According to a press release via Berkshire Hathway (BRK) owned Business Wire, Champion Home (SKY) built a home that was displayed earlier this year at the Kentucky League of Cities Conference & Expo on September 24-27, 2024, in Lexington, KY. “Working with the Kentucky Manufactured Housing Institute (KMHI) and the City of Versailles,” to “showcase a modern manufactured home on city-owned property to present a solution to the critical shortage of available housing inventory in Central Kentucky.” While their headline doesn’t mention that it is a CrossMod TM, nor did they mention that a CrossMod TM is a trademarked name by the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI), those and other apparent glitches will be explored in Part II, where the bulk of the factual analysis with additional information and commentary is presented. Because there is apparently much more that is not mentioned than what is proclaimed in the boastful Champion press release.
Part I
Champion Homes Model Showcased in Kentucky Pilot Highlighting Manufactured Homes as a Solution to Housing Shortages
December 05, 2024 04:05 PM Eastern Standard Time
TROY, Mich.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Champion Homes is proud to announce the delivery and installation of a new manufactured home in Versailles, Ky., as a part of a pilot program highlighting factory-built housing as a solution to housing inventory shortages in Central Kentucky.
Working with the Kentucky Manufactured Housing Institute (KMHI) and the City of Versailles, Champion Homes was selected to design, build, set, and install the home. Throughout the pilot, local officials and residents are invited to walk the home, view the quality of the construction, and learn about the energy efficient features. After the pilot concludes, the home will become a permanent residence for a local individual or family.
“We’re committed to helping increase housing availability during this critical time of widespread housing shortages across the nation,” said Champion Homes President and CEO Mark Yost. “The innovative pilot program in Versailles is raising awareness of what’s possible with manufactured housing.”
The pilot is the result of a year-long task force spearheaded by members of the Versailles City Council in collaboration with KMHI. Versailles City Council unanimously approved the task force’s plan to showcase a modern manufactured home on city-owned property to present a solution to the critical shortage of available housing inventory in Central Kentucky.
Factory-built housing presents a pivotal opportunity for regions like Central Kentucky that are facing housing shortages. Manufactured homes are affordable and faster to construct than traditional site-built homes. They’re a timely, attractive solution to increasing housing inventory. Prefab homes can also be less disruptive to local neighborhoods than site-built homes. Since most of the construction happens off-site, there is less noise and construction traffic impacting current residents in the community.
“This partnership exemplifies what can be achieved when local government and industry leaders work together to solve community challenges,” said KMHI Executive Director Logan Hanes.
Champion Homes displayed the pilot house at the Kentucky League of Cities Conference & Expo on September 24-27, 2024, in Lexington, located less than 15 miles from Versailles. Attendees representing municipalities from across the state were invited to view the home.
As a CrossMod, or crossover modern home, the pilot house combines the best of off-site and on-site construction. CrossMods are manufactured homes built to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development code while also featuring amenities typically found in site-built homes like garages, carports, and pitched roofs.
The house was also built to meet the requirements of Fannie Mae’s MH Advantage™ financing program. MH Advantage offers innovative and affordable financing on specially designated manufactured homes that feature site-built characteristics. Conventional financing for manufactured homes helps open the door to homeownership for more people for whom homeownership may have been out of reach.
Additionally, the house is an ENERGY STAR 3 home. The ENERGY STAR 3 certification, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and administered by the Systems Building Research Alliance, is applied to new homes constructed according to strict energy efficiency standards.
Champion Homes has the capability to build ENERGY STAR homes at 40 of its U.S. manufacturing facilities. The ENERGY STAR Certification is an optional upgrade available with most Champion homes. ENERGY STAR homes are on average 20% more energy efficient than typical new homes, and homeowners save an average of $250 a year in energy bills. The homes can offer reduced leaks and drafts, more consistent temperatures, and improved indoor air quality.
About Champion Homes, Inc.
Champion Homes, Inc. is a leading producer of factory-built housing in North America and employs approximately 9,000 people. With more than 70 years of homebuilding experience and 48 manufacturing facilities throughout the United States and western Canada, Champion Homes is well positioned with an innovative portfolio of manufactured and modular homes, ADUs, park-models and modular buildings for the single-family, multi-family, and hospitality sectors.
