The Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) has begun to line up support for HR 3849, dubbed "Preserving Access to Manufactured Housing Act.”  The bill would amend portions of the SAFE Act and Dodd-Frank. The good news for our industry is there is bi-partisan support for the measure in the House, with over a dozen legislators signed on at this time in support. Barney Frank's office has told MHI that they will not stand in the way of the change, because they understand its importance to the Industry. These factors and others can pave the way for support in the Senate, which would be necessary for the bill to advance towards law.

So the legislative 'fix' for SAFE and Dodd-Frank is in process. One critical question is, how long will it take?

Another, what will happen if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) begins to regulate as anticipated? According to testimony by Kevin Clayton, just over half of the chattel (personal property, home only) loans that have previously been made will not be made moving ahead. The reason? The costs for origination, servicing, etc. would not make loans under $30,000 profitable, so those finance companies will not make them.

Because 60% of all manufactured housing lending today is personal property (home only, chattel) lending, this could lop off 20,000 or more new home sales from HUD Code manufactured home producers and retailers. That event would obviously be bad news; a serious blow to the recovery that has been underway in the last 6 months, as manufactured home sales have steadily risen for half a year.

MHI, state, community and other industry associations have been working to line up the legislative support for HR 3849. An important step for EVERY industry professional – from owners and executives, to managers, office and rank-and-file workers – is to personally contact your U.S. House of Representatives member and also both of your U.S. Senators to ask them to support HR 3849. Phone calls, faxes, emails or letters can all help accomplish that goal.

But to help insure the passage of this bill, we need to do more!

That more is line up the other parties who are negatively impacted by Dodd-Frank and the SAFE Act if unamended. Namely, manufactured home owners! An estimated 4.4 million mobile (pre-HUD Code) and manufactured homes with values under $30,000 will be impacted. In essence, 9-10 million residents in those homes could see their ability to refinance or sell their home to others via third party financing decimated. That would mean their home values would drop, and a string of other negative consequences to them and our Industry would arguably follow.

So what more can we do?

Enlist the support of those customers and clients of our Industry who own and live in HUD Code manufactured housing and pre-HUD Code mobile homes! But how can that best be done?

There are many possibilities, but let us point the way to a method we hope you and thousands of others in our Industry will embrace.

The web addresses above point to a website that targets manufactured and mobile home owners/residents. If you go to that site, you will see articles that are geared towards those homeowners. Notice the Alert tab at the top of the site. Click on that tab, and see the article that pops up. Then, send an email to your customers with that link!

Can it really be that easy?

Why not?

We need all the help that we can get, and there is NOTHING more important in an election year than voters! With millions of mobile and manufactured home owners, this could be turned into an important issue for legislators. If it passes the House and the Senate, there would be no good reason for President Obama to oppose signing HR 3849 bill into law.

We plan to develop www.ManufacturedHomeLivingNews.com into an important multi-purpose resource for the Manufactured Housing Industry over time. But nothing will be more important than taking this first step.

Protect the interests of manufactured home owners. Protect 20,000+ jobs that could be impacted if Dodd-Frank and SAFE Acts don't get amended. Protect your own company, your job and/or that of your team mates as well as the Industry's future. Take a strong, two-fisted approach. Contact your Senators and U.S. Representative, and have all of your team members do the same to support HR 3849. Then, contact your customers, give them the website address www.ManufacturedHomeLivingNews.com tell them to click on the Alert tab, and ask them to do the same.

They should thank you for doing so. And you will be the winner when you take these two steps. Don't delay. ##