Are Manufactured Home chattel finance clouds getting darker still?

Attorney and Industry Expert Marty Lavin has sounded off on what ails MH personal property (chattel) lending with this article entitled The Train to Oblivion.

A response from an MH chattel lender was made with an article entitled If you don’t go forward, you’re not going to go anywhere.

We have already had a number of private calls and messages on these topics, plus the publicly posted replies on the articles linked above.

Personally and professionally, I can tell you that I believe in the future of our Industry. I believe that we can resolve these challenges.

But I do NOT believe in ’wishful thinking’ as a ‘solution.’ During my retail days in Oklahoma, some would say, ‘Wish in one hand and…xxxx…in the other.’ Hmmm…

Sound thinking, planning and execution are what will make a difference for those MH businesses and professionals who survive.

It will also take a higher degree of collaboration than this Industry has ever seen before to make this work.

I’ve seen the ‘survival of the fittest’ comment on this topic. While there is truth in this, it is a truth with a BIG cautionary note.

Businesses who are profitable, and there are many, will have to realize that there needs to be ‘enough’ survival of the fittest to sustain and support manufacturing, lending, etc.

Too small a loan volume would be a reason for MH lenders to pull out, besides losses and issues such as Marty Lavin and Al Cole point out.

Some talk about conspiracies that are destroying our industry.

As Doug Gorman suggested in an Industry Voices guest blog column not long ago, if there is a conspiracy, they are successful and also good at hiding it. If Clayton (Berkshire Hathaway companies are common talk among conspiracy theorists) or others who have ‘vertical integration’ could do so, one might reason that they would already be blowing and going with their own image and marketing ‘turn around’ plans. They have the marketing dollars, the financing, the factories, the retail outlets, etc. to do it.

So the fact that Clayton and associated Berkshire Hathaway firms have shuttered some of their own facilities suggests that they, too, are still looking for a plan that works for them.
Which brings us back to the point that an industry turn around will require a degree of collaboration.

We at MHMSM.com are working with companies and associations on such plans. Each company, every association that cares about protecting AND promoting manufactured housing needs to rapidly develop a realistic action plan if you do not already have one. I welcome private or public discussions on this topic. Reach me at Tony@MHMSM.com or 847-730-3692.

Any plan for a business, group or association growth will have to address the very real problems that Marty Lavin and Al Cole’s Industry Voices guest articles suggested.

Others have sounded off. What say ye? # #