Is Elon Musk Living in a Manufactured Home? Is Jeff Bezos-Another Top U.S. Billionaire Backing Arrived Housing? Future of Housing Fund and What Mega-Rich Investor-Analysis Reveals to MHVille Pros
As MHProNews has previously reported, billions of dollars have been flowing into investments in recent years that aim to compete with HUD Code manufactured homes as potentially affordable entry level housing. Billions more are bet by private equity giants and others invested in single family conventional housing, which have reportedly been snapping up about 1 in 5 existing houses for sale, due in part to the U.S. housing shortage. The following mainstream news and financial headlines, some of which are teased in the headline for this article read as follows: Jeannine Mancini writing for business-financial news site Benzinga in a report picked up by Yahoo Finance and the Manufactured Housing Institute of South Carolina (MHISC) had this headline: “Is Elon Musk Living In A Manufactured Home? Discover Why They’re Surprisingly Affordable Compared To Traditional Residences.” News aggregator Yahoo Finance also ran this headline: “Jeff Bezos-Backed Real Estate Company Launched A New Fund To Acquire More Single-Family Homes Across The U.S.” which also originally ran on Benzinga. Those same sources featured this headline: “A New REIT Is Taking On The Housing Affordability Crisis, And Its Plan Looks Promising.” More on each of those will be provided in this report, view through the lens of recent remarks made by SECO-connected manufactured home community owner-operator David Roden to Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) leaders. But this will also be done with an eye on an op-ed on MarketWatch entitled: “Corporations have broken capitalism. Here’s how to fix it” by Hunter Hastings. Hastings “is a member of the Mises Institute, Business Consultant, and co-chair of the Rescue California Educational Foundation.” Hastings website says: he is an “economist by education, a marketer in my professional track, a venture capitalist in my current business life, an Individualist in philosophy, and a passionate supporter of entrepreneurship in whatever form I can practice it, support it and advance it.” Toss these into the MHProNews blender, mix in some insights from Bing’s Copilot, and a series of fascinating opportunities and potential ‘lessons learned’ for manufactured housing emerges.
In no particular order of importance are the following pull quotes and remarks by the cited source, which being quoted by MHProNews should not be construed as agreement with their statement or claims. These are the statements of the source cited, some of which could be questioned or even debunked. For example, that there is a shortage of 3.8 million housing units in the U.S. While a commonly used figure, there are others including Cavco Industries that believe the number to be 6 million housing units or perhaps as many as 10+ million housing units.
Part I
Jeff Bezos-Backed Real Estate Company Launched A New Fund To Acquire More Single-Family Homes Across The U.S. (per Benzinga and Yahoo Finance)
Many of the world’s largest investment firms have launched new funds over the past couple of years aimed at acquiring or building single-family homes to use as rentals. This comes as no surprise considering that the increased cost of buying a home has forced many Americans into being tenants instead of homeowners.
Arrived, a young real estate company backed by Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, recently announced its entry into the single-family rental fund space. Arrived currently operates a fractional real estate investing platform that has attracted nearly half a million retail investors since its launch in 2021. The platform allows these investors to purchase shares of single-family rental properties with as little as $100.
To date, investors on the platform have funded nearly 400 homes with a total value of over $124 million. Properties are often fully funded within hours of going live, which has resulted in Arrived limiting the maximum investment on many of its offerings.” MHProNews notes that Kevin Vandenboss authored that article published on
In the third quarter of 2023, investors on the platform earned approximately $890,000 in dividend income, marking an increase from the previous quarter. Over the past year, the platform has disbursed over $2.8 million in dividends to its investors.
Arrived was the first SEC-qualified real estate investing platform to allow virtually anyone to buy shares in single-family rental properties. This innovative approach to real estate investing has attracted significant attention and backing from high-profile investors and tech entrepreneurs, including Jeff Bezos, Marc Benioff, Spencer Rascoff, and Dara Khosrowshahi, who all invested in the company’s seed round. Bezos’s continued support was evident with his second investment during Arrived’s $25 million Series A funding round in 2022.”
