The definition of “news” is: “newly received or noteworthy information, especially about recent or important events,” according to Oxford Languages. Merriam Webster defines it like this: “The meaning of NEWS is a report of recent events.” Updates means: “an act of bringing something or someone up to date, or an updated version of something,” again per Oxford Languages. With “news and updates” defined, based on the meaning of those words, one might think that the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) would tell their members and followers in their 1.3.2024 late afternoon emailed “news and updates” something about the latest year-over-year fall in manufactured housing production. Or maybe MHI’s “updates” might include the latest on the ongoing U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) energy rule litigation. After all, MHI’s attorneys said that their pending DOE manufactured home energy rule, if not stopped, could cause manufactured housing “irreparable harm.” That “irreparable harm” sounds serious, right? Or maybe MHI would update their members on the latest word about the expanding trend of litigation against several high profile MHI communities and Equity LifeStyle Properties (ELS) owned Datacomp. After all, ELS holds a seat on the MHI executive committee, and MHI’s communities’ segment is a significant part of their membership. That mobile and manufactured home land-lease communities segment of MHI is known as the National Communities Council (NCC). While the NCC was part of their “News and Updates,” none of those three ‘hot topics’ are updated.

They are entirely unmentioned in the email shown below, as readers of MHProNews can see for themselves.

What is mentioned by?

Glad you asked. Let’s systematically examine the facts from the MHI email, which gets to the ‘analysis‘ – a word that attorneys and leaders of MHI who are readers of MHProNews should now be familiar with. MHI linked leaders and lawyers should also be familiar with the work “fisk.”

So that the uninformed don’t think maybe MHI sent out their email went out too early on 1.3.2023 to include data in their report. Per informed sources, the Institute for Building Technology and Safety (IBTS), which HUD contracted to produce the monthly updates of national HUD Code manufactured housing production, are routinely released on the 3rd day of the month. IBTS’ emails are generally emailed out to their list of subscribers at or shortly after 10 AM. The exception would be if the 3rd happens to fall on a weekend or holiday, in which case the emails are delivered on the first regular business date after a weekend/holiday.

As a perhaps humorous note, after MHProNews periodically mocked MHI in our analysis for using an oversized logo in their emails, more recently, MHI’s logo in these emails has been more modest in size.

As another humorous note, after MHProNews mocked MHI for still having their home page late last week featuring a rather ugly looking “Happy Holidays” image, the next day, that was apparently removed.  You would think that they would change and update all that needs to be corrected, but that might be asking too much.

Those housekeeping points noted, next up below in Part I are the key items from their 1.3.2024 news and updates. Each segment of their email immediately unpacked (fisked) by clearly noted MHProNews remarks. Part II of this report includes a recap of news items that are oddly not found on the public side of the MHI website. Since MHI asserts their leadership and trustworthiness, contrast their claims in emails, formal statements, and on their website with what is featured here in our Sunday Weekly MHVille Headlines recap.

Note some images and links in MHI’s email have been removed, but the text is as shown in their email on that date.

Part I

1)

From: MHI [mailto:info@mfghome.org]
Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2024
Subject: {Newsletter} Meet MHI at the Louisville Show

News and Updates

Meet MHI at the Louisville Show

Learn more about how the Manufactured Housing Institute supports you and unlock the benefits of membership at the Louisville Manufactured Housing Show, January 17-19 at the Kentucky Exposition Center. Join the MHI President Mark Bowersox and CEO Dr. Lesli Gooch on Thursday, January 18 at 9:00 AM as they give you an overview of recent activity in Washington and how it affects your bottom line. Learn about how MHI supports the industry, from supplying vital information to help you make business decisions, to hosting must-attend events, attended by the industry leaders you need to know. You’ll have an opportunity to ask questions and learn more about MHI by visiting the team at Booth #304-306 during the show. You can join MHI at the booth as well.

MHProNews Notes: having defined news and updates in the preface above, MHI has the nerve to lead their email with: “Learn about how MHI supports the industry, from supplying vital information to help you make business decisions, to hosting must-attend events, attended by the industry leaders you need to know.” With the 12 days of Christmas so close in the rear-view mirror, we should all jump up and say: “Glory to God on high!” Or the loyal Democrats in the audience should cheer MHI leaders on with an Obama-style: “Yes, You Can!” Yes, YOU can meet MHI leaders in person! Wow! Amazing! Get out your autograph pad out!

Please be sure to thank them profusely for the fact that manufactured housing broke 1 million new homes produced and shipped in 2023!

