Nothing to do...

My favorite blogs are the one's that have absolutely nothing to do with mobile homes whatsoever. I might have to let the kids stand behind me while I blog more often. Creates material! The kids never run out of energy. I wish I could get that back. Getting old sucks. Arizona mobile homes never get old. They are like a fine wine, getting better with age! If you believe that I have some swamp land in Florida for sale! Speaking of that, have you ever seen those paid advertisements on TV for some weird-ass land in Arkansas or something? The host is Eric Estrada of all people! Every time I see that show, it cracks me up! I'm waiting for John to come out and arrest everybody. That infomercial should be against the law, I swear! Anyone who doesn't get that last one doesn't know- CHIPS! Awesome show... OK, one last Arizona mobile homes and I'm outa here. bye bye

Turn out the lights

Remember former Monday night football announcer 'Dandy' Don Merideth? He used to sing that song at the end of the games. 'Turn out the lights, the party's over' That was awesome.

Nothing to do but blog about mobile homes. Maybe I should write a song about them. Good idea. I think that will help keep it fresh. OK, here we go- inspiring lyrics, ready!?... OK.

Oh, give me a home where the mobile homes roam
And the dogs are on the prarie
The Suns are going to win it all
And the Utah Jazz are coached by Jerry Sloan

Excellent rhyming! Don't mess with me , Sawyer...
OK- you don't like that one, how about this little number...

You've gotta fight, for your right
TO PARTY!!!!!!

Sawyer likes that one... Good for you, buddy. Nothing to do with mobile homes...

Friday night party!

We got a gig tonite! So yeah, its a Friday night party! Not in an Arizona mobile home, but it'll still be a good time! Tonight, Legend City will perform live @ CK's in beautiful Ahwatukee, AZ. Say that seven times fast... I think this is our first gig there all year! What the hell? Usually wer're there every month, what gives? No big. We'll be playing all our hits like- I sold my sould for a mobile home. AND Oh give me a home where the mobile homes roll. Remember those? Great, weren't they? You can have on 2 CD's for only $9.69 plus shipping and handling. Ha!

House Party!

I've never been to a house party in a mobile home. Not that one could not hold such an event in a mobile home, but I've never been privledged to attend. Could be really fun. Some dudes might get really drunk and try to hook the home up to the back of their truck and pull it down the street! Yeeeehaaa!!! Thats good old-fashioned American Hillbilly fun!! Truth be known, you can't really do that- hook it up to a truck and pull it like a trailer. I think a lot of finance companies think that can actually be done because they always insist that a mobile home (on private land) must be attached to a permanent foundation or they won't fund. Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids! I don't know where that came from... Gotta blog on, folks. Hasta. mobile home

My country 'tis of thee...

Sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing! Great thing about being an American- we're free. I know what many are saying- we're not REALLY free, man. OK- so NOTHING in life is free. There will always be some kind of cost involved. Lately, I feel the pain of paying a lot of my hard earned money to support MY country in efforts I don't necessarily believe in. Tough spot. But I love the USA- no place I'd rather be. Uncle Sam can have my tax dollars and do whatever they want with it, fine. But how about some relief?! Here's a brief list of things I'd like to change and I'm allowed to make it because I'm a tax paying American citizen dammit! oh yeah- arizona mobile homes

1. Bring the men & women of the Armed Forces home from Iraq!
2. Next time a country (or terrorist group) oversteps, give 'em SHOCK & AWE FOR REAL!
(We've been involved in a war against Iraq for 5 years when it should've only taken 7 minutes)
3. mobile homes (three is the magic number!)
4. Get some cars on the road that run on something other than gasoline!
5. more mobile homes for everyone!
6. Turn our attention inward for a while. Lets solve some of OUR problems- economy, health care, immigration, and so on. I'm not saying ignore foreign policy- thats hugely important. I'm saying- LOOK at whats ailing us here in our own yard and do something to heal it.

