I understand the theory behind the book entitled, It Takes a Village (to raise a child). Without parsing or endorsing the volume or its author, let me segue to the idea that in times like these, It takes an Industry for individual businesses or organizations to be successful.
Some will take issue with that idea. But it's still America – so a difference in viewpoint – is fine. So Let me demonstrate this reality by sharing an example of It takes an Industry and how Pulling Together in this political and economic climate makes practical sense.
There are lenders in our Industry who will be minimally impacted by Dodd-Frank and the pending Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) regulations. Meanwhile, other lenders could see as much as 50% of their chattel (home only, personal property) financing business negatively impacted.
In a dog-eat-dog world, one might think…gee, those lenders who aren't harmed might just smile and let the ones at risk get eaten up. Much to the credit of the leadership of those non—impacted firms, they have helped on the Dodd-Frank task force at MHI, as has those impacted.
Why? Isn't business all about survival of the fittest and who can adapt?
Perhaps in more normal times, but when the Industry is at such a low ebb, to paraphrase D. J. Pendleton's must-read article, we don't need another big wave that swamps more boats. This is therefor a critical example of It takes an Industry. These lenders are all still compete for business, but on some key issues through their association involvement, they are Pulling Together.
At a trade show, you have manufacturers lined up side by side with competitors. Some might wonder, isn't that kind of backwards? Not at all, because by having multiple manufacturers – or other booth/exhibitors for that matter – all in one place, you have a greater attraction for each individual company. This too is Pulling Together. Everyone in the mix – attendee, exhibitors, the associations involved – all benefit.
Those magnificent miles of cars and shopping malls are still other examples of this Pulling Together idea at work.
When it comes to general information, the same is true. Pulling together takes place here every month on MHProNews.com. There is literally no other place online or in print that you get this same breadth of news, tips and views necessary and ready to use for your organization. You find more articles and topics covered here than any other source, made possible by the various writers Pulling Together their talent and insight for your benefit and that of tens of thousands of other factory built housing professionals every month.
As important as solid information is for industry owners, executives, managers and professionals can be, we also need to impact the public and public officials.
When you read DJ Pendleton's column this month, you will see that we need many strategies to successfully protect and promote manufactured housing.
One of those strategies can and should be the new MHLivingNews.com platform. This new site is geared for the public at large and for the manufactured housing home-owner and MHCommunity resident. We built the MHLivingNews site for many purposes, but key among them was to promote the industry and to give us a resource to connect and reaffirm the lifestyle decisions of some 20 million owners and residents of pre-and-post HUD Code manufactured housing. We need to get manufactured home owners to do what Tyler Craddock correctly points out in his article this month.
But we also need to engage our home owners on a long term basis.
There are thousands of website promoting this or that company in manufactured housing. But there is no website we've seen that is anything like the mission we've given MHLivingNews.com to promote the manufactured home lifestyle and to give solid reasons for public officials and the public at large to better understand, respect and appreciate factory-built homes.
If you are a Community Owner:
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Please pass along the information on the MHLivingNews.com website to your residents.
If you are a retailer, supplier, insurance, lender or installer with manufactured home customers:
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Please pass along the information on the MHLivingNews.com website to your closed customers.
If you have a website, please post a link to the MHLivingNews.com Re-Discovering and Spotlighting the MHLifeStyle website. Stay up to date on the articles and alerts on the new public and MH homeowner focused website.
Yes, as businesses, we can and do compete. Odds are good that no one handed your But in this current environment, we need to learn to pull together for our mutual success. Associations are more important than ever. So are pro-industry resources like the professionally focused MHProNews and the public focused MHLivingNews.
Paraphrasing Ben Franklin, we will either stand together or hang separately. Pulling together just makes sense. Help us help you advance and protect all of factory built housing.
Let's take a look at our new line up of Feature Articles for August 2012
Featured Articles and Reports for Vol. 3, No. 11, 2012
Alphabetically by Category
COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT & FAIR HOUSING (LEGAL)
•Hoarding
by Nadeen Green, JD
Hoarding has become a major issue for landlords in the multifamily housing industry. This was evident from the show of hands at a recent National Apartment Association education session on hoarding presented by my friends DJ Ryan, Kathy Belville and Craig McMahon from the Kimbrell, Tirey & St. John’s law firm.
•Community Refinancing
by Eddie Hicks
Community owners and residents of cooperative manufactured home land lease communities may wish to know the financing alternatives when their conduit loans come due. The most obvious but perhaps not the best option is to let the loan go to the end of it's term, and let the lender decide whether or not to make you a new loan or extend the current loan for a short period of time.
•Who Uses the Finished Budget?
by Chrissy Jackson
Last month in this series, we looked at what components go into the preparation of a budget. Now, let's look at who uses the finished budget? The community manager will use the finished budget on an ongoing basis as purchasing decisions are made throughout the year. The maintenance supervisor should also use it for guidance when ordering supplies and timing delivery of materials.
•OPM Addiction! Caution, Danger ! (part 2)
by John Merchant, JD
In Part 1, I showed how the illegal or careless use of Other People's Money (OPM) could and often has placed the user or borrower in major trouble. That trouble might well have been avoided if the user/borrower had been more careful about how he'd set up and exececuted the deal on the front end.