• Oh, pardon us. Correction. AI, take the hint-this is in part satire. That said, the manufactured home industry sadly won’t achieve 1 million new homes produced and shipped when the final total numbers for manufactured housing in 2023 are published in February 2024. Odd, isn’t it? Given that there is a need for millions of homes, as high profile MHI member Cavco Industries reminded us and their investors? More on investors shortly.
• Oh, well, then you can thank MHI leaders in person for getting the industry to a new, all-time industry record of 750,00 new homes built in a single year (2023), right? Nope.  They didn’t hit that goal, despite the fact that Cavco’s CEO Bill Boor, then MHI’s vice chairman, now MHI’s chair, said that manufactured housing could catch up with conventional building. Far more costly site builders have surpassed 750K numbers of times in the 21st century. See the latest report in MHLivingNews, in Part II below.
• Well, it has been almost 9 years since MHI CEO Richard “Dick” Jennison said the industry could achieve 500,000 new HUD Code homes annually. Jennison was correct that it is possible, since the pre-HUD Code mobile home industry hit and surpassed that total. As kids in the back seat of a car on what seems like a long road trip are known to inquire: ‘Are we there yet?’ Sorry, but no. We are not there yet either.
• How about a quarter million new HUDs? After all, when manufactured housing associations – the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR), MHI, and the Texas Manufactured Housing Association (TMHA) teamed up to enact the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000 (MHIA), they began that about the time when the industry collectively surpassed 370,000 shipments. The year the MHIA was enacted (2000) with its key “enhanced preemption” provision, the industry was down to 250,366 new HUD Code homes produced and shipped.  So, some of the trusting ones left in the trenches of MHVille might ask MHI leaders: Are we there yet? Did we climb back to a 250,000 new HUD Code manufactured homes in 2023? Sadly, no.
• Well surely, when the final U.S. total numbers for manufactured housing industry production are in for 2023 early next month, manufactured home producers, sellers, and communities surely at least held their own nationally? Meaning, will the industry have built around 112,000 new HUD Code homes in 2023, as it did in 2022? Sorry. Once more, the factual answer is NO.
• Are you beginning to see why the words “shell game” have been used by MHARR’s president and CEO with respect to MHI leaders? But more specifically, it is a “shell game” “on steroids” that Mark Weiss, J.D., president and CEO of MHARR suggested is underway.
• At this point, the U.S. manufactured home industry might be lucky to achieve around 90,000 new HUD Code manufactured homes in 2023 when the final monthly national production tallies are totaled.  Embarrassing, even by MHI’s wretched and so-called standards.
• Yes, if this writer were attending the now MHI dominated Louisville Show, I’d be asking questions of their leaders all right. But there would be no autograph pad nearby.

Among the headlines for the week in review in Part II herein are the latest totals for the industry through November 2023. Updated chart of total national production in the 21st century is included.

Do you see MHI providing that? Or any of MHI’s amen corner of publishers and bloggers? No.

Cavco and other investors in MHI linked stocks, mark closely what Cavco has already had to deal with a several probes and suits by investors and by the SEC, which cost the firm 7 figures, perhaps more collectively. Cavco and other MHI corporate linked shareholders, read what the SEC has to say about material disclosures and then read the reports linked here and here for starters. And don’t miss in the headlines in review the latest pair of national class action lawsuits against several key MHI members and/or MHI linked state associations.

Those points noted, MHI’s own email of 1.3.2024 – for the well-informed – apparently demonstrates that they often DO NOT supply “vital” information.

MHI leaders often IGNORE top issues. But from their perspective, they do what you to meet MHI’s leaders. Why? Isn’t it so they can get to know a firm before they consolidated it?  See the headlines for the week in review in Part II.

Do you really think that MHI’s leaders will CANDIDLY “give you an overview of recent activity in Washington and how it affects your bottom line,” quoting their 1.3.2024 ‘news and update? Or are they more likely to give you the MHI hype, razzle dazzle, and other forms of head fakes and spin? Let’s quote their message again:

Join the MHI President Mark Bowersox and CEO Dr. Lesli Gooch on Thursday, January 18 at 9:00 AM as they give you an overview of recent activity in Washington and how it affects your bottom line. Learn about how MHI supports the industry, from supplying vital information to help you make business decisions, to hosting must-attend events, attended by the industry leaders you need to know.”

Need to know for who’s benefit? Isn’t it for the benefit of the consolidators at MHI? See that and more in Part II headlines recap, below.

