New Curtains – Surprise! Manufactured Housing Institute ‘Newly Updated’ Website – What’s Changed, What’s the Same at U.S. Manufactured Home Association Website? Analysis plus MHVille Market Update
For those who have visited the prior Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) national manufactured home association website and who now visit their newly refreshed website, here are some insightful things to note. The look is different. The ‘news,’ which MHProNews previously reported was lacking with MHI, has been made a more prominent feature. But the ‘news’ may be as scant – or perhaps scanter – in content than before. For instance, on their ‘news’ landing page, there are three news posts for all of 2023. To put those three in context, “Today is day number 254 (of 365) of the year 2023. There are 111 days remaining of this year,” per Saturday Gift. There are over 276 posts year-to-date on MHProNews. Has MHI published only 3 news items for the year? Given that MHI sends out periodic emails with what they say are their ‘news’ items, there should be several dozen ‘news’ items, not just 3. So why are those emailed MHI news items not all posted on their website, as the national Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) website routinely does? Or like other housing associations, such as the National Association of Realtors (NAR) or the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) do by publicly posting their news for others to see on their websites? Hold those thoughts.
Part I
MHProNews did a series of tests of specific prior content.
A search for the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) website 2023 “Industry Overview” previously found at this link shown below now yields the following response. “Hmm. Page Not Found. We recently relaunched our website, so it’s possible that this information has moved, or the URL has been updated. You can return to our home page, or try using the keyword search tool below.”
We recently relaunched our website, so it’s possible that this information has moved, or the URL has been updated. You can return to our home page, or try using the keyword search tool below.”
A similar result occurred when this previously reported on document was checked on the ‘recently relaunched’ MHI website.
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Note that thanks to years of prior fact checks by this platform, each of the now missing MHI-documents pages are still found on the MHProNews website, referenced in reports like the one linked here. After years of the MHI ‘vanishing documents act,’ those and other items are tucked away in the MHProNews documents archive. Good for MHProNews, MHVille, and others who need the industry for affordable housing, but not so good for MHI?
MHI’s Refreshed (‘New’) About Us Page
MHI’s refreshed about us page has this statement.
ABOUT
About MHI
MHI’s over 1,000 member companies make the dream of homeownership a reality for 22 million Americans.”
However, as MHProNews has previously reported, MHI’s prior membership directory makes it clear that some companies have each individual locations counted as ‘a member.’ So, because Clayton Homes has over 300 retail locations – they were counted as 368 members (see image below from MHI). So, how many actual distinctive members are there? The exact figure is unknown, but it is likely to be about 600 (+/-). Why does MHI feel the urge to exaggerate their numbers from some 600 into a phony, paltering claim of 1000? Indeed, the members of MHI itself for some time have been guarded behind a member login.
Since that graphic above was created, MHI revised their claim to 1000 members. But the principle apparently remains the same, a handful of members may constitute some 40 percent or so of the total. MHI has declined explaining how their fuzzy math works.
Also, a 2023 MHI document released earlier this year asserted that the number of Americans living in manufactured homes were 21.2 million living in manufactured homes. But they previously – and once more on their refreshed website – state that the numbers of people living in manufactured homes is 22 million. Which is it? Two numbers in one BRIEF paragraph quoting; ” MHI’s over 1,000 member companies make the dream of homeownership a reality for 22 million Americans.” and each MHI numeric claim therin is apparently problematic or self-contradictory. See the item identified by MHProNews’ prior fact check in #2 below.
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Then there is this paragraph from the new MHI website.
WHY MHI
Mission Statement
MHI is the national trade organization representing all segments of the factory-built housing industry. MHI serves its membership by providing industry research, promotion, education and government relations programs, and by building and facilitating consensus within the industry.”
MHI still uses the term “all segments” of the factory built housing industry, as they did on their prior version of the MHI website. of which manufactured housing is the largest subset. Indeed, their name – the Manufactured Housing Institute or MHI – indicates that manufactured housing is at the core of their mission. Prior reports by MHProNews unpacked the ways that MHI appears to deviate from their posturing words versus their actual actions.
Members of MHI’s National Communities Council agree to abide by its Code of Ethics, which include engaging in conduct that promotes and enhances the public image of manufactured housing and land-lease manufactured housing communities, and promoting positive customer and resident relations.
However, as MHProNews spotlighted in this detailed fact check and analysis, there are several apparent examples of firms that have seemingly violated the MHI/NCC code of ethical conduct. There are by contrast no known instances, per a Manufactured Housing Executives Council (MHEC) and an active MHI member connected sources, of that code of ethical conduct being enforced. Note that in our recent fact-check and analysis posed here, the report linked below was number 8 month-to-date on MHProNews. Ranking #8 out of thousands of possible ‘referral paths’ (think url or webpage) is near the peak of the mountain of information found on MHProNews.