In addition to its core home building business, Champion Homes provides construction services to install and set-up factory-built homes, operates a factory-direct retail business with 72 retail locations across the United States, and operates Star Fleet Trucking, providing transportation services to the manufactured housing and other industries from several dispatch locations across the United States. …”
Part II – Additional Information with More MHProNews Analysis and Commentary
The effectively fisk the Champion Homes press release, let’s take the information presented above by sections. Note that Champion Homes was previously Skyline Champion (SKY) and announced a few months ago that they were rebranding as Champion Homes. From the headline to the final quoted sentence, their press release is 703 words long, per MS Word.
1)
Champion Homes is proud to announce the delivery and installation of a new manufactured home in Versailles, Ky., as a part of a pilot program highlighting factory-built housing as a solution to housing inventory shortages in Central Kentucky.
Working with the Kentucky Manufactured Housing Institute (KMHI) and the City of Versailles, Champion Homes was selected to design, build, set, and install the home. Throughout the pilot, local officials and residents are invited to walk the home, view the quality of the construction, and learn about the energy efficient features. After the pilot concludes, the home will become a permanent residence for a local individual or family.
“We’re committed to helping increase housing availability during this critical time of widespread housing shortages across the nation,” said Champion Homes President and CEO Mark Yost. “The innovative pilot program in Versailles is raising awareness of what’s possible with manufactured housing.”
There are three paragraphs in the above with no mention yet that this isn’t what the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) has dubbed a “mainstream” manufactured home that is being described but rather is a so-called CrossMod TM manufactured home. Nor is there any mention of the Roper Report, the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000, or its so-called enhanced preemption provision that allows HUD to overcome or “preempt” local zoning restrictions. Champion Homes has a seat on the MHI board of directors, which isn’t mentioned. Nor is it mentioned that more robust demonstration projects were done more than two decades ago than this new one in Versailles, KY, years before the CrossMods were established.
From MHLivingNews is the following photo, which per WordPress was “Uploaded on: July 10, 2014.”
2) Curiously, as Part I reflects, Champion didn’t provide a photo in their lone model in their press release. There was no video walk through or mention of their historic project in Arkansas – where they provided the governor his ‘mansion‘ – to mention just a few possible comparisons and facts.
By contrast, the article on MHLivingNews over a decade ago has many fine pictures in an article entitled CityScapes at the Mills of Carthage; Boston and other cities, are you Listening? More on that shortly, but let’s return to the controversial plug of CrossMods in the next three paragraphs per Champion via Berkshire owned BusinessWire.
The pilot is the result of a year-long task force spearheaded by members of the Versailles City Council in collaboration with KMHI. Versailles City Council unanimously approved the task force’s plan to showcase a modern manufactured home on city-owned property to present a solution to the critical shortage of available housing inventory in Central Kentucky.
Factory-built housing presents a pivotal opportunity for regions like Central Kentucky that are facing housing shortages. Manufactured homes are affordable and faster to construct than traditional site-built homes. They’re a timely, attractive solution to increasing housing inventory. Prefab homes can also be less disruptive to local neighborhoods than site-built homes. Since most of the construction happens off-site, there is less noise and construction traffic impacting current residents in the community.
“This partnership exemplifies what can be achieved when local government and industry leaders work together to solve community challenges,” said KMHI Executive Director Logan Hanes.
3) It was October 11, 2017 when MHProNews published an article on “the new class of manufactured homes” that the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) later rebranded as a CrossMod TM home. As the article linked here detailed, CrossMods have been laden with controversy since before that name was created. As part of a not yet published article, left-leaning Bing’s artificial intelligence (AI) powered Copilot – without specific prompting on CrossMods – said the following.
Deceptive Schemes:
- The MHI has been criticized for deceptive practices, such as the CrossMod TM homes project, which has been blasted by industry experts for misleading consumers.
4) There is a steady turnover in the manufactured housing industry of professionals, as in any other profession. People enter, stay for a period of time, and then exit. Without a specific mention of some historic example of manufactured homes, or modular homes for that matter, of the past, there may be little or no sense among thousands of pros about what came before them. Champion had the opportunity to say whatever they wanted to with this press release, which they presumably paid for and could have done largely as they wished. The made the corporate decision to focus on the current event, which may be understandable. But in doing so, without any reference to past events, they could well be giving an arguably improper impression.
For instance. MHLivingNews in an article entitled “CityScapes at the Mills of Carthage; Boston and other cities, are you Listening?” citing Cincinnati’s Enquirer, quoted that local news source saying the following.