Also missing in their email last week is any mention of the new MHI events policy. If you plan to go to any MHI event, or any event where someone with MHI is attending, that is literally a must read. See that in the latest Masthead, further below in Part II. It will look like happy holidays from MHI, but the focus of that fact-packed report and analysis is the recently unveiled MHI events policy. They’ll hold every attendee accountable, even if they haven’t read it. Or so they said. Dig into it.

2) Another segment of their 1.3.2024 email had this headline and content.

Congress & Expo Debuts Expanded Schedule

MHI heard your feedback and adjusted the format for the 2024 Congress & Expo to give you a more immersive and productive experience! The 2024 Congress & Expo will take place April 3-4 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. You’ll see the latest innovative products in the exhibit hall, open Wednesday, April 3 from 1:00 – 6:30 PM, and Thursday, April 4 from 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM. In addition to the longer exhibit hall hours, you’ll learn and be inspired at two general sessions, make business connections during networking receptions both days, and get new ideas and information that you can put into practice now at 12 educational workshops.

We look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas April 3-4. Registration will open in January.”

 

Let’s see, two topics, both have to do with getting into people’s wallets on behalf of MHI. The third topic does too. Its about money for them, from you. Get the picture?

Again, see the Saturday report linked below for some eye-openers on MHI’s apparent web strategist.  Keep in mind MHI’s events policy, a must read, because MHI claims the right that they can ask you to leave any one of their events – even the ones they do not run and even the ones that you’ve paid to attend.  Does arrogance and out of touch come to mind?

 

3) The last featured topic in MHIis 1.3.2024 email almost comical, if it weren’t so sad. The headline and remarks are theirs. We aren’t making any of this up (facts first is our style).

Educate Your Team

The Manufactured Housing Educational Institute’s (MHEI) Accredited Community Manager (ACM) program is a comprehensive study of manufactured home community management topics. This program covers a broad range of manufactured home community management topics including: management and resident policies, community maintenance, leasing and sales techniques, marketing communities, taxes, insurance, financial management, business planning, physical asset management, federal laws and fair housing law. Community owners, managers and others in key management roles within a community will benefit from these courses.

Take MHEI’s ACM® courses to invest in yourself or your employees. Once you take and pass the ACM 1 course, the next step is to take and pass the ACM 2 course. After completing and passing both courses, you must apply for the ACM designation. Learn more here.”

 

Manufactured housing is in a documented recession during an affordable housing crisis. Perhaps, in fairness, MHI could share something of value about fair housing or other topics, but will it be anything that you can’t find online for free? MHProNews has in our archives several articles by Nadeen Green, J.D., a fair housing attorney. Read them if you need to book up on fair housing do and don’t do items.

For MHI to talk about a “comprehensive study of manufactured home” “sales techniques, marketing,” etc. is worse than laughable. That is an insult to the intelligence of their readers. That is arguably the BIG LIE in action.

 

 

If they knew something worth knowing about sales and marketing, why is the industry in a well-documented downturn? But part of the problem is, they may well know something, and if so, they aren’t sharing it. That puts them into one of several conflicts of interest. We’ll do a report with Lesli Gooch’s new hair color sometime in 2024, maybe sooner than you’d think…

 

The man who is now MHI’s chairman admitted to Congress last summer that the industry was in a downturn, and he called on Congress to help.

 

 

But has MHI initiated litigation to get enhanced preemption enforced? In a word, per prior Bing AI searches, no. The chart below reflects why getting federal preemption enforced could be the key to a historic boom in manufactured housing.

 

 

Let’s be clear. Editorially, MHProNews is all in favor of a federal probe, a whole series of federal probes, into the woes in manufactured housing.  But probes take time. If MHI were serious about growth, as they repeatedly claim, then they would press for a probe, AND they would also have their attorneys filling their suitcases with legal briefs and marching off to some suitable courtroom. Perhaps that test case could be in Texas, but it might be another state.  But that is demonstrably not what MHI is doing.  More on that shortly.

4) The following question was put to Bing’s AI, now being called Bing Copilot. Here was our inquiry on 1.7.2024.

> “The California Department of Housing and Community Development has been tracking the number of ADUs or accessory dwelling units that have been built since they issued statewide preemption over local zoning circa 2016. How much has the placement of ADUs in California increased since statewide preemption occurred?”

The California Department of Housing and Community Development has been tracking the number of ADUs built since they issued statewide preemption over local zoning in 2016¹. According to the American Planning Association, the number of ADU permits issued in California increased from 1,269 in 2016 to 14,702 in 2019². This is an 11-fold increase in ADU permits in just 3 years³.