The release of manufactured housing state-by-state level data in April for February 2023 facts are provided herein. These facts should be troubling for some industry leaders, which is why they are paired with an examination of those who are apparently and arguably ducking accountability for their performance. According to Oxford Languages, “weasel words” are: “words or statements that are intentionally ambiguous or misleading.” HubSpot in an article focused on weasel words, which it repeatedly condemns, says: “it’s the words you use to paint a picture of the rosy future your prospect will live in once they purchase your product [or services]…” That article explains: “Think about every press conference with a disgraced politician or executive you’ve ever seen. What did they have in common? Probably a lot of dodged eye contact, clicking camera shutters, and … you guessed it. Weasel words.” GlassDoor has a post under the headline: “Packs of Lies, Half truths and Weasel Words. Avoid at all Costs.” Dictionary explains that “con jobs” are “an act or instance of duping or swindling.” Put differently, “weasel words” and “con jobs” often go hand in hand with those seeking to swindle or duck accountability. Slick talk that may sound impressive at first can shed light on why specific manufactured housing industry leaders are routinely ‘dodging’ what amounts to ‘eye contact,’ face-to-face or virtual responsiveness for their actual results vs. their…you guessed it…weasel words for failure to perform successfully what they claim.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) contracts with the Institute for Building Technology & Safety (IBTS) to collect monthly reports on HUD Code manufactured housing production and shipments by state. That data is found herein further below.
Every month, the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) typically publishes a national snapshot of that data. MHARR makes that data publicly available. So too does the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and the National Association of Realtors (NAR). By contrast, unlike the other three national associations named herein, the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) which claims to represent “all segments” of the industry and is several times the size and budget of MHARR. After being pressed once by MHProNews, MHI provided a research study to their members only hidden behind a login. Instead of accepting any responsibility for the downturn after proclaiming last summer “momentum,” one might think they were using “weasel words” in a con job like effort to duck, dodge, distract, and mislead the trusting. Fortunately, perhaps some manufactured home industry members are waking up to the fact that there are leaders and their allies who ‘are lying, they know that we know that they are lying.’
Next up are the facts gathered for HUD by IBTS. That will be followed by additional information with more MHProNews analysis and commentary.
| Institute for Building Technology & Safety (IBTS) | |||||||||
| Shipments and Production Summary Report /01/2023 – 2/28/2023 |
| Shipments | ||||
| State | SW | MW | Total | Floors |
| Dest. Pending | 32 | 16 | 48 | 64 |
| Alabama | 210 | 132 | 342 | 475 |
| Alaska | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Arizona | 73 | 151 | 224 | 378 |
| Arkansas | 47 | 43 | 90 | 133 |
| California | 49 | 200 | 249 | 459 |
| Colorado | 16 | 27 | 43 | 70 |
| Connecticut | 16 | 9 | 25 | 34 |
| Delaware | 4 | 32 | 36 | 69 |
| District of Columbia | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Florida | 178 | 496 | 674 | 1,178 |
| Georgia | 116 | 146 | 262 | 408 |
| Hawaii | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Idaho | 4 | 13 | 17 | 31 |
| Illinois | 79 | 45 | 124 | 170 |
| Indiana | 93 | 41 | 134 | 176 |
| Iowa | 44 | 6 | 50 | 56 |
| Kansas | 10 | 5 | 15 | 20 |
| Kentucky | 70 | 127 | 197 | 324 |
| Louisiana | 142 | 83 | 225 | 308 |
| Maine | 17 | 29 | 46 | 75 |
| Maryland | 5 | 2 | 7 | 9 |
| Massachusetts | 3 | 13 | 16 | 29 |
| Michigan | 144 | 159 | 303 | 462 |
| Minnesota | 32 | 25 | 57 | 82 |
| Mississippi | 56 | 108 | 164 | 267 |
| Missouri | 58 | 47 | 105 | 152 |
| Montana | 17 | 9 | 26 | 36 |
| Nebraska | 11 | 1 | 12 | 13 |
| Nevada | 17 | 34 | 51 | 88 |
| New Hampshire | 8 | 5 | 13 | 18 |
| New Jersey | 34 | 27 | 61 | 88 |
| New Mexico | 29 | 41 | 70 | 111 |
| New York | 39 | 51 | 90 | 141 |
| North Carolina | 143 | 208 | 351 | 559 |
| North Dakota | 0 | 5 | 5 | 10 |
| Ohio | 87 | 58 | 145 | 203 |
| Oklahoma | 76 | 68 | 144 | 212 |
| Oregon | 31 | 72 | 103 | 178 |
| Pennsylvania | 71 | 81 | 152 | 233 |
| Rhode Island | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| South Carolina | 113 | 150 | 263 | 413 |
| South Dakota | 10 | 15 | 25 | 40 |
