There are routinely unstated items missing from news reports – even from reliable sources. Writers, editors, and organizations decide what to include and what to leave out of a report. Restated, every report is ‘framed’ by parties both seen and unseen. Such decisions on what is included and what is omitted are made for an array of motivations that may include, in the case of a trade group, a legitimate hope that something may develop for the better based on how a narrative is presented. Per insights obtained by an MHProNews follow up with an informed source, there are reasons to believe that hopeful opportunities might emerge in each of the otherwise troubling issues that the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) has raised in their report below. While some analysis will follow their report, other potential insights will be withheld frankly for the sake of pressing the hoped for potential that could benefit the maximum number of manufactured housing industry professionals and consumers. As a pro ethical industry growth and pro-consumer trade publishers, it would be irresponsible to sacrifice opportunities to advance positive industries causes for the sake of a few more clicks.
Part I of today’s report will include MHARR’s Washington update of 6.22.2023. Part III – a related analysis – will be found as the postscript to Part II, which will be the headlines for the week in review for MHVille.
Part I
MHARR WASHINGTON UPDATE
REPORT AND ANALYSIS
IN THIS REPORT: JUNE 22, 2023
- FANNIE AND FREDDIE RUNNING OUT OF EXCUSES ON DTS
- LATEST CONCERNS ABOUT MHI ENERGY LITIGATION
MHARR PRESSES DTS CHATTEL IN MEETING WITH FHFA DIRECTOR
In a June 20, 2023 meeting with Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Sandra Thompson, MHARR Washington officials once again pressed for immediate FHFA action to require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to fully comply with the statutory Duty to Serve (DTS) mandate by providing market-significant securitization and secondary market support for manufactured housing personal property (chattel) loans.
MHARR reminded the Director that nearly 80% of all new HUD Code homes sold today are financed as chattel and that chattel loans help lower and moderate-income families across the nation access the industry’s most affordable homes, thereby advancing housing equity. DTS support for chattel loans would draw more lenders into the manufactured housing market, providing more choices for borrowers, while greater competition and reduced risk would result in lower interest rates for consumers.
By contrast, in the absence of DTS chattel support – with not one manufactured home chattel loan purchased or securitized by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac in the 15 years since the enactment of the statutory DTS mandate — manufactured housing consumers are needlessly forced to deal with industry-dominant lenders charging higher-than-necessary interest rates that have been previously characterized as “predatory.” This has been further compounded by HUD’s continuing failure to fully and properly implement and enforce the “enhanced federal preemption” provision of the 2000 Reform Law, which has allowed zoning discrimination and exclusion to persist against manufactured homes and manufactured housing consumers with devastating consequences for the industry and those consumers. Together, these two factors have kept millions of Americans out of the affordable manufactured housing market, while simultaneously limiting production and the growth potential of the entire industry as reflected by lower average manufactured housing production over the past decade-plus and the severe decline in manufactured housing production (now worse than -30%) over the last two quarters.
MHARR pointed out that DTS specifically recognizes the crucial role of manufactured home chattel loans, and expressly authorizes Fannie and Freddie to include chattel loans within their manufactured home support programs. Fannie and Freddie, however, over the course of the 15 years since enactment of DTS, have paid lip service to support for manufactured home chattel loans and have even proposed various chattel “pilot” programs, only to withdraw those programs before their implementation.
In virtually every instance, Fannie and Freddie, with FHFA’s perceived blessing, have claimed that they lack access to “performance” information regarding chattel loans and the risks that might be associated with such loans.
The reality, however, is that the industry-dominant lenders, without the secondary market and/or securitization support of Fannie or Freddie, have made a profitable enterprise of manufactured home personal property loans. Obviously, if those loans produced excessive numbers of defaults or late payments, risk-averse private lenders would not originate them. Consequently, the very fact that manufactured home chattel loans have consistently accounted for nearly 80% of the manufactured home consumer finance market, shows that such loans can be made safely and securely – and can be supported safely and securely by Fannie and Freddie – all as required by federal law.
