The next exclusive “movers and shakers” interview coming up for September in our wildly popular series is, A Cup of Coffee with…Leigh J. Abrams. Drew is a billion dollar plus annual sales company, and their long, steady “ashes to cashes” story may be ideally suited for our industry in the waning days of summer 2013. …
Two quick notes before dive into our main topic, The Media, Manufactured Homes Communities and the Rent Control Issue. Note 1: We've received numerous replies on the Captive Finance topic, beyond those we have published. There are comments that said this was an 'excellent' and 'important' topic and that gave us their atta boy. We …
The Media, Rent Control and Manufactured Home Communities. Read More »
As regular readers of our popular, free twice weekly emailed news update know, 2012 was a record year here at MHProNews, as we completed the first full year of our new web-media format. That said, 2013 is blowing 2012 away! We have already had more visitors and more page views this year than all of …
In the wake of recent columns on captive finance, regulatory over-reach and related topics, some have thoughtfully taken the time to reminded me there is a strong streak of independence among many manufactured housing pros, especially so among business owners. They are telling me, they are NOT 'head in the sand.' Rather, they opt to …
We did a post a little over a year ago called Failure to Report. In it we outlined items that at the time, in our editorial opinion, it was in the Manufactured Housing Industry's best interests not to comment or report upon. There are often such matters at play, which might – for example – …
Scaring professionals is never the point in our news stories or OpEds. In fact, my gripe about some writers or speakers is that all too often their commentary pointed out problems without proposing sound – or any – solutions. Problems exist, but they are often opportunities in disguise once solved. News is news, but in …
In recent years regulatory impact has forced our industry into pretzel-like contortions. Consider the challenges faced by manufactured home communities. When options – such as "buy-here, pay-here" "captive finance" are tried, the ever growing cost of regulatory compliance threatens those methods. While a number of states have de minimus exemptions, not so with the Feds. …
Tom Cruise did a movie a number of years ago, with 'cocktails and dreams' being the theme of a pub the fictional entrepreneurial bar tender wanted to open. While Cruise won't be present, dozens of the leading lights from the RV and Manufactured Housing industries will be at the 2013 induction ceremonies, which will include …
Hot July nights and even hotter days have yielded to August and the frenzy of back to school and so much more. Manufactured housing is still on a general two year uptick in new home shipments. As you will see in some of our August Featured Articles, while there are still plenty of challenges to …
1) – Introduction and background. Let's set the stage for what I sincerely hope will be an important dialogue within our industry. I've seen estimates that there are some 5 to 9 billion dollars worth of captive finance paper created by manufactured home professionals, mostly in the land lease community side of the industry. Much …