| Tennessee | 55 | 134 | 189 | 324 |
| Texas | 507 | 560 | 1,067 | 1,631 |
| Utah | 4 | 11 | 15 | 26 |
| Vermont | 7 | 3 | 10 | 13 |
| Virginia | 38 | 33 | 71 | 104 |
| Washington | 14 | 96 | 110 | 210 |
| West Virginia | 18 | 54 | 72 | 126 |
| Wisconsin | 53 | 19 | 72 | 91 |
| Wyoming | 2 | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| Canada | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Puerto Rico | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 2,883 | 3,694 | 6,577 | 10,308 |
| THE ABOVE STATISTICS ARE PROVIDED AS A MONTHLY | ||||
| SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE. REPRODUCTION IN PART OR | ||||
| IN TOTAL MUST CARRY AN ATTRIBUTION TO IBTS, INC. | ||||
| Production | ||||||||||||||
| State | SW | MW | Total | Floors | ||||||||||
| States Shown(*) | 266 | 203 | 469 | 672 | ||||||||||
| Alabama | 413 | 526 | 939 | 1,464 | ||||||||||
| *Alaska | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| Arizona | 75 | 164 | 239 | 406 | ||||||||||
| *Arkansas | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| California | 43 | 190 | 233 | 432 | ||||||||||
| *Colorado | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Connecticut | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Delaware | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *District of Columbia | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| Florida | 43 | 300 | 343 | 648 | ||||||||||
| Georgia | 184 | 251 | 435 | 689 | ||||||||||
| *Hawaii | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| Idaho | 20 | 67 | 87 | 160 | ||||||||||
| *Illinois | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| Indiana | 410 | 263 | 673 | 936 | ||||||||||
| *Iowa | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Kansas | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Kentucky | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Louisiana | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Maine | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Maryland | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Massachusetts | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Michigan | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| Minnesota | 8 | 40 | 48 | 88 | ||||||||||
| *Mississippi | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Missouri | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Montana | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Nebraska | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Nevada | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *New Hampshire | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *New Jersey | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *New Mexico | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *New York | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| North Carolina | 119 | 193 | 312 | 505 | ||||||||||
| *North Dakota | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Ohio | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Oklahoma | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| Oregon | 48 | 154 | 202 | 364 | ||||||||||
| Pennsylvania | 166 | 246 | 412 | 659 | ||||||||||
| *Rhode Island | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *South Carolina | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *South Dakota | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| Tennessee | 422 | 503 | 925 | 1,428 | ||||||||||
| Texas | 666 | 594 | 1,260 | 1,857 | ||||||||||
| *Utah | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Vermont | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Virginia | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Washington | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *West Virginia | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Wisconsin | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Wyoming | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Canada | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| *Puerto Rico | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| Total | 2,883 | 3,694 | 6,577 | 10,308 | ||||||||||
| (*) THESE STATES HAVE FEWER THAN THREE PLANTS. | ||||||||||||||
| FIGURES ARE AGGREGATED ON FIRST LINE ABOVE | ||||||||||||||
TOTALS TO PROTECT PROPRIETARY INFORMATION.
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Additional Information with More MHProNews Analysis and Commentary
On 4.3.2023 MHARR emailed to numbers of manufactured home industry readers and subsequently posted on their website the following. MHARR has been publicly posting industry data for years, as this link here on their website demonstrates. Per MHARR: “Increasingly Concerning Manufactured Housing Production Decline Continues in February 2023.” In that post, MHARR said the following.