There is a category on the refreshed MHI news page that says the following.
NEWSLETTER
Sign Up For MHI’s
Bi-Weekly Newsletter
View Past Newsletters
But when someone clicks that “view past newsletters” the page it goes to says in part: “Sorry, we couldn’t find any posts. Please try a different search.” There are either one or at most three – 3 – posts for news on that page, depending on how it is accessed. Yet that ‘news’ page aptly says this.
News Feed
The latest news to give you a full perspective on the manufactured housing industry. From manufacturers to land-lease communities, retail to financial services, and suppliers to installers, we help you keep abreast of what’s happening in every aspect of the industry.
Perhaps under the increased pressure (published exposure) from fact checks and analysis by MHProNews, and a different type of what might also be called pressure (published exposure) from MHARR, MHI feels the need to ‘emphasize’ their ‘news.’ But so far, there is no evidence that news is being added. Isn’t MHI’s staff big enough? MHI may have 6x the staff that MHProNews does, or 4x (or more, depending on how each are counted) the staff that MHARR does. Yet news is thus far NOT being added daily, and past newsletters are still NOT yet being shown, despite their link to that category.
MHI had a page on its ‘history,’ presumably as told from their perspective. Today (9.12.2023) that ‘history’ is missing.
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Here was the fact check, analysis, and commentary by MHProNews on that MHI ‘history.’
Type the word “plants” in and an item that used to available to the public is not shown. But some items are apparently shown, in the context of awards and/or their economic reports. But those monthly “economic reports” are (for instance) “July 2023 Economic Report” “This page is available to MHI members only. If you are already” and then a read more goes to a login page. So, while MHARR, NAR, NAHB, and RVIA all provide monthly data to the public, MHI still apparently requires a membership for the media (or anyone else) to be able to access information that other national trade associations provide freely to the public.
Also appearing when the word “plants” was input was a link to MHI’s 2023 award winners. But as MHProNews and/or MHLivingNews have previously reported, some of those ‘award winners’ have a poor to failing grade from the Better Business Bureau (BBB) or other independent sources.
Oddly, the word “plants” search on MHI’s website revealed their “2019 Award Winners Community Operator of The Year” “YES! Communities” Perhaps it should have been under the “you can’t make this up” category because Yes! Communities has been named as a defendant in the suit brought against multiple MHI members, see reports linked here and here.
Added Information and Partial Summary
The term “window dressing” has a literal and metaphorical meaning. Per Oxford Languages:
the arrangement of an attractive display in a shop window.
an adroit but superficial or actually misleading presentation of something, designed to create a favorable impression.
“the government’s effort has amounted to little more than window dressing”
Per left-leaning Wikipedia: “A curtain is a piece of cloth or other material intended to block or obscure light, air drafts, or water. A curtain is also the movable screen or drape in a theatre that separates the stage from the auditorium or that serves as a backdrop/background.”
The word “curtain” – as in separation of information from the public by MHI’s newly refreshed website – and “window dressing” in terms of a superficial change that is “misleading” is why that term was applied in the headline. The search results thus far appear to yield even less information that was previously available from MHI.
While some 2023 news posts exist, there is scant news. Perhaps MHI is testing this refreshed approach to see if their members call for more, or not. The indications that MHI’s website, per SimilarWeb, appears to be dropping in the withering wake of MHProNews/MHLivingNews critiques, fact checks, and analysis may mean that there will be too few looking to even care.
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Are the illusions around MHI beginning to collapse under the weight of the FACTS and EVIDENCE to the contrary? Notice: the graphic below can be expanded to a larger size. Are the illusions created around MHI beginning to fall apart under the weight of contradictory facts and evidence? Note: depending on your browser or device, many images in this report and others on MHProNews can be clicked to expand. Click the image and follow the prompts. For example, in some browsers/devices you click the image and select ‘open in a new window.’ After clicking that selection, you click the image in the open window to expand the image to a larger size. To return to this page, use your back key, escape or follow the prompts. https://www.manufacturedhomepronews.com/like-no-place-else-in-mhville-research-reports-analysis-reveal-and-yield-understanding-for-news-and-trends-keeping-manufactured-home-production-at-historically-low-levels/
As MHProNews previously reported, the ‘older’ MHI website (the version prior to the one that existed before this refresh, had still more items that vanished.
Restated, there appears to be an Orwellian pattern to MHI’s website in much of the 21st century. Starting with their prior website, less information was being provided. The new version of the website may have some new ‘window dressing’ but it has at the time of this report being written, still less information. Some of that information from MHI, is when scrutinized, more aptly called misinformation.
Perhaps MHI’s leaders think that manufactured housing industry members are still going to be duped in the ways that they were prior to the revelations that began 2016-2018 and have continued since?