Sorry folks, I've been on a political rant lately. Won't happen again, except on my other blog... : )

A can of worms

Every time I use the term 'mobile home' I could be opening up a can of worms. Many people in our business don't want us to continue using it because........ well I don't know why..? All right, I guess I do- they want to change the image. As a matter of fact, we're supposed to depart from 'manufactured homes' in favor of factory built or factory constructed homes. Here's the problem. Just changing what you call 'em, doesn't change the perception thats out there about mobile homes. You can call them the Sistine Chapel if you want, its not going to REALLY change a thing until the homes themselves significantly change. Don't get me wrong, the industry has advanced a great deal over the past 20 years. I just think we need to advance a lot more right now! Fear not a bad economy or down market! I'll call them mobile homes or whatever I feel like calling them- lets advance the actual homes and then we can start to sway public opinion.

Snow bird

Its already getting to be too hot here in Arizona for many of the snow birds that love to flock here during the winter. Its the end of March and we're seeing temps going into the 80's. There might be one final push of people wanting to buy a mobile home before they go back to Minnesota or Iowa or wherever cold place. It reminds me to try and cater a little more to this huge group of people who traverse the country just to soak up our sun. What do most of them want to buy? A cheap mobile home. Nine times out of ten, thats the ticket. Part of me really hates the snow birds. I'm an Arizona native, so this yearly influx of humans gets on my nerves. Still, this is a huge market for mobile home sales in Arizona. I need to remember that. Next time one of you out-of-towners annoys me on the freeway, I'll be sure to pause a moment and realize that this person could be my next customer! Sort of a catch-22 situation. oh well... Oops- lets get one more in there- buy a mobile home from Black Hawk, or we'll eat you- Snow Bird.

Flip the bird

When Black Hawk first started out, we flipped homes. In the beginning, it was my dad and Julio. Two guys, a truck, iced tea, and Denny's. They went into the parks bought, re-modeled, and sold mobile homes. There was no office, so deals were signed at the local Denny's. (That always cracks me up!) Sometimes my dad had to carry the note- a necessary evil when doing this sort of thing. When I came along about a year later, things started to go! My deal was listing and selling the mobile homes. This is something I actually still do today- all be it an after thought any more. There's good money to be made doing this sort of thing. I notice there's a lot of 'independent dealers' out there who fix/flip mobile homes. There's a lot of licensed (and unlicensed) dealers who list and sell mobile homes. We noticed quickly- watch out for people in this business! Lots of shady characters...

Bird is the Word!

Bird is the word, man. Black Hawk that is! Don't get us confused with Hummingbird, thats for sissies. This is a real man's company- Black Hawk Homes. Cool, huh?! OK- enough. On Saturday I went out to Casa Del Sol, an adult park where I have several mobile homes for sale. I met a lady there who I thought was a cash buyer, but as it turns out, she wasn't. Blast! She started to tell me about a finance company in Texas that she has been dealing with, and it peaked my interest. Has she really found a lender that will do a loan on one of these ancient mobile homes? All of the one's I have in her price range (under $30K) are in the 70's. To my knowledge, nobody will touch these homes finance-wise. I vocalized this to her as well. She is undaunted. I can't wait to find out who is this company! I probably will have heard of them already. You know what else? I bet they're jerking this poor lady around. There's no way in hell they are going to finance a 1976 single wide in a park! I feel bad, but people have to learn themselves. After wasting all of her time, she'll probably go the route I advised. Go get a signature loan (unsecured). If we're only talking about $15K or so, she can get it. Saddest part, she won't buy from me. There's too many FSBO's in that park. She already has an appointment to view an old single wide mobile home priced at $12K. Thats at least $3K cheaper than any home I have to offer in that park. Bummer! Win some/lose some. In the game at least...

Weekend update!