Fifteen new homes in styles reminiscent of the early 20th century are turning a former eyesore into a showcase. The Mills of Carthage development is made up entirely of manufactured housing, with price tags of $100,000 to $185,000. It’s taking shape on a former industrial site in an otherwise residential neighborhood. Eventually, 60 new homes will occupy the 14-acre plot.
5) It turned out that information was not entirely accurate, at least, not according to MHI.
In conjunction with a joint seminar of the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) and the Automated Builders Consortium (ABC), nine HUD-Code manufactured homes and six modular homes were on display for builders, developers, and the general public.
6) But it was largely an Ohio retailer-developer that made that project dubbed the Mills of Carthage happen.
Cincinnati-based developer and MHI National Chairman Dan Rolfes expressed his ambition to convincingly show the people of Cincinnati and the surrounding area that manufactured housing needs to be considered only as an alternative process for building homes rather than a product. Throughout 2000 and 2001, Rolfes, owner of Holiday Homes Inc., continued to bring the concept to his peers in quarterly meetings of the MHI Site Development Committee. His persistence and vision resulted in a plan to bring the 2002 MHI Developing with Manufactured Homes Seminar to Cincinnati, with the idea that the seminar would also focus on a development he would create.”
7) So, what Dan Rolfes and his wife Carolyn made happen over 2 decades ago with 15 models apparently blows away the comparative toe-in-the-water of Champion producing one home in Versailles. But there is more that should be of concern to the detail minded. Why is there no mention of the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000? Why is there no mention of “enhanced preemption” in the Champion media release provided in Part I? More on that shortly, but let’s pivot back to the Champion release for more comparisons and insights.
Per Champion’s media release shown in Part I is the following.
Champion Homes displayed the pilot house at the Kentucky League of Cities Conference & Expo on September 24-27, 2024, in Lexington, located less than 15 miles from Versailles. Attendees representing municipalities from across the state were invited to view the home.
As a CrossMod, or crossover modern home, the pilot house combines the best of off-site and on-site construction. CrossMods are manufactured homes built to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development code while also featuring amenities typically found in site-built homes like garages, carports, and pitched roofs.
The house was also built to meet the requirements of Fannie Mae’s MH Advantage™ financing program. MH Advantage offers innovative and affordable financing on specially designated manufactured homes that feature site-built characteristics. Conventional financing for manufactured homes helps open the door to homeownership for more people for whom homeownership may have been out of reach.
In a prior report on MHLivingNews, our sister site pointed out that Logan Hanes also failed to mention enhanced preemption, or the 2000 Reform Law.
8) If Champion were serious about boosting their own production with a demonstration project, as cash rich as they claim to be, they are seemingly posing more than doing. If Champion (SKY) wanted to do so, they could fund a far more impressive demo project using mainstream manufactured homes and push marketing and litigation as needed to make enhanced preemption a practical reality.
9) Pivoting back to the post on MHLivingNews on CityScapes and then program administrator of HUD’s Office of Manufactured Housing Programs, Pamela Beck Danner, JD, confirmed that manufactured housing is federally preemptive.
An example of a HUD letter to a local zoning officials, reminding them about federal pre-emption for manufactured homes, is found as at this link, entitled HUD Response to Richland, Mississippi Zoning issue, August, 2012. The letter reads in part,
“In summary, a locality may not regulate or exclude structures that meet the Federal definition of a manufactured home based solely on a construction and safety code different than that prescribed by the National Manufactured Housing Constructions and Safety Standards Act of 1974, as amended.”
When was the last time that Champion or MHI mentioned that letter from HUD Response to Richland, Mississippi Zoning? Good question. Per a check today for that letter on the MHI website, that letter issued by HUD is missing. So too is any reference to “enhanced preemption” on the MHI website, as well as the ChampionHomes.com website, the ClaytonHomes.com and the CavcoHomes.com. Yet, Kevin Clayton has referred to it in Congressional testimony. Current Cavco Industries CEO William “Bill” Boor mentioned it on 7.14.2023 Congressional testimony. Both did so on behalf of MHI. It is difficult, therefor, to argue that they are ignorant of this key concept. When Clayton, Cavco, and Gooch have all used that terminology, it would be difficult to make a good argument or otherwise imagine that MHI board member Mark Yost at Champion is ignorant of federal “enhanced preemption.” Yet, on this date, ChampionHomes.com website has no mention, nor does MHI, Cavco, or Clayton Homes. By contrast, MHARR uses the phrase in pages of posts on their website. It is almost as if MHI and its Big 3C producers are colluding to hide on their own websites information that they have told Congress or HUD that they want enforced. If so, they are going about it oddly.