MHProNews broke the stories about documentary evidence of antitrust violations involved with a key MHI member.
The new MHI website? Window dressing. While there may be some ‘new’ items, previous information available just 2 weeks ago is now apparently missing. The old links to information (some of which was errant, but others apparently okay) don’t work.
The Manufactured Housing Institute is the only national trade organization representing all segments of the factory-built housing industry. We are your trusted partner, advocate and industry leader.”
Trust partner? Seriously? How can MHI say that when Kevin Clayton himself said that some 7,500 (or more) retailers, 160 plant closures, and some 200,000 manufactured housing industry connected jobs that have vanished in the 21st century?
In fairness, perhaps MHI thought that a new website may give them a fresh start with the industry crowd, and they are still busy shuffling in the background. But as website developers ourselves, such a claim would be specious. They could easily, for example, have added ‘news’ content yesterday. There may not be any reason whatsoever to have changed several prior links that are shown above. Put differently, MHI might – in the wake of this report rippling through MHVille – have their website developer hustle and make some corrections and additions. But it would not be a shock if they changed none of what is revealed herein. Either way, this platform has done the industry’s members a service. How so? Because these are specific examples of how MHI is not trustworthy, save for those involved with MHI who see themselves as benefiting from the status quo by being consolidators.
Time will tell if this ‘new website’ exposé will force yet another MHI pivot.
But the new MHI website appears to be a curtain, window dressing, that masks the backdrop rather than reveals what’s occurring in manufactured housing. They are anything but a ‘trusted’ partner, unless they are referring in a paltering fashion to those who trust that MHI will continue to give them cover in their purported scheme to consolidate the manufactured home industry through years of underperformance as measured by new home production, the number of communities, the number of retailers, the number of production centers…shall we go on with examples of the ways that manufactured housing in the 21st century is smaller than it was in the last decade of the 20th century?
On some pages, clicking the search tool doesn’t work. One might think that if every MHI staffer were spending time on the site, that such relatively quick fix could have already been accomplished. But apparently, senior MHI staff are too busy…doing what, exactly?
Examples like those shown herein may be why James A. “Jim” Schmitz and his colleagues used the term “sabotaging monopoly” tactics. Recall that antitrust laws are laws designed – at least in principle – to thwart monopolization of a market.
Now that a big antitrust case is underway, it will be interesting to note how that case, or others that may follow in their wake, may develop.
But MHI has arguably been thoroughly exposed by MHProNews, MHLivingNews, and MHARR. The later has often focused on the need for a post-production trade group that would work with them to get good existing federal laws enforced. The fact that MHI has been partnering with the industry’s competitors, arguably benefiting them, while having no tangible benefits for manufactured housing independents (as measured by robust growth – which they brazenly claim they exist to help members “Grow Your Business.”
While MHI’s members who are consolidators may be growing in the sense that they are mostly acquiring other firms rather than engaging in robust organic growth, the industry’s other members are by implication vanishing. That isn’t how “grow” is normally understood.
It was then Knudson Law legal researcher Samuel “Sam” Strommen who pointed out MHI apparent role in what he called a “felony” antitrust law violating scheme.
It was MHProNews/MHLivingNews which Strommen routinely credited as sources for his research.
It was MHInsider that Strommen labeled as a mouthpiece for MHI’s consolidators.
And MHInsider, is a sister brand to Datacomp (and sister brand MHVillage). Datacomp is one of the MHI members that have been hit by an antitrust suit.
Conclusions
This fact check, analysis and commentary noted earlier that the newly refreshed MHI website declared themselves to be ‘trusted.’ Seriously? By whom is MHI trusted who reads to stay informed in MHVille and that has some tenure under their belts, precisely is MHI trusted? Perhaps MHI is trusted by the consolidators who are MHI members? Some of those consolidators are now being sued in a suit and that suit specifically mentions that several of the firms being sued are MHI members. That suit says some are unnamed coconspirators, hinting others may be added to the case later. Could MHI itself be added to that antitrust case? Time will tell. But recall that it is MHProNews, not MHI or their associated bloggers and publishers, who said for years that the monopolization of the industry is a problem.
Part II. Daily Business News on MHProNews Markets and Headline News Segment
Headlines fromleft-of-center CNN Business – from the evening of 9.11.2023
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Fueled by a resurgent stock market and rising home values, US household wealth just hit a record $154.3 trillion
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musk gates split
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In instances such as Apollo, Berkshire Hathaway, Blackstone or others, manufactured housing may only be part of their corporate interests. Note: depending on your browser or device, many images in this report and others on MHProNews can be clicked to expand. Click the image and follow the prompts. For example, in some browsers/devices you click the image and select ‘open in a new window.’ After clicking that selection you click the image in the open window to expand the image to a larger size. To return to this page, use your back key, escape or follow the prompts.
