There are some 45,000 +/- manufactured home land lease communities (MHCs) in the U.S. today. When MH Retailers began to tumble in the post 1998 slide that finally bottomed out in 2010, a growing number of MHC owner-operators realized their traditional source for many of their new home placements – ‘the dealer’ – had gone. While MHRetailers still order and sell more homes than MHCommunities, the gap is narrowing. With such facts in mind, in 2011 we added MHC focused content to complement the education at the Louisville Manufactured Housing Show. In 2014, Louisville drew more MHC attendees than any other industry event. We began that same process in 2014 at the Tunica Manufactured Housing Show, adding a panel discussion with seasoned MH veterans. That was where this video about MHC ‘lessons learned’ took place.
Nathan Smith, left, L. A. “Tony” Kovach center, Tammy Fonk, right.
Tunica MH Show, MHC Lessons Learned panel.
After my introduction of the panel and moderator Jenny Hodge, the NCC’s VP gave each of the 3 panelists an opportunity to share some of their professional background. The video covers that opening and nearly half of the content of the 1 hour session. The panel was interactive, including questions and answers from attendees who are already in or considering moving into the MHC space.
Jenny Hodge, left, Nathan Smith,
Tammy Fonk and Maria Horton, right.
Here is a sampling of some of what this 26 minute video will reveal.
Tammy Fonk, with CBRE noted that capital investors are coming into MHCs, saying ‘We can be the bank. We can finance the notes.’ Tammy also describes the processes that go into a profitable community today.
Maria Horton described several challenges and strategies that powerhouse Newport Pacific – which owns and fee manages some 90+ MHC properties – has successfully used. Maria talked about do’s and don’ts to consider for those who wanted to maximize the value of their property, or prepare it for the most profitable sale.
Nathan Smith, spoke about experiences at SSK. Nathan also shares insights investors find of interest. Smith is currently serving as the Chairman of the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI). He said the MH Industry is fascinating; one of the most adaptable industries in U.S. history. He rapidly describes the evolution of the industry and also how that’s impacted the MHCommunities sector in recent years.
An exclusive video interview with
MHI Chairman Nathan Smith is found at this link.
Nathan is routinely entertaining, high energy when speaking and is also insightful. This was a great phrase from Nathan,
“I find success is someone living in a home that they can afford to pay for…”
Maria Horton graciously wrapped up by thanking the Tunica Show organizers, her fellow panelists and me for the opportunity to interact with dozens of professionals through this panel.
Tammy Fonk agreed with Maria and stressed at her close the value of attending conventions and trade shows, where educational and business building opportunities abound.
Nathan closed with a call to get more supportive of the efforts in Washington DC, where MHI is doing its work on behalf of the industry. Jenny Hodge thanked the Tunica Show and myself for organizing the panel discussion.
As noted above, this video runs for about 26 minutes out of a 1 hour session. While the discussion was highly rated by those in attendance, a number of the questions were made without using the microphones provided. Those parts were edited out of the video.
At the 2014 Louisville MH Show, I met for the first time a community manager who has been in the MHC part of the industry for about 3 years. The manager said more was learned in the three days at the show than the 3 prior years in the business!
Another attendee told me that if you go home from a meeting with a single idea, it was worth the price of attending. You’ll like get one or more useful ideas from this video. You’d get even more by going to good, live industry trade events.
We routinely ask attendees to rate our seminars. The typical scores are 4 out of 5 or 5 out of 5 (5 being very useful to attendees, “the best”). We routinely see last year’s attendees back the following year, plus with more new faces coming too. All of that suggests that the education and information provided is practical and useful to pros like yourself.
Those who want to learn more to earn more are encouraged to attend MH Industry association and trade events such as the Louisville and Tunica Shows. Every year, we provide free education to attendees on business building topics such as finance, marketing, sales, management and more. In Louisville in 2014 we had standing room only for many of the sessions, so Dennis Hill, the show manager is adding space to accommodate the ever-growing crowd.
We expect that same pattern of growing attendance to take place in Tunica in 2015 as well.
Between events, stay informed like some 5000 plus pros do daily, by reading a minimum of 15 minutes on MHProNews and 7 minutes on MHLivingNews.com. Or as billion dollar MH success, Jim Clayton, summarized in his video interview with us, “Learn, Earn and Return.” ##
(Video and stills credit ManufacturedHomes.com)
