And the Winner Is...

A while back, I offered a reward of $200 to the person that could come up with a better name for the industry than “manufactured housing”. While searching for a better name, I came to the realization that the industry actually needed two different names. One was for the type of product that allows folks to live on a total payment of around $500 per month in mortgage and lot rent. I proclaimed that the correct name for this part of the industry was “affordable housing”, and have adopted that ourselves when describing what we do with the 5,000 lots we own.

 

However, there still was no appropriate name for the second industry segment. This is the niche that provides housing that often costs $1,000+ per month including mortgage and lot rent. Clearly, “affordable” is not appropriate. And the suggested names for this segment were very interesting. Apparently, judging by the mail received, there are many people who are unhappy with the “manufactured housing” label. And many people wanted to emphasize qualities that are perceived as a positive attribute of the product – such as “precision”-- as opposed to the negative stigma that “manufactured” seems to portray.

 

By far the best answer, in my opinion, came from George Porter. Here’s what he wrote:

Been reading your articles in the Journal and was reminded of a story that I heard about many years ago concerning Gloria Steinem, the famous women’s lib personality. She was asked if she would ever be satisfied when a woman was elected President of the United States? Her reply was “no, she would not be satisfied then and would remain unsatisfied until a woman was elected President and no one would really care that she was a woman; just a competent person … period.”

With this in mind, I propose that we name our houses …(are you ready?)…Houses!!!!

Now I realize that we have Italian Americans, Latin Americans, Afro Americans, etc. But really what we all are is Americans and that other is just a way to label someone, for no good reason I might add. Really, what difference does it make, anyway? You are what you are, and our houses are the same. It is just a house. In the past, we seem to want to make ourselves “different”. I don’t know why.

I like Ms. Steinem’s idea. We haven’t gotten very far until nobody cares that it was built in a factory – just that it’s a decent house.

 

Maybe George is right. Maybe, instead of trying to differentiate ourselves from the rest of single-family home building (which has done much better than we have), we should try harder just to blend into the spectrum of the stick-built industry. I’ve always thought we could get farther in promoting the similarities of our product -- framing, vinyl siding, shingled roof, carpet, appliances – than the fact that you can pull it down the highway. You can also pull a stick-built down the highway, for that matter (I’ve seen several stick-built homes moved in such a fashion). Maybe we should focus our efforts on being less expensive per square foot and faster to deliver a finished product to the job site, and not even talk about the fact that our product is built in a factory.

I live in rural Missouri, and people here do not even know the term “trailer”, “mobile home” or “manufactured home”. They are all considered houses – part of the same family as the brick custom home. As a result, there is no stigma to living in one, and the values are higher. A friend of my daughter lives in a doublewide on a farm. But I think I’m the only one who knows it, because to everybody else it’s just a house. I often feel guilty for even thinking that it’s a doublewide – as though I’m carrying a terrible secret. I think everyone else is right – it’s just a house and not a subject of discussion.

 

I also frequently drive by a factory that makes roof trusses for stick-built homes. And I always think “I wonder if those people who buy that house know the trusses were made in a factory, just like a manufactured home?” What’s the big difference? Who’s keeping score? What other things inside a stick-built home are built in a factory? Just about everything – carpet, mini-blinds, appliances – right?

 

I guess the moral is that we have in many ways created our own problem in marketing and public relations by being too loud about our differences, and too quiet about our similarities. We need to stop this practice, as it is not working at all.

 

I am very impressed with the way that Clayton has attempted to re-design their sales centers to look more upscale and mainstream – and more in line with stick-built builders. The sign out front is just the word “Clayton”.  I do not see one mention of the words “manufactured homes” on these centers. However, I see plenty of retailers who have the words “mobile homes” and “manufactured homes” right on their sign. I have to imagine that Clayton executives are thinking the same as George Porter – that our future is based on being one of the crowd, not being some freak with a big arrow hanging over his head.

 

So the winner is … silence. That’s the best word to describe our upper-end product. It’s a house. Period.

 

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