Hold those thoughts as we pivot to Bezos and the Future of Housing Fund.
Part II –
1) Per the Manufactured Housing Institute of South Carolina (MHISC) was this post.
The CEO said the house he stays in most often is a $45,000 house in South Texas. “I’m in love with the place and have done a lot with the place,” Musk said.
The U.S. faces a shortage of roughly 3.8 million housing units, which is causing a reassessment of housing options beyond single-family and multifamily homes. Manufactured homes stand out because of their lower production costs and quick assembly.”
Note that the MHISC gives no apparent analysis of those remarks, which are an accurate reflection of what was posted in the original article by Jeannine Mancini via Benzinga and Yahoo Finance. As was noted in the preface, the 3.8 million housing unit shortage is based on a figure developed by Freddie Mac. The Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) President and CEO Mark Weiss, J.D., questioned but used those figures to demonstrate the role Freddie Mac, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Fannie Mae (et al) have fostered the affordable housing crisis by failing to support the production of enough HUD Code manufactured homes. Weiss had a point that is as relevant now as it was then. More on that later.
2) In the original article by Jeannine Mancini entitled: “Is Elon Musk Living In A Manufactured Home? Discover Why They’re Surprisingly Affordable Compared To Traditional Residences” she revealed that the teaser wasn’t a manufactured home at all. It is a prefab or moveable modular structure. Nevertheless, she pivots from Musk and his Boxabl to manufactured housing, which MHLivingNews has previously reported on. Pay close attention to what Mancini has to say, and didn’t say.
Whether he actually lives in it or not, Elon Musk has a $50,000 prefab tiny home in Texas.
The SpaceX and Tesla Inc. CEO said he has a Boxabl home, but the house he stays in most often is a $45,000 “small, tiny” house in South Texas.
“I’m in love with the place and have done a lot with the place,” Musk said, noting that he uses the Boxabl folding house as a guesthouse.
Although the world’s richest many can afford to live wherever he wants, Musk may be onto something that could help regular people escape skyrocketing housing costs.
Investing in real estate just got a whole lot simpler. With as little as $100, average investors are becoming landlords thanks to this Jeff Bezos-backed startup.
The U.S. faces a shortage of roughly 3.8 million housing units, which is causing a reassessment of housing options beyond single-family and multifamily homes. Manufactured homes stand out because of their lower production costs and quick assembly.
About 50,000 manufactured homes were shipped during the first seven months of 2023, according to Marcus & Millichap’s second-half report on manufactured home communities. The count was down year over year, likely because strict zoning laws and other land-use preferences are prohibiting new manufactured home communities from being established.
Metropolitan areas with expanding populations have seen declining lot vacancy rates in manufactured home communities. The South and Mountain West regions have the five metros expected to grow the fastest this year. Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and Austin, Texas; Phoenix; and Atlanta each expect to welcome more than 50,000 new residents this year.
But finding a place to put manufactured homes is challenging. The lot vacancy rate nationally was below 6% through the end of 2022, and most metros outside of the Midwest — the only region that had lot vacancy over 6% — are on track to maintain that trend during the second half of 2023. …”
Let’s sum up. Millions of housing units are needed, said Mancini. “But finding a place to put manufactured homes can be challenging.” Note that each of the issues she raised, and the report she referenced – Marcus and Millichap and their semiannual report on the manufactured home community market are periodic featured subjects on MHProNews.
3) The point made by Mancini on what Curt Hodgson of Legacy Housing (LEGH) called a place to putchallenge has been echoed by his still reasonably new to MHVille CEO Duncan Bates. Per published sources, Hodgson’s and his partner Kenny Shipley’s publicly traded Legacy Housing is both a member of MHI and a member of the MHARR. MHI has indicated that Legacy’s Texas plants are MHI members, which suggests that it is their GA facility which is the MHARR member.