Put differently, the time is long past for Fannie and Freddie to stop their ongoing pattern of complaining, obfuscation, excuses and delay over DTS implementation in general and specifically over the alleged lack of performance data for manufactured home chattel loans, and do what DTS affirmatively requires, by initiating support for those loans and then building that support to market-significant levels as envisioned by DTS and its congressional proponents.
Among other suggestions, MHARR representatives urged FHFA to press Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to factually and specifically explain any remaining problems they have with the DTS congressional mandate, in order to be addressed and resolved immediately. The reality, though, is that every day of further delay needlessly harms American consumers of affordable housing and undermines housing equity, contrary to the policies of the Biden Administration.
IS MHI BACKING AWAY FROM ENERGY LITIGATION?
In the belated court action filed by MHI (as urged by MHARR continually since May 2022) against the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) with respect to DOE’s May 31, 2022 final manufactured housing energy standards rule, the parties have filed a “Joint Advisory” (copy attached) which asks the court to dismiss MHI’s Motion to Stay the DOE final rule and also indicates that the parties are “actively” engaged in ongoing “discussions” regarding the future course of that litigation.
While the dismissal, without prejudice, of MHI’s stay motion is not surprising in light of DOE’s extension of the compliance date for the May 31, 2022 final rule, pending the development of enforcement, testing and regulatory compliance regulations and, presumably, a new cost-benefit analysis, taking the added cost of those regulations into account, the industry should – and must – be wary of any type of agreed “course of action” that would either leave the May 31, 2022 rule in effect or otherwise concede or forfeit any of the industry’s arguments against the validity of that final standard.
As MHARR has long maintained (and published), the DOE May 31, 2022 final rule, based on the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), is not an appropriate or legitimate standard for manufactured homes which, according to federal law, must be preserved as an affordable source of housing and homeownership. Instead, the DOE rule, under any scenario – and particularly with the added costs of enforcement, testing and regulatory compliance factored-in – would needlessly and substantially raise the purchase price of manufactured housing while simultaneously excluding millions of Americans from access to the only form of homeownership they can afford. For those consumers needlessly excluded from the housing market, there would be no offsetting benefits and no benefits whatsoever from the final rule.
As MHARR has consistently maintained, rather than negotiating over the scope and reach of a rule that is fundamentally tainted, fundamentally inappropriate for manufactured housing, and fundamentally destructive of the manufactured housing market, the industry should aggressively oppose that rule while working to force DOE “back to the drawing board” for a legitimate rulemaking process tailored to the specific needs and realities of the affordable manufactured housing market.
MHARR is a Washington D.C.-based national trade association representing the views and interests of independent producers of federally-regulated manufactured housing.
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Part II
More related to the above will be found Part III (the traditional MHProNews postscript to the headlines in review) following the MHVille headline news recap.
With no further adieu, the headlines for the week that was from 6.18 to 6.25.2023 follow.
What’s New on MHLivingNews
What’s New from Washington, D.C. from MHARR
What’s New on the Masthead
What’s New on the Daily Business News on MHProNews
Saturday 6.24.2023
Friday 6.23.2023
Thursday 6.22.2023
Wednesday 6.21.2023
Tuesday 6.20.2023
Monday 6.19.2023
Sunday 6.18.2023
Part III – Additional Information with MHVille Analysis and Commentary (in the normal spot reserved for our Sunday Postscript)
MHVille is our term of endearment to the arguably artificially smaller than it historically was or should be manufactured home industry. Manufactured housing professionals in decades gone by once reached for the stars with plans of high-rise towers of manufactured homes. At the turn of the century, a Harvard fellow was predicting that manufactured housing would surpass conventional housing in new single family construction. Others have since thought or expressed similar notions, yet that obviously didn’t happen. Manufactured housing in 2023 has plunged to lows not seen since circa 2006. And yet this week the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) dared send out an email to their members that gushed about a shift of the Office of Manufactured Housing Programs (OMHP) from one part of that vast agency to another. MHProNews will address that issue in the near term, because it merits its own report to set the record straight. But as a placeholder for now, that MHI ‘headline’ and ‘news’ item is reminiscent of the keen observation and advice of attorney John H. Whitehead. ‘Circus politics are intended to distract us. Don’t be distracted.’