Yo! The weekend is here and so am I- hard at work! (blogging) Maybe not so hard work, but time consuming thats for sure! The weekend edition is always going to be light-hearted, I think. I'm too worn out for real serious topics. It looks like I've been discussing financing a lot in this blog. Lets go over this a little more... A mobile home, remember, is a HUD code product that was built after 1976. Right now, good luck getting any mobile home financed that is older than 10-15 years. That only goes back to 1993! Origen was one of the lenders that would go back 20 years, but so much for that! Arizona mobile homes come in lots of shapes, sizes, and ages. Some of the older one's can be financed by private parties. Even Black Hawk has been known to carry a few notes for needy buyers. We don't really do that anymore, though. We've turned our focus toward new manufactured home sales. Preference is land/home packages. Easier to finance and bigger profit margin. Good combo. Speaking of combo- I'll take a #1 with cheese! Gracias! diga le alas Lunes...

Finance woes continue

I blogged about this on one of the other sites, but its newsworthy enough to blab on some more. Just today I received word that Origen Financial is officially done writing chattel loans. This is very bad for the manufactured home industry. Origen was one of the biggest originators of chattel (home only) loans in the entire nation! Only 2 years earlier, Greentree, also one of the largest note makers in the U.S. for chattels, bowed out of the arena. OUCH! Painful stuff... The fallout from this will be without measure. Even before these 2 giants went down, there were so few lenders out there doing these kinds of loans on manufactured homes. I think it hurts mobile home communities more than any other segment of the industry. Retailers can shift gears, like we have, to land/home. Land lease communities will feel the pinch, because no one will be able to buy homes in their park. Not if they need to finance the home anyway. Very sad. Home sites will go unfilled in the parks. No new homes will be able to be placed either. Dominos...

Finance

I was reading my post from yesterday. It looks like I was leading myself into an actual topic for today- WOW! Fantasic. For modulars, financing can be tricky, thats true. There are actually 2 different types of modulars- on frame, and off frame. The off-frame kind are the ones purported to be most like site built and will supposedly comp to them in terms of appraisal. This is true in most cases. Always due your research! Different parts of the country will certainly vary! Modular homes placed on privately owned property generally enjoy the same financing benefits as site homes. 30 year terms, a variety of programs- FHA, VA, conventional. Many times local and/or state agencies have programs for assisting folks (in certain income brackets) with down payments and/or closing costs. These programs often include manufactured and modular homes! Pretty neat! Wow- I wrote a lot! Thats good- I can continue this topic tomorrow. Bye

what else is new?

Some of the newer, fancier terms for modular homes include UBC, IBC, or IRC. UBC stands for 'uniform building code', IBC stands for 'international building code', and IRC stands for 'international residential code'. The most common of these terms is UBC. They all mean basically the same thing- the home is built to the same local code as site built. Sure, modulars are mostly assembled in a factory, but the materials and the way the home is constructed is the same as a site built counterpart. Generally speaking, a modular home will cost 20-30% less than site building. Supposedly, these homes will appraise or 'comp' the same as site built homes in the area. But be careful- there seems to always be a separate set of rules for our industry. The finance of modular homes can be very tricky. That'll be a good one to discuss tomorrow...

Don't call it a trailer!

In the beginning, they called 'em trailers. After all, these things really WERE trailers. Metal sided, metal roof, virtually no insulation, long and skinny. Even the early double wides looked more like two trailers stuck together than anything else. After some time, the industry wanted to change the image- enter the term 'mobile home'. This one gets used a lot even today. I catch myself calling them mobile homes quite often. I should know better- for shame... : ( Anyway, mobile home stuck for quite a while until once again the powers that be in the industry wanted to change the image. Enter 'manufactured' homes. Today manufactured homes apply to homes built to the HUD building code. The other term often used nowadays is 'modular'. Modular homes are also built in a factory, but they are built to the same code as site built homes for a local area. Because of this, modular homes are built differently from state to state. Contact your local authority for building codes for you area. Tomorrow we can discuss a bit further. Other terms that get thrown around include: pre-fab homes, factory built, factory constructed, UBC, IRC.

Affordable mobile, manufactured, and modular homes

Nowadays we throw around terminology and not everyone understands the differences. Black Hawk Homes #2 blog endeavors to discuss all things pertaining to 'Factory Built Homes'.