manufacturedhomelivingnews.com Manufactured Home Living News
Attention affordable housing shoppers. Note to those who are public officials, customers, advocates, or plaintiffs’ attorneys for those who purportedly have been harmed by a “Manufactured Housing Institute” (MHI) “Award” winner for “Excellence in Manufactured Housing.” A word to the wise – don’t be fooled by such ‘awards.’ If you keep in mind this focused analysis and expert commentary about MHI award winners, it may save you grief and may help make your efforts clearer and easier. While there are numerous fine companies in manufactured housing, there are also several that are problematic.
Reports like this one can help you sift the proverbial wheat from the chaff. Seek to do business with honorable firms, and try to avoid doing business with firms that have a problematic reputation.
After years of examining the evidence, this is the what the facts, known evidence, and expert analysis offered by Mobile and Manufactured Home Living News (MHLivingNews) has concluded. MHI gets several benefits, direct and indirect, by handing out their so-called “excellence” awards, which might at times be deserved in some sense, but in other instances may be nothing more than window dressing offered by MHI for a predatory company.
There is an item known as Google alerts. It is a feature offered by Google, which they hope people will think beneficial for them, and which generates perhaps millions of messages via email daily. Per Monster Insights on 1.2.2023: “You can have up to 1,000 alerts per Gmail account.” Demand Sage said that for 2023: “Gmail has over 1.8 billion users, which send around 121 billion emails among them.” Because of Google Alerts, every time some MHI member who wins an award and then pays for a press release to tell whoever will listen about their ‘achievement,’ MHI is mentioned as the source for the award.
Meaning the MHI excellence award is apparently a form of advertising or marketing for MHI.
Beyond Google Alerts, there are the paid for news releases themselves touting some ‘award,’ merited or not. Those show up in a full range of news feeds found via Google, Bing, Yahoo, Freespoke, Tusk Search, Duck Duck Go, and the like.
Social media may then be deployed to further amplify those MHI-awards linked messages. An example of that is shown further below.
Furthermore, MHI award-winners tend to use such MHI ‘excellence’ awards to market themselves to customers and investors.
A paid press release is a reasonably modest cost for a multi-million or billion-dollar plus brand to pay for what amounts to marketing for themselves and de facto marketing for MHI.
If the MHI ‘award winner’ is a firm trying to distract from problematic business practices it may deploy, well that so-called ‘MHI excellence in manufactured housing’ award-winner might find ‘winning’ that reward useful. Some consumers shopping for a manufactured home who are doing a quick or superficial search, might notice the negative news, notice the ‘award’ for ‘excellence’ and then might discount the negative news as a result of the ‘award.’
So trusting consumers might in essence be misled as a result of such deceptively deployed ‘excellence awards.’
MHI leaders obviously know such things, right?
However, this raises the issue of deceptive trade practices, possible RICO, antitrust violations, board members of these organizations not properly fulling their respective roles, and more. In as much as MHI and/or a state association affiliated with them is party to such schemes, legal issues around this apparent scheme abound.
To be fair and balanced, while some awards might be earnestly ‘due’ on some level, the fact that several ‘awards’ are given to firms that may have a poor record with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) or other third-party rating services arguably makes them part of potentially fraudulent behavior. That deceptive potential is what makes the MHI-linked ‘awards’ deviously sinister.
A previously reported example of this apparent ploy is linked below.
Note: to expand this image below to a larger or full size, see the instructions
below the graphic below or click the image and follow the prompts.
There will be more examples of the dark side of MHI’s so-called “excellence” awards planned in the days ahead.
While these are the editorial views of MHLivingNews’ parent company, they are supported by obvious evidence provided and linked herein. They are also the expert views of a widely acknowledged manufactured housing industry professional with decades of experience in several sectors of the industry, an authentic vs. faux expert, and commentator, who authored this article.
Don’t be fooled by such devious schemes cooked up by those who have taken over the control of MHI.
Shoppers – see the linked reports to learn more.
Public officials, advocates, and plaintiffs’ attorneys, take note. For those already engaged in legal action of whatever kind against firms who are linked to MHI directly but also indirectly through MHI state affiliates, this ought to be part of your discovery process. For example, Flagship/SSK’s Nathan Smith has long served on one of the various MHI boards.
Note that MHI attorneys and leaders have declined any response to prior reports and inquiries related to this topic. So, the facts and evidence stand largely uncontroverted at this time. Bing AI said in response to an inquiry on that terminology provided the following.
The phrase “allegations stand largely uncontroverted” means that the allegations have not been disputed or contradicted to a significant extent. In other words, the allegations are mostly accepted as true or accurate. The word “largely” indicates that there may be some minor points of disagreement or uncertainty, but the overall substance of the allegations is not in question 12.
I hope this helps!
Learn more:
- collinsdictionary.com2. thefreedictionary.com3. merriam-webster.com4. definitions.uslegal.com5. creativecommons.org6. en.wikipedia.org
So, several MHI leaders may prove to be sinister, devious, and coy, but they are not idiots. They doubtlessly have a sense of how these ‘awards’ are often used in an apparently deceptive manner. Why awards are given to firms with a problematic business reputation ought to be a reason for them not to be considered for an ‘excellence’ award, right?
MHLivingNews plans to do a periodic series of reports on the abuse and misuse of such ‘awards’ in the manufactured housing industry. Some examples are shown and linked in this introductory report. Watch for another installment, which may come as soon as this week.
Manufactured housing is a proven and routinely positive solution for millions of Americans looking for affordable housing during an affordable housing crisis.
When someone finds an honest broker of products or services in manufactured housing, that’s a good thing for consumers and is good for America in general.
But to the extent that some proverbial rotten apples can seem to spoil the batch, it is necessary to discern the good from the bad actors.
Membership or awards in MHI, or an MHI affiliate – in our expert view – ought not to be confused with trustworthiness. It may in fact prove to be indicative of quite the opposite.
If MHI, an MHI affiliate, opts to respond to this specific report, we can update this post at a future date. Until then, the evidence and analysis stands largely uncontroverted.
Until that periodic series is completed, it is prudent to treat manufactured home companies that have been hit with litigation or legal actions by public officials or in class action lawsuits who happen to be members of MHI and/or an MHI linked state affiliate as possible suspects.
Caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware and seek truly ethical business in manufactured housing instead of stumbling into some business that may seem honorable, but when carefully examined, is revealed to be a proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing. ##
For those who want research on manufactured housing, which routinely debunks the common myths, see the report linked above.
That’s a wrap on this installment of “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 MHLivingNews.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
Recent and Related Reports:
The text/image boxes below are linked to other reports, which can be accessed by clicking on them.