That notion merits repeating. ‘Circus politics are intended to distract us. Don’t be distracted.’
Whitehead’s pithy observation is akin to what the Capital Research Center (CRC) calls “Deception and Misdirection.” These misleading tactics are discernable in manufactured housing, once someone has been educated into looking for the fingerprints of such problematic methods that have a discernable aim. The demonstrable consolidation of the manufactured home industry is occurring, all while happy talk is occurring from MHI and others in the MHI orbit of the consolidators. It is no longer a secret. The document demonstrating that pattern has organized the various remarks in the words of various corporate, association, and other personalities.
MHARR in the above is clearly informing and warning the industry about information that ought to be in the domain of MHI’s claimed focus. Other than MHARR, MHProNews, or MHLivingNews, who else in MHVille is clearly and consistently informing the industry’s professionals about the harms being perpetrated by insiders who openly admit to colluding with the industry’s competitors? It is Orwellian in appearance, but there it is out in the open. While some parts of the MHI-circle’s apparent consolidation agenda go unstated, they are discernable from the behavior. The impact that it has on employees of the MHI ‘insider’ firms is illustrated in part from the fact-packed report linked below.
Clint Eastwood and Elena Gorokhova
To paraphrase Clint Eastwood, a man or woman has to know their own limitations. We should be aware of our own strengths and weaknesses. Those limits may be greater in some areas of life, but lesser in others. Each of us has a combination of greater and inferior areas of performance. C’est la vie.
That’s life.
Each of us ought to be a willing to look at things as they are rather than as we wish or hope that they may be. If, for example, we trust that every politician in our favorite political party is good and honest, while every politician in our unflavored party is the opposite, we are bound for disappointment. Something similar can be said for news and information sources. The best of sources make honest mistakes. The worst of sources will often say something true, but then may thirst that truth into something that benefits insiders while more broadly harming most others. The later is the nature of paltering. Without a willingness to grasp how often paltering occurs in our profession and in our broader society, we are living in an illusion that will at some point cause us to run smack into reality when it may be least expected. Then, apply that principle to trade associations operating in manufactured housing. There are obvious reasons that the consolidators favor MHI. That’s per third-party research.
Elena Gorokhova said it like this. “The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them.”
According to left-leaning Wikipedia: “Elena Gorokhova is an author known for her memoirs about growing up in Russia.” From the acclaimed author’s website, Gorokhova briefly describes her life in Russia, where the stubborn woman said she fell in love with English. She finally journeyed to America. “In the United States, Elena received a Doctorate in Language Education and has taught English as a Second Language, Linguistics and Russian at various colleges and universities. She has also written three books. She is married and has a daughter, who is beautiful, talented and smart. And stubborn as a goat.”
MHARR’s report in Part I above is a reminder that they are motivated to play the role of watchdog to the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) as much as they do federal agencies and officials.
We as pro-manufactured housing professionals can and should be grateful for MHARR’s efforts and insights.
Additionally, MHProNews as pro-ethical sustainable growth oriented manufactured home professionals and advocates can be equally pro-consumer. Indeed, in the traditional American view of business, a business does best when it serves its customers well and does so by honestly earning a profit. It was a view that MHI’s prior president Chris Stinebert exhibited.
Thousands now in manufactured housing were not in the industry at the time Stinebert shared those thoughts. It is necessary to remind veterans and inform newcomers that there have been times in MHI’s history when they were not run by what an MHI member called ‘f-cking greedy and selfish leaders who have made MHI a tool for themselves.’
While businesses honestly serves its customers, it should also honesty deal with its own employees.
Regrettably, not all in business, associations, nonprofits, etc. see life quite that same way. Some are all too comfortable projecting an image that may be little more than illusion. That’s one of several reasons why MHProNews keeps sharing comparisons with others in housing or other businesses like RVs in order to clearly illustrate just how badly manufactured housing is underperforming. Facts, once properly grasped, don’t lie.
