple ‘asks’ within those 2 segments for reader money and/or membership (also reader/business money).
MHI also had two more segments to their 12.22.2023 email before the footer information. They were also both apparent asks for reader/company money.
The third segment (not shown above) was dubbed “career resources” and underneath the heading “Educate Your Team” which linked the reader to a section on the MHI website where they could spend money on “training” mentioned above in the earlier part of the same email (see above and their pitch that supposedly 600 people were ‘trained’ by MHI during the year. It must be amazing training, given that manufactured housing experienced over a 20 percent drop in production – which means sales fell sharply – in 2023 compared to 2022. Total wholesale manufactured home production appear poised to end the year with the worst year since 2017. Oh, that’s not something to brag about, when examined, is it? Oops.
The other segment was the MHI events calendar which apparently failed to mention their new events policies. Oops. MHProNews has provided those at this link here.
Restated, one of the most common features of MHI emails are asks for money from the reader/reader’s company and an invite to events that demonstrably have not made a difference in bottom line growth in new HUD Code manufactured home production.
But there is more to know about this specific MHI email on 12.22.2023.
In no particular order of importance are the following observation about the MHI email.
1). Cavco Industries HUD Code Duplex – House Hacking and Built to Rent Trends
a) MHI’s email doesn’t specifically mention either the growing interest in “House Hacking,” which Zillow research said is the most sought after feature by younger home buyers. A house hack is the ability to rent out part of the home. More on that topic is planned as a separate featured report. Stay tuned.
b) It should also be noted that some HUD Code manufactured home builders have built housing units that featured more than one residential sleeping/cooking quarter for oilfield and other workforce housing. While those may not have been billed as HUD Code units, they were reportedly built by HUD Code and modular housing producers. Restated, this unit by Cavco may be new in some sense, but it is hardly an innovation per se. Factory and conventional builders have previously built similar concepts.
c) But another important unstated factoid in the MHI email about Cavco’s duplex model manufactured home is the overall implications of HUD Code manufactured home builders increasingly producing manufactured homes that are destined for land-lease and other communities/developments as “built to rent.” As purchasing new housing becomes less and less affordable, yet there is an ongoing need for more housing units, build to rent has become a stated or unstated trend. Again, this has numerous ramifications, which MHProNews plans to explore in a separate report. Stay tuned.
2). Partly with build to rent and this latest MHI email in mind, a fresh look at MHI’s evolving new home page and website is worth mentioning. By accident and/or design, about the same time as the first of several national class action lawsuits were launched against MHI members, and which specifically mentioned (though had not initially named MHI as a defendant) the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) in their pleadings. It is an open question if MHI’s website change(s), which include apparent examples of content removal emerged as a result of MHProNews/MHLivingNews fact checks and analyses.
That said, let’s note that MHProNews found that MHI has (re)placed their MHI-NCC Code of Ethical Conduct, which oddly still doesn’t show up on an MHI site search using MHI’s own site search tool. That begs a series of questions, because it would presumably require special programming to cause this item not to be found by using MHI’s own site search tool. The illustration below illustrates that point. It is unclear when MHI made the change shown.
To see how this was discovered and some of the reasons why this is relevant to the manufactured housing industry, see the report linked below.
3). As was noted above, the manufactured housing industry is in a sharp decline. It isn’t that MHI doesn’t mention it, they have, but you routinely have to be a member to get that information from them clearly. Emails to ‘non-members’ routinely fail to give specifics that make the trends of fewer sales and lower production clear.
4. While MHARR, MHProNews, and MHLivingNews have featured reports on the ongoing drama around the manufactured housing energy rule being pushed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), there is no mention of it in this email. That is often the case. This is troubling, given that MHI’s own attorneys have said that if this rule goes into effect as is it could produce “irreparable harm” for manufactured housing. See the reports linked below to learn more.
5. For a report that says “MHI 2023 in Review” there is surprisingly little information on what it is that MHI claims that they have accomplished. Meetings that featured public officials? Okay, did MHI put those public officials on the spot with video cameras to press them to enforce laws that MHI claims they want enforced? Apparently not, because there has been no evidence of such. To illustrate, here is the Q&A with Bing AI.