“…I’ve indicated for some time, we have a place to put challenge in our industry, particularly in larger metropolitan areas like Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Atlanta, Denver. And that difficulty is not being remedied, at least not currently.” Hodgson’s Legacy Housing was an MHI member at the time that comment was made during an earnings call, and per an available MHI’s member directory, still is.
4) So, ironically perhaps, MHISC – which per MHI’s previously public listing is an MHI state affiliate – “Manufactured homes stand out because of their lower production costs and quick assembly.” Let’s begin by giving the MHISC their due. They feature a steady diet of mainstream news stories that favorably mention manufactured housing. On their home page on this date (6.3.2024) is the following.
Almost all counties in Georgia have used zoning laws to severely restrict the creation of what we all remember as trailer parks. But today’s manufactured homes are nearly indistinguishable from site-built homes, yet they cost only half as much to build.
The savings come primarily from economies of scale and the elimination of waste in a computer-designed manufacturing environment that can operate 24/7 every day. Today’s manufactured homes are well-built, highly energy efficient, and designed to last a lifetime when properly maintained.”
5) The above begs these questions.
Why isn’t that item featured by the MHISC also on the MHI website?
How is it that smaller state association can do a better job of promoting the industry than MHI is doing? The most recent item visible on the MHI website’s ‘news’ segment from their home page is dated April 2024.
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6) Look at this item from the MHISC’s mainstream news teaser-briefs.
Advocates for the measure say they believe the law could reduce the stigma associated with manufactured and mobile homes and allow more Mainers to achieve homeownership for the first time.
State Rep. Dick Bradstreet, R-Vassalboro said he believes the law will create more affordable options for more people.
“It’s the quickest way for people to bring about personal wealth, build up equity in their homes,” said Bradstreet, who also serves on the Legislature’s Housing Committee. “But if they can’t get into a home, there’s no chance of building up equity. This will give people a chance to do that.” ##
7) What that article by left-leaning NPR affiliate linked to is a law passed in Maine that is a kind of statewide preemption for manufactured homes that is set to go into effect later this year. That law is found at this link here. While the law is arguably imperfect, it is nevertheless a step forward.
APPROVED
MARCH 19, 2024
BY GOVERNOR
CHAPTER
552
PUBLIC LAW
Page 2 – 131LR1984(03)
D. Municipalities may not prohibit manufactured housing, regardless of its date of
manufacture, solely on the basis of a date of manufacture before June 14, 1976, or the
failure of a unit to have been manufactured in accordance with the National
Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974, United States
Code, Title 42, Chapter 70. Municipalities may apply the design standards permitted
by this section to all manufactured housing, regardless of its date of manufacture, and
may apply reasonable safety standards to manufactured housing built before June 15,
1976, or not built in accordance with the National Manufactured Housing Construction
and Safety Standards Act of 1974, United States Code, Title 42, Chapter 70.
E. Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, manufactured housing
and any modular home that meets construction standards for state-certified
manufactured homes housing adopted pursuant to Title 10, section 9042 must be
allowed in all zones where other single-family homes are allowed.”
8) Give MHISC credit, because it is due. Without using the term “preemption” they have nevertheless highlighted the issue of statewide for those who grasp its importance. By implication, that can be used to advance the notion of national preemption for manufactured housing, which – oh, by the way MHI – is already federal law. Yet despite years of fact checks by MHProNews highlighting the point that MHI claims to support enforcement of federal preemption, they fail to mention it on their own website. What sort of support is that for an issue that could perhaps solo cause a massive surge in manufactured housing production if enforced? MHI mentions federal preemption in letters, but they fail to do so on their own website. Note too that MHI-linked trade media also routinely fail to mention preemption on their websites. Coincidences?
The lack of enforcement of the enhanced preemption issue is arguably one of the most limiting factors in all of manufactured housing. Note: depending on your browser or device, many images in this report and others on MHProNews can be clicked to expand. Click the image and follow the prompts. For example, in some browsers/devices you click the image and select ‘open in a new window.’ After clicking that selection, you click the image in the open window to expand the image to a larger size. To return to this page, use your back key, escape or follow the prompts.