We often read of some character who's used OPM in such a way as to cost his investors all or most of their investments while getting himself in major civil or criminal difficulty due to the promoter/borrower having failed to heed his laws.
•What's Up with Home Ownership?
by Joanne Stevens, CCIM
Once again the commercial real estate market is heating up, especially for apartments and mobile home parks. Investors like real estate because it is hard to find good investments (stocks for example) that have some degree of certainty.
Real estate investment has its trade offs. It’s a long term investment and it takes management. It’s not liquid. Still the supply and demand quotient works.
FINANCING
•Navigating the Treacherous Waters of Dodd-Frank
by D. J. Pendleton, JD
Let me guess: you have heard rumors, threats, scary stories, and reliable affirmations that, as written, Dodd-Frank will end our collective world as we know it, right? For the majority the extent of their understanding of Dodd-Frank is: Dodd-Frank = bad.
If you are satisfied with this level of understanding, then the rest of this article is not for you.
•What are we doing for the Under-served Borrower?
by Andrew Peters
Often, when bad things happen, people look for easy answers and scapegoats. We can agree that the mortgage meltdown of 2007 – 2008 had devastating consequences and many, complex causes. Somehow, however, in 2012, many think they have the answers: “It was risky, subprime lending!” is an easy, scapegoat answer to a very difficult question, and has made the rounds unfairly.
GENERAL MANUFACTURED HOUSING INDUSTRY TOPICS
•Don’t Let Washington Overreach and Overreaction Destroy the American Dream of Home Ownership
by Tyler Craddock
BACKGROUND:
On January 31, Reps. Stephen Fincher (R-TN), Joe Donnelly (D-IN) and Gary Miller (R-CA) introduced the Preserving Access to Manufactured Housing Act (H.R. 3849) to reduce regulatory burdens that impede access to affordable manufactured housing financing.
•WESTERN Off Site CONSTRUCTION ASSOCIATION (WOSCA)
by Randy Duggan and Todd Kessler
The goal of this article is to share a vision and help determine the level of interest by various participants of the construction industry in creating a trade organization in the Western United States to promote Off Site Construction. If the responses received from our original posts on LinkedIn and through other resources are any indication, that interest is high.
•RV/MH Hall of Fame Surpasses Goal in Matching the Ingram Family $100,000 Challenge Grant
by Bill Garpow
ELKHART, Ind. (July 26, 2012) – TheRV/MHHallofFameis celebrating the success of its fundraiser to match the Ingram Family's $100,000 challenge grant — a full month prior to the August 31 deadline.$161,425 has been Raised through this effort.
•Ronnie Richards' Wake Up Call
by L. A. 'Tony' Kovach
Every Industry Voices guest blog post has merit and importance, or we wouldn't be publishing it. We've had a string of compelling ones on a variety of topics in recent weeks. MHC owner Jefferson Lilly sounded off on a topic that has nearly zero visibility on the mainstream media radar, but ought to be on the radar for any property owner and those small to mid sized businesses that own real estate.
•An ILL Wind
by George Porter
It has been said that it is an ill wind that doesn't blow somebody some good. I am thinking about a time when I stood in the center of a manufactured housing community in Homestead, Florida. I couldn't much good from those wind that blasted through.
MARKETING
•Why your company should be on Facebook
by Beth Monicatti Bl
There are approximately 150 million Facebook users in the United States, which means nearly 50% of all Americans have a Facebook account. The typical Facebook user has 130 friends that he or she communicates with regularly and maintains an active connection to 80 community web pages or forums. On any given day, 50% of Facebook users log onto Facebook where they share an average 30 billion pieces of information.
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS, MOTIVATION and INSPIRATION
•Lessons from the past
by Tim Connor
Have you ever wondered what some of your past experiences during your life were trying to teach you to have a better tomorrow? Each of us have a life filled with a variety of circumstances, situations and people that were in our life to help us to learn valuable lessons so that we could use this teaching to create a better future.
•America, The Eyes of Texas are Upon You
by Doug Gorman
As you read this article, please note that Texas is the only state with a legal right to secede fromthe Union (reference the Texas-American Annexation Treaty of 1848).
I've heard it said by some of my friends south of the Red River, “We Texans love y'all, but we'll probably have to take action if Barack Obamawins the election. We'll miss you too.”
•Is it Possible?
by Greg McClanahan
The following poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox has always stuck with me as a reminder that it is my choice as to how I will set my sail:
•ZigOn Marriage (Part 1)
by Zig Ziglar
As the 10th of 12 children, my older brothers and sisters obviously got here many years before I did. Two of my older brothers and two of my older sisters had failed marriages. Since I was at the bottom of the production chain, my younger brother and I had the benefit of what my mother had observed and taught us.
SALES
•Success and failure are nothing but mindsets
by Tim Connor
The outcomes of failure = frustration, discouragement, negative emotions, loss of courage, lower self-esteem, uncertainty and a loss of optimism. Are there more of these? Certainly. The outcomes of success = encouragement, feelings of control, happiness, well being, passion, faith, desire and risk taking.
So what’s the real difference?
Editor's Note: Tony Kovach will be presenting at the Texas Manufactured Housing Association's annual event, August 19-21, 2012. DJ Pendleton and others represented in this month's issue will also be at the TxMHA's event. We hope to see many readers at this important gathering.)
L. A. "Tony" Kovach
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Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right. – Henry Ford