> “The Manufactured Housing Institute said they arranged several face to face meetings with public officials. But is there any evidence that they publicly pressed, for example, HUD officials to enforce the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act (MHIA) of 2000 and its enhanced preemption provision? Is there any such known video? Or is there any evidence that MHI has pressed HUD/FHA officials to remove the 10/10 rule in a public setting with video cameras to capture the discussion? Or has MHI pressed publicly FHFA officials in a video recorded meeting to get them to enforce the Duty to Serve Manufactured Housing by providing chattel lending by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?”
1: Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) Leaders Should Embrace Responsibility for Continuing Manufactured Home Production Decline – Consolidators Fueled Crisis?!2: MHI Presses FHFA on Duty to Serve, Chattel Lending
Learn more
Quoting MHI in their 2.22.2023 email, they said the following.
a) “MHI helped members build their businesses in 2023 by:
Connecting members with key decision makers at 5 events with presentations from our industry’s regulators and national experts on the economy and buyer behavior;” But as we have seen in #5 above, there is no known evidence that MHI used those occasions to press officials to enforce existing laws they claim they want to see enforced. This reinforces the reporting and expert news analysis in reports like the one linked below. Over 2 years later, it remains relevant, because MHI has yet to correct what was revealed in that report, much less other more recent ones.
b) MHI said: “Releasing fresh consumer research that showed 81% of manufactured homeowners report a “very positive” or “positive” overall feeling about their home;”
What good is research like that which is not publicly available and is not properly promoted for whatever useful information it may offer? Who is MHI using such research for – to impress current and potential members? Or is it to grow the sales of the manufactured home industry?
c). Per MHI: “Upgrading the MHI website, ManufacturedHousing.org, with updates planned to include content for policymakers, the media and consumers;”
This is interesting phrasing. MHProNews has pointed out that some content has been removed by MHI. It appears that some of that content may be ‘coming back,’ perhaps in a revised format, or perhaps like the MHI-NCC code of ethical conduct, in its original format. Either way, it is evidence that holding MHI to account can pay off, albeit it takes time and effort, as fact check articles like this one reflects.
d.) MHI said on 12.22.2023 that: “Training more than 600 people for manufactured housing careers as installers, community managers and salespeople;” Let’s presume, for discussion sake, that their number of 600 is true. Note that they failed to give a breakdown? How many are installers, where training is often required? How many are community managers or salespeople? MHI doesn’t say. They have an obvious history of obscuring information, perhaps to dodge accountability?
But let’s look more closely still. If MHI’s ‘training’ of sales people and community managers is so good, then why are manufactured home sales in sharp decline? MHProNews raised that subject in the report linked below, which is just as relevant today as it was then.
e). MHI said: “Producing customizable promotional material to help members recruit new talent to the industry;”
This is humorous, perhaps laughable claim, if it were not such a serious issue for so many in manufactured housing. Given that almost every publicly traded producer of HUD Code manufactured housing that is an MHI member has specifically complained about the challenges of getting enough skilled employees, it seems that this promotional material MHI is beating their own chest about is hardly producing a notable result. Who says? That’s the point. Who besides MHI has publicly praised them for how wonderful this program of theirs is doing?
More specifically, where has Skyline Champion (SKY), Cavco Industries (CVCO), or Legacy Housing (LEGH) specifically mentioned how wonderfully those “customizable promotional materials” made by MHI have helped them?
MHProNews demonstrably looks at such reports by publicly traded firms more closely than anyone else known in the MH industry, indeed, arguably more than all of the would-be bloggers and trade publishing rivals combined. We don’t recall having seen anyone in MHVille production that is a MHI member make such a remark praising their own trade group for how handy such promotional materials are.
Perhaps, wow that we mention it in this report, maybe one or more MHI members will toss them a face-saving bone. But even so, the point will remain. No one to this person is known to have mentioned it. Thus, the known evidence suggests this claim in their 2023 year in review is more MHI razzle dazzle, what MHARR leaders have said is an illusion, shell game, or head fake.
But let’s further document this concern.
To illustrate those point, consider this Q&A with Bing AI/Bing CoPilot.