9) Give credit where it is due, but also provide a spotlight for accountability when it is called for too. MHISC, like MHI, fails to have any mention of enhanced preemption on their website. (6.3.2024 at about 2:35 AM ET). That said, as noted above, MHISC featured that recent report out of Maine which recently enacted a kind of modified state preemption. While imperfect, that law is potentially a step in a better direction for manufactured housing in that state.
10) Certainly, every state association could slug it out with their state lawmakers, governors, other public officials, attorneys, and so on in a state-by-state battle to get preemption for manufactured housing enforced. But isn’t that what MHI is supposed to be doing? Isn’t that what the national trade group is supposed to be advocating – and litigating as necessary – to achieve? That is form of madness at best perhaps, or a dark duplicity at worst to foster consolidation while the industry underperforms, that MHI is failing at what should be the obvious. A Copilot recently observed, the fastest way for manufactured housing to advance is to get existing federal laws routinely enforced.
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Corporations have broken capitalism. Here’s how to fix it.
Opinion by Hunter Hastings
Perceived income and wealth inequalities can be traced back to the way corporations pay wages and salaries, rewarding a narrow group of shareholders with dividends and stock buybacks.
Why are young Americans so skeptical about capitalism? In a recent (2022) Pew Research poll, only 40% of 18-to-29 year-olds expressed a positive attitude towards capitalism, and a greater number were positive towards socialism.
This doesn’t make any sense on rational grounds. Capitalism is the economic system that has raised levels of well-being for billions of people across the globe over hundreds of years, in contrast to all the other systems that have been tried. From life expectancy to access to education to air and water cleanliness, as well as income levels, the world is getting better as a result of capitalism.
The skepticism is not just irrational, it’s dangerous. Capitalism is at the core of Western civilization and its values. It’s fundamental to our legal, political and social structures, and loss of faith in capitalism can portend a significant social erosion.
What went wrong? How did capitalism get such a bad name?
Upon deeper analysis of the criticisms of capitalism, we can trace them back to the behavior of one of the prime protagonists of the system: corporations. Perceived income and wealth inequalities can be traced back to the way corporations pay wages and salaries, while rewarding a narrow group of shareholders with dividends and stock buybacks.
Managers make themselves part of the disproportionate rewards system with stock grants and awards, perceived as becoming part of the insider trading cartel. Profit maximization can be perceived as exploitation of labor. Environmental degradation stems from corporations’ uses of resources and production of waste.
None of this is inherently bad. The use of natural resources to create capital and jobs, pay wages and salaries, while drawing on debt and equity financing to invest today in tomorrow’s innovations are at the heart of the capitalist system. Profit is the signal from the marketplace that corporations are using society’s resources well.
Corporate management are perceived as having turned away from customers.
But the deeper problem is that corporate management are perceived as having turned away from customers. The primary purpose of corporations, when they were introduced as a great capitalist innovation in the 19th century, was to create value for customers and to engage the creative human capital of the workforce in doing so. They ushered in the era of customer capitalism. Households received the gifts of extended hours of family time as a result of affordable illumination, and greater productivity and less drudgery as a result of new machines. Health, safety, and nutrition were all improved, along with transportation and education. Producers were able to equip factories with better production methods, increasing output and lowering prices for their end-users.
But over time, customer capitalism morphed into corporate capitalism, marked by a shift from the outward, customer focused perspective of the entrepreneur-owners of the early corporations to the internalized orientation of the modern management bureaucracies.
There were two major components within this trend. First was the shift to management-as-control, where creativity in value creation for customers — an exploratory, uncertain activity —-was made subservient to efficiency, setting and making planning goals, and “no surprises”. The second shift was to the primacy of the financial sector, resulting in the pursuit of short-term quarterly earnings targets, and the use of free cash flow for stock buybacks and dividends rather than investment in R&D and future but uncertain innovation.
By giving themselves stock awards and stock options, management became self-dealing.