A further analysis of the official industry statistics shows that the top ten shipment states from January 2023 — with monthly, cumulative, current year (2023) and prior year (2022) shipments per category as indicated — are:
The production decline indicated by the February 2023 official statistics now marks the fifth consecutive month of production declines within the manufactured housing industry. Worse yet, the degree of year-over-year decline continues to steepen, with progressively greater declines over each month of that five-month period. Again, all of this is occurring at a time of unprecedented demand for affordable housing, thus illustrating once again, not only the long-term destructive impacts of discriminatory zoning and consumer financing on the HUD Code manufactured housing market, but also the failure of federal affordable housing aid and assistance to “reach the ground” for manufactured housing consumers, as illustrated by MHARR’s July 2023 White Paper on that subject. The steepening decline could also represent the leading edge of severely negative market impacts that are certain to correspond with the introduction of ultra-costly federal “energy” standards for manufactured housing, and market anticipation of those standards. Regardless, however, the industry and its representatives cannot simply stand by as the market viability of the industry’s homes is undermined. Therefore, decisive industry action to address and resolve these crucial post-production matters (i.e., zoning and consumer financing discrimination), as advocated by MHARR, is long overdue.
In conjunction with the above-referenced and destructive DOE “energy” rule, the underlying enabling law, as most industry members are not yet currently aware, necessarily ties manufactured housing energy standards to the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), thus institutionalizing ongoing automatic cost increases with each new iteration of the IECC under its three-year revision cycle. MHARR has already analyzed this looming threat and will share that analysis with the industry and public later this week. ##
Words and deeds matter, which is why MHProNews has long pointed to the specific meaning of words like paltering.
As MHProNews reported in its questions to MHI leadership in the report linked below, it is apparent that MHI is once again ducking the hard facts with – you guessed it – arguably weasel words and red herrings. It was MHI that claimed less than a year ago that the industry had ‘momentum‘ in Washington, D.C. Instead of thinking big, and acting according, third-party researchers are producing statements that are effectively a slam on MHI leadership, even if indirectly. When a law professor says that the industry needs an ‘organization for manufactured housing advocates litigation and legislative support,’ isn’t that a remark that assumes that MHI is not properly fulfilling that role?
MHProNews plans to publish yet another recent third-party report that outlines what needs to be done to advance the manufactured housing industry. Oddly, their report parallels doing the types of things that MHARR or MHProNews/MHLivingNews have editorially advocated for, not unlike what law Professor Daniel R. Mandelker said. Put differently, when voices inside and outside of the industry are saying manufactured housing is needed to solve the affordable housing crisis, and MHI claims to be the advocate for “all segments” of the manufactured housing industry, how can they not be held responsible?
When have weasel words or the ‘razzle dazzle’ ever produced positive results, save perhaps for the person or organization using them on behalf of themselves or their allies? When manufactured housing faces its second extended downturn in roughly 5 years, when will MHI’s board act to eject the current top staff and meaningfully change course? What organization keeps or rewards failures?
Oh, that organization might be called by its three-letter acronym.
M.H.I.
Ironically, while MHI postured once again in its ‘newsletter’ linked here, it is Cavco Industries (CVCO), which reportedly has in effect two board seats on the “MHI executive committee” that recently said that 6 million manufactured homes are needed.
Notice: the graphic below is one of several found in the report linked above.
The graphic below can be expanded to a larger size.
MHI leaders can’t have it both ways. Or can they? Do weasel words make that possible for MHI’s corporate and staff leaders? Can MHI tout how they are ‘raising the profile of the industry’ and at the same time they are making excuses that run counter to the claims they made not so long ago?
Danny Ghorbani has long been a thorn in the side of MHI leaders when that trade group was not performing.
In recent years, MHARR’s President and CEO Mark Weiss, J.D., has hammered away at facts and evidence on the post-production sectors failures. A “shell game” is arguably another way of saying that a con job is underway.
This writer for MHProNews appeared virtually during the COVID19 ‘crisis’ at the same event that MHI did. That’s recapped in the article posted below.
Time alone will tell if MHI ‘leaders’ will continue to stand by their current courses of action (or inaction, as the case may be) or if they will pivot and do the things that third-parties to the industry as well as MHARR professionals – and industry insiders aligned with MHI – have said or whispered what needs to be done. Otherwise, the industry is heading for a bleak future.
Whatever occurs, what seems increasingly clear is that MHI and its corporate leaders can only escape accountability for so long. When this, the apparently largest trade publication for the industry keeps hammering away at the facts and evidence, at some point, one might think that something will give.
It has not been cheap or easy to report the facts, evidence, and lay out the expert commentary and viewpoints that are the staples of MHProNews/MHLivingNews. Corporate and association giants dwarf our operation by many times our size. That said, only the truth – and acting upon the truth – will set us free. Weasel words and con jobs never have and never will be liberating; they are the tools of enslavement, corruption, and criminals. ###
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:
The text/image boxes below are linked to other reports, which can be accessed by clicking on them.’
