If you had a chance to 'vote' for the healthy return of our industry, would you do it? For 13 years after our industry's most recent peak in 1998, we have suffered a long down turn. We are now in month 13 of our MHIndustry upturn or recovery. We clearly have a long way to go to hit the 372,000+ shipments of '98, as projections suggest we may finish around the 60,000+ shipment mark this year. For those of you who were around in past glory days – and for those of you who heard about it but have never experienced it – let's look at some key markers for recovery, so you can debate what you will do to make that recovery your own.

That's Debatable

No serious industry observer doubts that financing and regulatory issues hamper our Industry's recovery. Do we want to accomplish needed changes slowly or rapidly?

We can change that dynamic over the course of months or years using the process well outlined by Dick Jennison in his column. For the record, I agree with Dick, with this caveat. Why shouldn't we change that dynamic on November 6th and through early voting, all in one fell swoop?

Yes, we can.

The first presidential debate changed the dynamic of their race. For the first time, many of the 67 million Americans who tuned into the debate saw not the cartoon caricatures of the opponents and their positions, but the actual candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama speaking about their plans and positions face to face.

See the rest of the Purely Political cartoon, Round Won

Through that debate, Romney improved his leadership, economic and other impressions with voters. As CBS News' Scott Pelley reported, Mitt's likeability more than doubled after the debate in flash polls, rising from 30% to well into the 60s.

We have plenty of post debate – such as Mo Mitt – and presidential campaign Featured Articles for or against each candidate. If you are still undecided, please see those comparisons and analysis articles by various industry pros linked from our MHProNews.com home page and of course keep your eyes keenly fixed on the upcoming debates.

But lets advance this simple notion, that replacing big government – high tax, high regulation – Democrats with smaller federal government, lower tax, more domestic energy and less regulations 3Rs of Romney, Ryan and conservative Republicans will win the day for our nation and for our Industry.

I'm not alone in this thought, if you missed Course Correction, please check it out now.

Romney's record of business, Olympic and gubernatorial success is a dramatic contrast to the 4 years of the president's hype vs. hope. Deflection and the blame game has brought us a lame recovery, records debts, record regulations, two credit downgrades, a foreign policy burning along side our flags in the Muslim world, plus a looming fiscal cliff. Some of my Democratic friends who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 are telling me – no way Jose for 2012 – they are rolling with Romney.

That's common sense for our industry.

Post election, regardless of who wins, we and our associations will need to pull together to deal with the realities that exist. Of course we will want to work with independents and people from both parties. But let's do the best we can to make this easy on ourselves and our country. The 3Rs of Romney/Ryan/Republican conservatives in the House and Senate can put us on the three r Road to Regulatory Recovery.

Beyond the elections, what next?

Achieving Sustained Industry Recovery

I'm thankful that Bruce A. Savage shared the Roper Report Redux, Lessons still Valid with us this month. It gives us a snapshot of an in depth study of our Industry that ought to open the eyes of every thinking business and association person.

I'm only going to tease you with a pair of snippets, quoting:  “Manufactured home buyers mentioned affordability and availability (getting in the home quickly) as their primary reasons, while site-built buyers focused on location, affordability and size/layout,” and “an overwhelming 75 percent of each group would not consider buying/owning a manufactured home.” There is more, but…

…ouch.

It would be great to do an updated study. That said, what have we done as an industry since then to address our issues?

• There are in fact a number of individual companies or places where associations have made good efforts.
• For our part, we have launched the MHLivingNews.com initiative.

But overall, there has been more left undone than done.

So Bruce is right, the overall lessons of the Roper Report are still be valid.

The Puzzle Pieces

The pieces of the puzzle for long term, sustained manufactured housing industry recovery include, but are not limited to:

Financing: What are we doing to serve the Underserved Borrower? asked Andrew Peter's in a recent Featured Article. Tyler Craddock encouraged us: Don't let Washington Overreach and Overreaction Destroy the Dream of American Home Ownership. We have run numerous articles on Dodd-Frank, including these from Ronnie Richards and DJ Pendleton. All of these and more are important! But the key things we need to consider in financing include:

• Sustainability. Lenders – third party or captive – must be able to make a profit or they won't make loans.
• Reduce and improve the hostile regulatory environment. Romney touched on this in the first presidential debate. Dodd-Frank has created an environment that discourages lending in the face of crippling fines. We need the right balance of regulation and free markets, we clearly don't have it now or in the last few years. We can either take months or years to slug this out in DC, or we can rapidly start the change on November 6. We could discuss HUD related regulatory issues more, post election.
• Chattel and traditional mortgages. I'm not going to say that chattel – personal property or “home only” lending – will go away. But there are those who believe that only 3 of our current chattel lenders may survive if we don't see a change in the regulatory environment. My sources include some among the third party lenders who see the odious threats. Do you want more or less chattel lending? Heavy regulations favors the larger lenders, who can spread the compliance costs over more loans. If you want more chattel financing, you need to be thinking about the 3Rs as noted above and below.
• Remarketing. Dan Rinzema's insightful article says it better than I can here. Please read: Unintended Consequences can be a Good Thing. We will circle back to his point below.
• Competitiveness. While land/home financing – such as that offered by First Guarantee Mortgage and others – can compete with the rates found on traditional housing, we don't and won't see anything like parity in rates on home-only loans. Some may ask 'why' or 'so what?' Well, first personal property lending makes up some 70-75% of all our lending today. Marty Lavin has pointed out repeatedly that sans competitive rates, our price advantage vs. conventional housing tends to melt away.

Image: When image is addressed, leaders such as Joan M. Brown and the Northwest Pride campaign demonstrated for some years that the market can improve for manufactured housing through proper messaging.

We will sum this one up short and sweet, in a single sentence today. We either define ourselves, or others will define us.

We need both direct and indirect image marketing. An example of direct image marketing is linked here. I will talk about indirect image marketing and sales – critical for the growth of our market share and our future success – at the Iowa Manufactured Housing Association's annual meeting. For those in driving distance, please do not miss it.

• Image, Remarketing, Best Practices Professionalism and Financing are some of the factors needed for us to get a growing share of the 20,000,000 new homes needed in the U.S. between now and 2030.

Our Customers and Consumers: No industry can long survive without strong customer satisfaction. Consider the Apple example. Years ago, Apple was all but being written off in their struggle against rival Microsoft and the PCs that used the Windows operating system. Today, thanks in part to Apple's focus on quality, customer satisfaction and loyalty, Apple has blown past MS. As a result, Apple may become the world's first trillion dollar company.

The moral of the story is that consumer satisfaction pays. We too need to think and deliver satisfaction.

• This requires proper professionalism via training in marketing, sales and management.
• Businesses that survived generally know the importance of caring for the customers and residents. The importance of this can't be understated. Our interests, association interests, must be aligned with consumer interests or we will never reach our full potential.
• Remarketing, more on this below.

Associations and Events: One of the key delivery methods for Industry advancement are associations and events. God willing, we may look back in 5 or 10 years from new high points, we will see that associations did yeoman work to protect us from being totally swamped by regulators over-reach, even if those regulators were 'well intended.'

• State or multi-state events such as Louisville and Tunica, educational seminars and workshops help your members grow. When businesses sales grow, association benefits too. Education, training and best practices has to be a part of the future of our industry.

Pro-Industry Media: There has to be independent ways for the industry to communicate, beyond associations. We strive daily at MHProNews.com to provide those tools and resources to make that communications possible. We have and will plan to share all association news, bring you the vision of association leaders and from time to time, we may offer a balanced analysis such as what we did in this recent article.

Through our Industry Voices guest blog, we offer leaders from all sides of the Industry a stage from which to sound off on issues that matter, even on short notice. We separate our Daily Business News from opinions or how to articles on marketing, sales, management or legal issues. We are the first and only national factory built housing industry trade media to do all this – provide Inspiration – and more. These and other elements of comprehensive trade publishing lends credibility, depth and breadth that any industry needs to be truly professional.

Remarketing or 'Resale:' One of the key things holding our industry back is remarketing or resales. Not just my opinion, it happens to be the viewpoint of one Warren Buffett, as expressed in this video interview of Kevin Clayton linked below. What it takes me a few pages to write, Buffett expresses in a sentence:

“Kevin, it seems like the problem of your industry is resale.”

Warren Buffett

To see this video, click through to the page linked above or here.

When savvy buyers consider a purchase, they think beyond the day of signing the papers and move in. Smart buyers want to know, what is my exit strategy? We industry pros have to have a cogent answer to that question!