By giving themselves stock awards and stock options, management became self-dealing. Economics professor William Lazonick has documented the number of instances of the leading Fortune 500 companies spending more than 100% of their net income on stock buybacks and dividends, i.e. rewarding management and shareholders at the expense of investment in R&D and future innovation for customers.
We can easily observe examples of the shift from external to internal orientation and the damage it does to capitalism. For example, it was revealed in 2017 that Wells Fargo had created 3.5 million fake accounts in customers’ names without their permission. This was a result of internal managerial pressure for cross-selling and the pursuit of employee bonuses at the expense of the customer. More recently, Alphabet’s disastrous launch of Google Gemini AI — which lost the trust of users by inappropriately displaying Black-complected images of iconically white historical figures like George Washington — was attributed to the power of the internal DEI team and its rules over the engineers seeking to serve customers by providing the most useful response to their queries. The business models of Big Pharma companies emphasize the search for blockbuster drugs (i.e., those that can generate revenues of over $1 billion annually) over accessibility and affordability for patients.
There is some hope that this pattern can be superseded. Some new digital-age leaders, for example, Amazon.com have a business model that connects directly to customers, giving a greater incentive for customer value creation and a real-time feedback flow of information to make them more informed and responsive. These corporations have explored new, flatter structures, adopting the network model over hierarchy, and they are enthusiastically investing in new capital in the form of server farms and data centers and large language models that promise new value creation in the future. The capital is substantial but not fixed like the steel plants and paper mills of the 20th century. We can expect a lot more flexibility and adaptation.
Will digital-age progress convince 18-29 year olds to love capitalism again?
There’s a good chance of it, although it’s not assured. The digital giants have not got rid of all bureaucracy, and the part that remains, especially in HR, retains all the strangling control instincts of the old ones, especially in DEI, ESG and similar areas. A related problem is the entanglement with government, in areas like surveillance technology, censorship and cybersecurity. And there is still plenty of perceived self-dealing in the form of wealth and power concentration.
Nevertheless, there is the potential for the return of the purpose-driven entrepreneurial mindset: serve customers well, with an engaged and well-rewarded workforce, and reap the rewards of the marketplace as a consequence rather than maximizing profit as a reason for being. The 18-to-29 year-olds can embrace that.
Hunter Hastings is a corporate strategy adviser and co-author of “Aberrant Capitalism; The Decay and Revival of Customer Capitalism” (Cambridge University Press, 2024). ##
1) There are several items that could be questioned and critiqued in the above. For instance, Hastings may be overly generous towards Amazon and Google (Alphabet). That noted, and applying our separate the wheat from the chaff mindset, before pressing on let’s also note that sometimes an author like Hastings may have to bend a little in order to get a certain platform (e.g.: news outlet) to accept their op-ed. That noted, the blossoming of stock buybacks in MHVille has been previously highlighted by MHProNews. See the example linked below.
2) It is tempting to take the easy path, the path of least resistance, to follow the go along to get along pack in an industry such as manufactured housing. While many realize, on an intellectual level, the contrarian behavior is often where the greater rewards are to be found, nevertheless, for whatever reasons there are those who simply run with the pack. The results? For both Cavco and Skyline Champion, as but two recent examples, they are facing the results of drops in sales during an affordable housing crisis. That costs shareholders, and arguably other stakeholders too.
3) What has become the way of many involved at MHI is the path of consolidation as the way to ‘growth.’ While there may, indeed, be times when consolidation is warranted for a range of pragmatic reasons, there are also apparently times when consolidation is much as Hastings described it in his op-ed. It is a ‘safer’ form of self-dealing. Yet, even the Biden-era antitrust division has said that moat strategies are on their radar of possible antitrust action.
4) It remains to be seen if, and to what degree, Trump may go after Biden for his duplicitous and hypocritical dealing with self-serving corporate titans, Communist China, and others who are arguably undermining what used to be the American Dream. Hastings has a point about the intersection between government and corporations. It is an evidence-based theme MHProNews has explored for several years. How that plays out in manufactured housing – and the housing markets more broadly – are important issues.