As to Fannie Mae’s special financing of CrossMods, also missing from their press release that very few of those models have been sold. Something like 100 (+/-) have, per sources, been sold since the design was rolled out some 7 years ago. During that same period when roughly 700,000 new manufactured homes were built, to produce only roughly 100 CrossMods means that the product is a tiny fraction of a single percent of total manufactured housing production. Here is that math: 100/700000 = 0.00014285714, per Google’s calculator.
If prior press releases, articles, placing a CrossModTM on the Washington, D.C. Mall and other promos failed to cause this product to take off, what makes Champion or the KMHI think that this lame press release that lacks photos or videos will be the magic that makes that happen?
10)
The last part of the press release is no better.
Additionally, the house is an ENERGY STAR 3 home. The ENERGY STAR 3 certification, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and administered by the Systems Building Research Alliance, is applied to new homes constructed according to strict energy efficiency standards.
Champion Homes has the capability to build ENERGY STAR homes at 40 of its U.S. manufacturing facilities. The ENERGY STAR Certification is an optional upgrade available with most Champion homes. ENERGY STAR homes are on average 20% more energy efficient than typical new homes, and homeowners save an average of $250 a year in energy bills. The homes can offer reduced leaks and drafts, more consistent temperatures, and improved indoor air quality.
About Champion Homes, Inc.
Champion Homes, Inc. is a leading producer of factory-built housing in North America and employs approximately 9,000 people. With more than 70 years of homebuilding experience and 48 manufacturing facilities throughout the United States and western Canada, Champion Homes is well positioned with an innovative portfolio of manufactured and modular homes, ADUs, park-models and modular buildings for the single-family, multi-family, and hospitality sectors.
In addition to its core home building business, Champion Homes provides construction services to install and set-up factory-built homes, operates a factory-direct retail business with 72 retail locations across the United States, and operates Star Fleet Trucking, providing transportation services to the manufactured housing and other industries from several dispatch locations across the United States. …”
11) This exercise reveals that there is obviously more lacking in this Champion press release than there something compelling present in it. Watch the data in the wake of this press release. Will sales soar after this press release? Highly unlikely. Will CrossMod sales soar as a result? Again, based on years of experience, highly unlikely.
But their press release does provide MHProNews with the opportunity to once more spotlight what appears to be apparent collusion between the Big 3 in a fashion that is limiting manufactured housing production. Who said? How about antitrust researcher Samuel Strommen? Strommen argued that MHI et al is potentially guilty of collusion and “felony” antitrust violations. He provided 17 pages and over 130 footnotes in support of his thesis.
12) Per NPR: “The term collusion might not be in the lawbooks but other crimes like conspiracy are. NPR’s Audie Cornish speaks with Georgetown law professor Paul Butler to break down what the law says about collusion.”
13) That MHI’s largest producers also apparently fail to mention enhanced preemption, even though they apparently know about it, suggests collusion or conspiracy. It also suggests a failure of their fiduciary duty to shareholders.
14) See the related reports above and that follow for more evidence and details. That said, in summary, it seems that this announcement by Champion is just the latest lame fig leaf that industry pros can be told about by the powers that be at MHI, as if something was occurring. But as the article on MHLivingNews about CityScapes revealed, there have been far more impressive demonstrations, and they were to promote mainstream manufactured homes and modular homes. The fact that neither Champion nor MHI mentions so many of those historic efforts only adds evidence to either ineptitude or it underscores that they posture hoping to impress the underinformed or uninformed. For more evidence and examples that shed light on why manufactured housing is underperforming in the 21st century, check the third-party and other research with analysis linked above or below.
Again, our thanks to free email subscribers and all readers like you, as well as our tipsters/sources, sponsors and God for making and keeping us the runaway number one source for authentic “News through the lens of manufactured homes and factory-built housing” © where “We Provide, You Decide.” © ## (Affordable housing, manufactured homes, reports, fact-checks, analysis, and commentary. Third-party images or content are provided under fair use guidelines for media.) See Related Reports, further below. Text/image boxes often are hot-linked to other reports that can be access by clicking on them.)
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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