That is where remarketing or resale is a key factor. If we ever want to routinely sell the 700+ credit score customers and those who can pay cash along side our traditional target markets, we have to embrace remarketing and resales, in a similar or higher level of professionalism that Realtors project.

This is why we as individual business professionals and in our associations must get our arms around remarketing. It is critical for lending sustainability. We can't have chattel lenders take 50% losses on a repo and expect rates that match site building on land/home loans.

Are you brokering homes? Are you doing a good job of selling those brokered homes for customers so they get a good price for their home? Are you using an MLX system? If not, you need to dig in an learn more.

We know from experience that

We will have a special presentation on the subject of remarketing in Louisville, see the seminar page on their website, register and mark your calendar now. If you want more profits, please don't miss it.

The bottom line is that Remarketing done right will make those who do it more money. It will advance our industry and can take us to new heights. Be at Louisville and be a part of the future of our Industry. It will help us attract and sell more customers with cash and good credit.

“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.”

G. K. Chesterton's insightful quote above reminds us when we want to do something, at first we may do it badly before we learn to do it well.

We as an industry have done MUCH well. That said, we have to learn from our mistakes – the things we have done badly – to mend and advance them.

Christopher Reeves had an interesting spin on this insightful quote:

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, 

then they seem improbable, and then,

when we summon the will,

they soon become inevitable.”

We began this post with the idea of 'That's Debatable.' We have free will. We can agree for good reasons, or bad ones. We can advance entirely different ideas, as is the right of free people. We can debate within ourselves and with others.

The Next Big Step

The first point here is that the next big step is the election.

The first debate changed the dynamics of the race. Looking back, Romney didn't panic. He was laying the steps out, one at a time. He did the Convention, where he showed over 20,000,000 people that he wasn't some ogre with a heart set only on his goal and that of a few wealthy pals. Logically, Mitt has all of that already. He is personally generous with time and money. He is a 'get things done' guy. Bill Clinton said it, Romney has a 'sterling' business record.

Business, Olympic, MA Governor success stories. Romney didn't just talk about working across the aisle with Democrats, Mitt did it. He did it with an 87% Democratic legislature. This is Reaganesque, because Reagan and Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill worked together to get things done for America.

By contrast – and despite all the spin – in his own words, the president said it:

“We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.” – Barack Obama.

And of course, his four most famous words:

“You didn't build that.” – Barack Obama.

Well, Romney and his team are proven builders, just as you and your team are proven builders too.

We can, should and ought to take the big giant step and remove the regulatory hurdles that bind us on Election Day. Former Governor Romney said to 67 million people that the day after the election, he will sit down with leaders of both parties and lay out the principles he is espousing, so the parties can map out a positive, pro-growth road ahead for the nation. Romney is a proven leader, a doer.

Romney's 'trickle down government' line was a brilliant summary of the Obama economic formula. In the article linked here, you will see this quote:

As President John F. Kennedy put it, "it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now." This was because investors' "efforts to avoid tax liabilities" make"certain types of less productive activity more profitable than more valuable undertakings," and this in turn "inhibits our growth and efficiency."

We need to vote for the 3Rs. The down ballot options are as important as the presidential one.

While the reviews of the vice presidential debate was mixed, some believe that Joe Biden's interruptions, laughing, facial gestures and sounds will come back to haunt their ticket. Paul Ryan stayed polite, focused on issues and delivered their brand's message.

There will be two more presidential debates ahead. We should tune and listen.

More important, we need to get ourselves and others to early balloting or the polls and vote to return America to the road to economic recovery, fiscal and regulatory sanity. That road also happens to help our businesses and industry!

Did Romney win the first debate? Is that debatable? Even Democrats admit, yes, Mitt won.

Will we win if the 3Rs win on November 6th? Some will say, That's Debatable. But the case above should suggest it will help us more and faster than any other single step. Let's not monkey around with our industry's future. Let's do all that each of us personally can do to make a 3R sweep a reality.

Once that happens – and the political momentum is in our favor for that outcome – then we need to focus on the rest of the steps outlined above. Vote to advance the Industry's recovery at the ballot box, with best practices in your business and through smart association and event activities. ##

PS: Check our many Exclusive and Red Hot Featured Articles for October and see the

other new stories and 'Purely Political' cartoons at MHLivingNews.com too.

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