5) Without directly questioning the motives or thinking of David Roden, this romp through mainstream news and how it reflects to issues of importance for manufactured housing can now come into sharper focus. Perhaps with utter sincerity, SECO-linked Roden has questioned MHI’s staff leaders, and some corporate leaders too. It is interesting to note that he involved MHARR in that outreach to MHI, even though MHARR has no direct connections with communities or retailers, since they are a producers-focused trade group that takes no direct dues from land-lease community operators or street retailers.
7) What MHARR’s President and CEO, Mark Weiss, J.D. called “empty posturing” and their recent push toward addressing the bottlenecks of zoning/placement and lack of competitive financing are interlaced with the concern raised by Roden. Again, for clarity, MHProNews is not hereby endorsing SECO or those quoted below. They each have areas that are arguably problematic legally, and ethically. While Roden’s buddy in SECO George Allen, for instance, has pushed for doubling manufactured housing industry production, he is doing so at a meeting that is largely underwritten by MHI members who sponsor the event. Or when Frank Rolfe critiques (with good reason) years of MHI failure to properly promote the industry, it must be grasped that Rolfe and Allen are pointing figures while three others are proverbially pointing back at them.
8) A closer look at several MHI corporate ‘leaders’ reveals a rather tawdry picture of problematic behaviors towards their own customers, which in turn creates a more difficult work environment for their own team members. It was a laugh out loud moment when Clayton Homes hired – and then lost – Case McGee for their chief people officer. Apparently, McGee found out the hard way that the grass may not be greener at Clayton Homes after all.
In a follow up with MHProNews, Copilot also added these insights.
The Future of Housing Fund (FOHF) is a real estate investment trust (REIT) with an ambitious goal: to revolutionize the housing industry and make affordable and sustainable housing accessible to everyone. Here’s what you need to know about FOHF:
Objective and Approach:
FOHF aims to develop modular housing communities using Boxabl’s innovative “Casita” housing units.
These modular home communities will primarily target cities in need of entry-level workforce housing.
FOHF will develop, own, and manage these communities on behalf of its shareholders.
Timeline:
February 2023: Elevate Money, Inc. and Boxabl signed their partnership agreement.
March 2023: FOHF submitted the initial “Offering Circular” (prospectus) draft to the SEC.
July 2023: FOHF’s Offering Circular received “Notice of Qualification” from the SEC.
August 2023: FOHF went live and became open to investors on Elevate Money platforms.
September 2023: FOHF initiated meetings with municipalities seeking near-term solutions for local workforce housing availability.
Q4 2023: Identify land/city prospects for the first FOHF modular housing community.
Q1 2024: Sign the first property purchase contract and engage in a feasibility study.
Q2 2024: Commence property purchase and infrastructure development.
Who Can Invest?: FOHF is open to US residents on the Elevate Money app and website.
Minimum Investment: $1,000 for new Elevate Money customers and $500 for current customers.
Lock-up Period: Investments in FOHF are locked up for 1 year due to its longer-term strategy.
Expected Returns:
Capital Appreciation Potential: Value is created upon housing development completion, reflected in FOHF’s share price based on third-party appraisals relative to development cost.
Dividend Potential: FOHF aims to collect rental income from modular home units and pay shareholders a declared monthly dividend net of fees and expenses.
Elevate Money’s FOHF stands out because it has a partnership agreement with Boxabl, granting it first right to purchase at least 10% of Boxabl’s monthly Casita production. Boxabl currently has a waitlist of over 170,000 homes1.
In summary, FOHF combines innovation, affordability, and sustainability to address housing challenges and create thriving communities. 🏡🌟23…”
10) As MHProNews previously report, and mentioned previously above, billions of dollars are being invested in potential rivals for HUD Code manufactured homes. But by implication, that means that manufactured housing could – in theory – be attracting those billions of dollars for its own growth purposes. And not for the short-term fix of consolidation, which may – per Hastings – benefit a limited number in a ‘safe’ return fashion while harming greater numbers in the process.
