MHMSM.com presents Factory Built Housing Industry News at Noon with Erin Patla
We begin with these stories:
AN ALABAMA ARCHITECT hopes to win a quarter-million dollars from the “Pepsi Do Good for the Gulf Project” to help property owners rebuild an Orange Beach condominium complex destroyed by Hurricane Ivan, reports the Mobile Press Register. It’s one of a thousand proposals in a contest sponsored by Pepsi to positively impact the gulf coast, which is suffering from the recent BP oil spill. The idea proposed by Phillips Owens of Coast Architects is for an affordable, multi-family housing concept that can be used by numerous Gulf Coast condo associations whose complexes were destroyed by recent hurricanes. Steel from shipping containers would be used for the modular residential housing units. The most popular ideas according to votes will receive grants of $250,000. Owens encouraged daily votes in support of the project. Other proposals include a Seafood Cooking Classes for the Gulf, Displaced Worker Retraining, and Mental Health Services for Gulf Victims. Should the Owens project win, the money would be used to design, engineer and build a prototype of a unit; seek local building code approvals and educate consumers on the product. If you’d like to vote on these crowd-sourced projects, visit http://www.refresheverything.com/gulf.
MANUFACTURED HOMES IN THE NEWS
THE CLEARWATER TIMES OF BRITISH COLUMBIA recently made note of manufactured-home Park owner Keith Hanna’s effort to provide concrete foundations for the homes in Thompson Crossing’s manufactured home park. Hanna notes in the article that putting a concrete footing plus treated wood foundation under a manufactured home gives a more solid structure plus better insurance rates. Hanna also points out that many older people want a home that is wheelchair accessible and it is more difficult to construct a wheelchair ramp for a home that is on blocks than for one with a solid foundation. Up until this point, the standard practice in the district where the homes are located has been to require manufactured homes being rented in a manufactured home park to be mounted on concrete blocks so that they meet the definition of a mobile home.
THE WEB SITE PRITECHO.COM recently ran a feature on the importance of naming a manufactured home community, lamenting names with potentially negative connotations such as “Mobile Heaven.” Imagine receiving a letter with that name on your address! The author writes: “If it is not bad enough that the industry is constantly battling the stigma of being lesser-quality housing, let’s just beat our customers over the head with their shame by giving their community a name that screams ‘substandard humans found here.’” The author calls the name a community’s greatest asset. He suggests using the word “estates” and points out that the costs of a name change are low and the potential benefits substantial.
“Up next, The Market News”
But first, this podcast of News at Noon is sponsored in part by:
CommunityDASHinvestor.com.
Tap into Excellence, your ONE-STOP Resource for the Manufactured Housing Industry, the Leader in Land Lease Communities information!
Tap into Excellence – on the Web at CommunityDASHinvestor.com or call 317-346-7156.
IN MARKET NEWS
Bloomberg and Businessweek reported a gauge of 12 homebuilders in S&P indexes rose 2.5 percent after D.R. Horton Inc., Meritage Homes Corp. and Ryland Group Inc. were raised to “buy” from “hold” at Deutsche Bank AG.
More than 20 percent of the nation’s mortgage borrowers owe more than their homes are worth. So reports the real estate web site Zillow.com. The news isn’t as bad as it may seem; the number represents an improvement over the previous quarter when 23.3 percent owed more than their home was worth.
T.J.T., Inc., a major supplier of axles, tires, and set-up supplies to the manufactured housing industry, announced a net loss of $299,000 for its third quarter of fiscal 2010. The company reports net sales decreased 17 percent in the three and nine month periods ending June 30, 2010, as compared to the same periods a year ago. Net sales of axles and tires decreased 27 percent quarter over quarter, and 20 percent in the first nine months of 2010 compared to 2009. The Company’s net loss for the third quarter of 2010 was $299,000 compared to a net loss of $261,000 in the same 2009 quarter. The net loss for the first nine months of 2010 was $1,031,000 compared to a net loss of $868,000 in 2009. The net loss in both periods is primarily due to lower sales volumes associated with the deteriorating market conditions.
Manufactured housing stocks generally had a good day on Wall Street with the composite value rising nearly seven percent. It was a particularly good day for Skyline Corp., up more than eleven percent; Meritage Homes, up nearly seven percent as well as CAVCO and Palm Harbor, both up almost five percent. UMH Properties and NVR Inc. were both down for the day. The Dow closed up 45 points to end at 10,698.
TODAY ON MHMSM.COM, be sure to catch Part Three of our interview with former MHI Interim-President Dick Ernst. The costs of implementing the SAFE Act, positioning manufactured housing for the current economic environment and whether or not subsidies would be good for the manufactured housing industry.
{Insert clip three}
Visit mhmsm.com/eric-miller/Ernst-interview3 to read the third and final segment and get all the insight on the industry.
“On behalf of Production and IT Manager Bob Stovall, Editor L.A. ‘Tony’ Kovach, Associate Editor Catherine Frenzel, INdustry in Focus reporter Eric Miller, and the entire MHMSM.com writing and support team, this is Erin Patla. G’day!”