MHMSM.com presents Factory Built Housing Industry News at Noon with Erin Patla.
We begin with these stories:
FROM THE PRESS DEMOCRAT in Santa Rosa, California we find manufactured home park residents fighting the planned sale of the park they call home. Resident Roger McConnell and about 100 of his neighbors in the Country Mobile Home Park will ask the Santa Rosa Planning Commission to block the latest effort by their landlord to begin selling the lots instead of renting them. “There’s a few things in this life that’s still worth fighting for at this age: that lady in there,” McConnell told the Santa Rosa reporter, gesturing toward his wife Nancy in the next room, “and this home.” The park’s owner originally floated the idea of converting the 178 unit community of mostly low-income seniors to “airspace condominiums” four years ago. At that time a survey of residents found 77 percent against conversion. While the owner contends the move would give residents the opportunity to own their lots, residents fear they will be unable to afford the land.
THE “OWNERSHIP SOCIETY” advocated by former President George W. Bush is meeting an alternative vision materializing from the current administration. According to a report in the Boston Globe, the Obama Administration plans to pump $4.25 billion of economic stimulus money into creating tens of thousands of federally-subsidized rental units in American cities. The paper reports the $4.25 billion set aside for the creation of rental housing will come from $14 billion that HUD has received from the federal economic stimulus package. HUD’s Assistant Secretary for Multifamily Housing Carol Galante told the paper HUD will still be in the business of helping people buy homes using existing lending subsidies.
______________________________________________________________________________
Now for more manufactured housing in the news…
A STORY FROM THE PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP lets us know about 10,000 homes being provided by startup Pacific Green Innovations for the struggling nation of Haiti. The plan is to construct the low-cost homes in Haiti during the next year, using all-recyclable panels and employing thousands of Haitians. Costing only $5,000 to $7,000 each, the homes will utilize SwissCell technology, a modular prefabricated panel introduced by German-owned Consido AG of Switzerland. SwissCell panels are made almost entirely of paper, strengthened by a honeycomb-style core and recyclable resin. The homes will be fireproof, waterproof and earthquake-resistant. Each home will take about four hours for a four-person crew to build.
MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE INFORMATION SERVICES reports that manufactured home dealers across Mississippi are seeing an increase in sales. Retailers Southern Colonel Homes of Laurel and Clayton Homes in Hattiesburg report better numbers this year. In the article, Clayton Homes Vice President Fred Townsend said sales in the Hattiesburg market are up by 16 sales, or a 72.7 percent sales increase over the previous year.
IN RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA, the Press Enterprise reports that MVP RV, a Moreno Valley-based company that tried to enter the electric car market last year, plans to hire hundreds of workers to staff two former Fleetwood Enterprises plants. The company plans a job fair Aug. 28 and wants to bring in 80 new employees to start work in September. MVP became the owner of the former Fleetwood plants this week. Once the Inland area’s only Fortune 500 Company, Fleetwood Enterprises filed for bankruptcy protection in March 2009. Look for a feature article on the liquidation of Fleetwood Enterprises at MHMSM.com early next week.
A BOYCOTT OF ARIZONA over the recent immigration law appears to be getting in the way of providing new homes for a Mountain View, California mobile home park. Outlook News in Santa Monica reports that on those grounds the Santa Rosa City Council rejected staff’s recommendation for a business team to provide replacement homes for the Mountain View Mobile Home Park. The City wants to purchase 20 replacement homes for the City-owned neighborhood, but the company with the winning bid, Cavco, is located in Phoenix. Previously the council approved a boycott against Arizona businesses due to the passage of the illegal immigration enforcement law, SB 1070 (The Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act).
FORECLOSURE FILINGS are on the rise …
… but first, this podcast of News at Noon is sponsored in part by:
Precision Capital Funding, on the Web at CaptiveFinance.net. Precision Capital Funding earned the MHI 2010 Service Supplier of the Year Award.
For more information, email Kenneth Rishel at kennethrishel@captivefinance.net or call 217-971-3968.
FORECLOSURE FILINGS are on the rise, this according to RealtyTrac. The company released its U.S. Foreclosure Market Report for July 2010, showings that foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 325,229 properties in July, a nearly 4 percent increase from the previous month, but a nearly 10 percent decrease from July 2009. One in every 397 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing during the month. With one in every 82 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing in July, Nevada continued to document the nation’s highest foreclosure rate for the 43rd straight month. A total of 13,727 Nevada properties received a foreclosure filing in July, a nearly 7 percent increase from the previous month, but a nearly 30 percent decrease from July 2009. July was the 10th straight month where overall Nevada foreclosure activity decreased on a year-over-year basis. All ten metro areas with the nation’s highest foreclosure rates in July posted year-over-year decreases in foreclosure activity, but five of the top ten posted increases from the previous month. The two biggest monthly increases were in No. 2 Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., where foreclosure activity was up 21 percent from the previous month, and in No. 9 Phoenix-Mesa[MAY-sah]-Scottsdale, Ariz., where foreclosure activity was up 19 percent from the previous month. Foreclosure activity increased nearly 9 percent from the previous month in the Las Vegas-Paradise, Nev., metro area, which registered the highest foreclosure rate among metropolitan areas with a population of 200,000 or more. One in every 71 Las Vegas housing units received a foreclosure filing in July, more than five times the national average.
REUTERS REPORTS that a summit of housing industry leaders next week in Washington may yield clues on the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the $150 billion in taxpayer funds invested in them. The companies were seized by the Bush administration in September of 2008 and placed in the conservatorship of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. According to the article, a consensus has emerged that their former existence as congressionally-chartered, shareholder-owned entities should not be resurrected. While many Republicans want to see the firms fully privatized, The Mortgage Bankers Association has proposed a system in which risk-based fees on a class of mortgage-backed securities would be charged in exchange for an explicit government guarantee ensuring investors do not suffer losses.
_____________________________________________________________________________
In Market News…
ACCORDING TO A WEEKLY REPORT from Freddie Mac, the 30-year fixed rate mortgage slipped to 4.44% for the week ending Thursday. That’s once again the lowest since the government-backed lender began tracking the rate in 1971. Last week the rate was 4.49%, and a year ago it was at 5.29%.
THE MANUFACTURED HOUSING INDEX COMPOSITE value was down Thursday, declining more than two percent. Active stocks included TJT Inc, up 12 percent to close at 28 cents a share, All American Group up more than two percent to close at 45 cents a share, Nobility Homes down more than ten percent to close at $9.51 a share and Palm Harbor Homes, off nearly five percent to close at $1.96 a share. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 58 points arriving at 10,320.
“On behalf of Production and IT Manager Bob Stovall, Editor L.A. ‘Tony’ Kovach, Associate Editor Catherine Frenzel, INdustry in Focus reporter Eric Miller, and the entire MHMSM.com writing and support team, this is Erin Patla. G’day!”