11) It is rather easy to debunk key aspects of the investment thesis advance by the investor relations pitches made by Equity LifeStyle Properties (ELS), Cavco (CVCO), Skyline Champion (SKY), Sun Communities, and others – sometimes from their own words! Sun’s Shiffman, for instance, made the point years before the Landy’s more recent did that developing new properties can bring higher returns for the company, and thus for the company’s investors.
As a quick and relevant footnote to UMH. As long-term and detail-minded MHProNews readers of this platform may recall, MHProNews has critiqued some aspects of their operation in the past. For instance, the case can be made that they could be selling more homes. That noted, in fairness they are taking their rental strategy and showing how it could be a contrarian thesis that outperforms their larger rivals. Why they are in MHI is anyone’s guess, but they have largely managed to avoid the kinds of dark behaviors that have often been associated with some of their fellow MHI member brands. To the point Hastings made, UMH can be a far better example of manufactured housing performed in a more consumer-focused fashion. Doubtlessly that results in better resident-relations than some of their rivals have. That in turn creates a better working environment too. So, investors, teammates, and customers can all win – and do so with profits protected and perhaps even enhanced over their competitors. Warren Buffett may have a point that bad guys know more tricks, but good guys can still win. Indeed, it is entirely possible that a decade from now, Berkshire could be history while more white hat brands are thriving. So, all the years of game playing and moat building may yet catch up with Buffett’s minions, and Buffett himself could die and wake up in a rather unpleasant place. That’s hardly what clear-thinkers would call ‘success.’
12) What Copilot humorously called out MHI leaders for in yesterday’s report illustrates the roller coaster ride that ‘self-dealing’ (to borrow Hasting’s terminology) certain MHI leaders are engaged in.
13) Note how many of the top reports on MHProNews are about corporate and association-linked corruption? The industry and those who follow it have plenty of intelligent people in it. Even the simple minded can spot the notion that during an affordable housing crisis, manufactured housing ought to be soaring! By hammering away at such facts, and carefully documenting over a period of years the numerous contradictions and disconnects between MHI (staff and corporate) leaders words and deeds, the hypocrisy and corruption involved begins to come to life. Roden may or may not recall the times MHProNews has hammered at the very issue he finally raised with MHI’s leaders. But the contradictions between MHI leaders words and deeds may be just the thing that could ultimately lead them to a troubled ending.
14) There are reasons why MHI leaders are routinely following our news and expert views. It isn’t because we are complimenting them. Let the bootlicks and brownnosers MHI’s insiders favor do that disgusting job of praising their apparently flawed and corrupt behavior. There is smart greed, and there is stupid greed. A kind of success can blind people to the truly superior success that they might enjoy if they were willing to step back and explore just how harmful their behavior is for their shareholders/investors, for themselves, and for the public at large. The brownnoser/bootlick crowd are doing MHProNews a favor, though that may not be their intention. By other trade media authentically failing to pick apart the obvious flaws – which Roden only begins to scratch the surface on – in the schemes deployed by MHI leaders, it becomes ever more apparent that something dark and corrupt is indeed underway. Those whose minds and eyes are sufficiently darkened often can’t stand the light. Some have to re-adjust to the light to be able to deal with it.
It is rather humorous that none of those, per Copilot, that David Roden copied have yet to mention his concerns in their respective platforms and publications.
16) To draw this report to a conclusion, it has to be stressed that the truth is not only its own reward, but the truth is how the darkness can be overcome. That may seem old fashioned to some, but it is a principle that has stood the test of centuries of time.
“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Even a superficial look at history reveals that no social advance rolls in on the wheels inevitability. Every step towards the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr quotable quote on MHProNews.
17) Roden is right about this. The affordable housing crisis is a massive opportunity – at least potentially – for manufactured housing pros. But it is an opportunity that is being wasted by MHI’s current leadership. It is an open question if that organization can be salvaged or not. It may need to be supplanted, which MHProNews advocated for another post-production trade group, even while we were still MHI members.