As millions of Americans are beginning to grasp just how common the lies, paltering, and propaganda have become, the more valuable the remarks of Gorokhova become for us. “The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them.” Clear signals that understanding is spreading is Merriam-Webster’s declaring “gaslighting” as being their word of the year in 2022. When gaslighting is that commonplace, why would anyone in MHVille doubt that it is being deployed by some in our own profession?
Why pretend to believe the paltering, posturing, gaslighters? Hundreds of January 6th prisoners are the answer. People think they are safer with their heads metaphorically down while nodding at the liars, while the liars spew they paltering, propaganda, and posturing with smiles on their faces. It’s not that everything is a lie. It’s that there is sufficient paltering and propaganda to recognize that numbers of so-called leaders are not to be trusted.
America has an affordable housing shortage. There is a proven solution to that problem found in HUD Code manufactured homes. But that affordable manufactured housing solution is thwarted by competitors and by some industry insiders too. If MHI cooperated with MHARR, the case could be made that manufactured housing might be 5, 10, or 15 times its current size as measured by production. Hold that thought, as we pivot to an example of paltering from outside of our industry.
For days, millions of Americans and souls from around the world were transfixed by the concern for the people in that submersible planning on going to see the Titanic. Would they be rescued? But it has leaked out that the mini-submarine likely imploded last Sunday. What about all that hype about oxygen running out on Thursday? Or what about sounds of knocking coming from the icy waters? It was, per sources, a brazen lie. What is the purpose of such paltering? Distraction.
A U.S. Navy official said the Navy detected “an acoustic anomaly consistent with an implosion” shortly after the sub, named Titan, lost contact with the surface Sunday, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reported. https://t.co/jBtNSViJKX
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 22, 2023
The way that the popular financial and alternative media site Zerohedge framed it was quite different than how CBS News did.
Whole world got played 😡
— John Gort (@MakeSchumerCry) June 23, 2023
Bernie Madoff, Enron, Worldcom, Theranos, VW’s Diesel Gate, and the allegations about Sam Bankman-Fried FTX are just some of the massive scams that operated in plain sight for years before they were finally confronted by public officials and mainstream media. The day may come when the massive manipulation of the manufactured housing industry will be similarly exposed. When that day arrives, readers of MHProNews can pat themselves, and each other, on the back. The mishandling of the advantages that manufactured housing has are too many (and too gross) by MHI-connected organizations to be mere garden variety incompetence.
Which is why when MHARR sounds the alarm, as they have above, savvy pros should lean in. MHARR’s report differs from what MHProNews recently reported on that DOE topic, but they compliment each other.
Programming Notice: barring the unforeseen, MHProNews will feature the second part of the expose involving allegations of fraud against Sun Communities (SUI) President and CEO Gary Shiffman, linked above and here.
Probing what is seen and unseen is what authentic news should do. Because there is so much manipulated news, MHProNews provided more details, more facts, more evidence so that thinkers can dig in and see for themselves what the facts and evidence may mean. Stay tuned to the manufactured home professions runaway #1 source for “Industry News, Tips, and Views Pros Can Use.” ©
Again, our thanks to free email subscribers and all readers like you, as well as our tipsters/sources, sponsors and God for making and keeping us the runaway number one source for authentic “News through the lens of manufactured homes and factory-built housing” © where “We Provide, You Decide.” © ## (Affordable housing, manufactured homes, reports, fact-checks, analysis, and commentary. Third-party images or content are provided under fair use guidelines for media.) See Related Reports, further below. Text/image boxes often are hot-linked to other reports that can be access by clicking on them.)
By L.A. “Tony” Kovach – for MHProNews.com.
Tony earned a journalism scholarship and earned numerous awards in history and in manufactured housing.
For example, he earned the prestigious Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied history and business management. He’s a managing member and co-founder of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.
This article reflects the LLC’s and/or the writer’s position and may or may not reflect the views of sponsors or supporters.
Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach
Related References:
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