> “In an email dated 12.22.2023 the Manufactured Housing Institute wrote in part the following. That the association “Producing customizable promotional material to help members recruit new talent to the industry” Manufactured Home Pro News routinely publishes the investor power points and the news releases and/or earnings calls reports for publicly traded firms such as Manufactured Housing Institute members Skyline Champion, Cavco Industries, and Legacy Housing. Can you find any evidence online where any of those three firms specifically mentioned how helpful those recruitment items have been? Isn’t it accurate to say that producers of HUD Code manufactured homes have disclosed several times that recruiting labor has been a challenge for them?”
1: Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) Leaders Should Embrace Responsibility for Continuing Manufactured Home Production Decline – Consolidators Fueled Crisis?! 2: Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) Leaders Should Embrace Responsibility for Continuing Manufactured Home Production Decline – Consolidators Fueled Crisis?!
f). MHI said: “Creating resources for members to assess business opportunities across the country, such as a map of zoning law restrictions and state fact sheets detailing the number of manufactured homes by Congressional district and total number of shipments to the state.” Per informed sources, MHI has produced such state fact sheets for their members for some years. Where is the announcement that this resulted in getting Congressional reps to press HUD to enforce the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000 and its enhanced preemption provision? When did it result in getting FHFA or FHA enforce long-sought reforms to the lending-limiting FHA Title I 10/10 rule? Or to the FHFA enforcement of the Duty to Serve? The answer is obvious. Never. To illustrate, here is another Q&A with Bing AI/Bing CoPilot, which is a product of Microsoft, whose founder William “Bill” Gates III is known to be a longtime ally of Warren Buffett led Berkshire Hathaway, perhaps the most prominent MHI member parent company.
> “In an email dated 12.22.2023 the Manufactured Housing Institute said they had “Creating resources for members to assess business opportunities across the country, such as a map of zoning law restrictions and state fact sheets detailing the number of manufactured homes by Congressional district and total number of shipments to the state.” Is there any known evidence that the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000’s so-called enhanced preemption provision is about to be put into effect for that or any other reason? Is there any evidence that the Manufactured Housing Institute even has the words “enhanced preemption” on their website on this date in a page that is available to the public?”
I also could not find any evidence that the Manufactured Housing Institute has the words “enhanced preemption” on their website on this date in a page that is available to the public 2.
1: Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) Leaders Should Embrace Responsibility for Continuing Manufactured Home Production Decline – Consolidators Fueled Crisis?! 2: Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) Website
g). Summing up, every claim that MHI has made in their email in part 1 has some element of apparent head fake/misdirection/red herring, apparent paltering, posturing, gaslighting, etc. While it takes time to fact check such MHI emails, what this exercise (and previous others like it) has demonstrated is just how apt ex-MHI vice president and MHARR’s founding president and current senior advisor Danny Ghorbani has said. MHI talks a big game, but when carefully examined the facts reflect that production and shipments are down sharply. Everything else is little more than a distraction.
MHARR’s Mark Weiss, J.D., President and CEO of that rival trade group has put it in a similar, but often more detailed way.
h) Those examples above are the reality checks. The Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) talks what may seem to be an impressive game. But they try to demonstrably keep anyone from critiquing them publicly. That has apparently worked on rival trade media, who carry the MHI party line with little or no critiques. Note each of the firms and MHI’s leaders have been given an opportunity to respond in writing via our website, simply by sending an email that states their side of the case. They have opted not to do so. Put differently, they have allowed our fact checks and analyses to stand publicly unquestioned. Why? Isn’t it because our analyses are supported by evidence that is difficult to refute?
7.) Summary and Conclusion
MHI is apparently engaged in what may be called fraudulent behavior that benefits a few consolidators while largely harming the interests of manufactured home independents. The notable trend that has consistently increased in the industry in the last few years is that of consolidation. Production has gone up and down in the 21st century but is notably lower than at the dawn of the 21st century. If MHI is engaged in market manipulation that benefits consolidators, that begs the question. Do several MHI members want that consolidation and thus the MHI head fakes? Based upon the evidence, it would appear so. This is one of the most important takeaways from 2023.
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By L.A. “Tony” Kovach – for MHProNews.com.
Tony earned a journalism scholarship and earned numerous awards in history and in manufactured housing.
For example, he earned the prestigious Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied history and business management. He’s a managing member and co-founder of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.
This article reflects the LLC’s and/or the writer’s position and may or may not reflect the views of sponsors or supporters.
Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach
Related References:
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