18) There are what an MHI insider described as ‘f-cking greedy’ scoundrels who have empowered themselves and made MHI a tool for themselves. That sounds like a coarser version of what Marty Lavin, an MHI award winner, also said. Lavin pointed out that there has to be a distinction made between what people say and what people do. That fits with what former MHI VP Danny Ghorbani said in a critique of his former organization, which he left to help form what today is MHARR. We are not Lavin’s press agent. We are trade journalists who report facts, evidence, and then draw logical conclusions based on our multi-decade working knowledge of the industry at the grass roots level. That said, Lavin’s name is one of those expunged from the public side of the MHI website. Wonder why an MHI award winner can’t be found on their website? Just read some of his critiques (use our search tool) and you’ll get it.
19) MHI is demonstrably part of the problem in MHVille when it comes to the failure to tap into good laws that could bring a new boom to the industry. They have not been part of the solution in the 21st century, other than a solution for consolidators. It is all but guaranteed that MHI will squander yet another opportunity when the Innovative Housing Showcase begins. While the bask in their self-praise, and get photos and videos with public officials, what they won’t get is any commitment to see enhanced preemption robustly enforced by HUD. Nor will they get the FHFA to commit to getting the Duty to Serve manufactured housing properly enforced by that agency. MHProNews would love to be proven wrong. But let’s see in a week or ten days just how accurate this forecast is, shall we?
20) A relatively small group of corrupt individuals who think themselves smart because they have large bank accounts at the moment have failed to learn the lessons of the Sam Bankman Fried crowd. The Madoff’s of the world aren’t limited to Ponzi schemes. There are any number of ways to rig a system. Who said? Buffett‘s buddy, William “Bill” Gates III.
21) There is only so much you can put into a short op-ed, as Hastings was doubtlessly limited to by MarketWatch. But what he didn’t explicitly mention is that to a younger generation, it may seem like the crony capitalists have rigged the system in ways that enrich themselves at the expense of others, and thus they don’t see the glories of the free marketplace. Combine that with propaganda by schools, institutions, and even public officials, and of course socialism sounds good to the ill-advised and misinformed. The promises of former President Obama (D) turned out to be the illusions and disappointments of Obama. He was not so different than President George W. Bush (R) in his foreign policy.
22) It isn’t as simple as the Democrats vs. the Republicans. It isn’t as simple as the Uni-Party. It is rather more like the Corporatist Party or Big Business Party, argued leftist Noam Chomsky.
23) God has no choice but to use less than perfect vessels to accomplish potentially good works. Humanity being in a fallen state means that imperfect leaders have to carry out the work of reform. When the Crony Corporatist Party members – another term for fascism – are so desperate to keep Trump off the ballot, or to imprison him, etc., that speaks volumes. This report began with Elon Musk and it will close with his observations. Not because we are necessarily Musk fans, we have been critics too. But because the truth is the truth, and common-sense merits attention, regardless of who says it.
As this writer’s typing class teacher said decades ago: “Now is the time for all good men (okay, let’s add ladies too) to come to the aid of their country.” Musk appears to agree. All those like David Roden who think that something has gone wrong in MHVille, you are right. But all of those who have come to that conclusion need to take a careful look at why things have gone wrong, and what must be done to fix it. America needs more affordable housing now than perhaps at any time in its history. There are tens of billions of dollars that could be honestly earned annually. The RV industry has proven that and manufactured housing is a necessity not a luxury item. To fix manufactured housing, a rigged system must be challenged. That is not an overnight process. It will take women and men of good will to stand up and fight for what is right, in whatever modest to major ways they are able to do so. The future of our country and our profession are at stake. ###
Our son has grown quite a bit since this 12.2019 photo. All on Capitol Hill were welcoming and interested in our manufactured housing industry related concerns. But Congressman Al Green’s office was tremendous in their hospitality. Our son’s hand is on a package that included the Constitution of the United States, bottled water, and other goodies.
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.
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