The NH Community Loan Fund’s Manufactured Housing Park Program (MHPP) has just closed another fiscal year (FY07). Here are some of the highlights of MHPP’s activities:

• Eight investor-owned communities, totaling 695 sites, were converted to cooperative Resident Owned Communities. For the second year in a row, one large community was converted (Exeter River Estates - 392 sites).
• The Laconia Savings Bank purchased a pool of individual home mortgages, totaling $500,000, from the Loan Fund. The loans were made to homebuyers and homeowners in Resident Owned Communities in New Hampshire through the Cooperative Home Loan Program. The loan sale is a part of the Loan Fund’s strategy to engage banks in lending to manufactured housing in the state’s resident-owned manufactured home communities. A second loan sale to a second bank is currently in the early planning stages and may be completed during the grant period.
• MHPP completed the installation of all of the homes (44 total) at the Pepperidge Woods development in Barrington. Currently, 3 homes are under contract and 9 homes remain for sale.
• As part of its efforts to develop a system to provide in-fill and replacement homes, MHPP set 1 home in Ossipee Mountains Estates Cooperative and 2 homes at Barrington Oaks Cooperative. All 3 homes were set on previously vacant lots.
• The second ROC Leadership Program was held over the fall and winter. The program educates a select group of motivated co-op members in the legal, governmental, infrastructure, and financial systems that affect resident Owned Communities in New Hampshire. Fifteen participants graduated from the program. MHPP is taking applications for the next class that will begin this fall.
• MHPP staff continue to work with Fannie Mae Corporation and two local banks on the $10MM Fannie Mae demonstration for financing homes in NH cooperatives – the only manufactured housing communities in the country that will be eligible for government-sponsored, enterprise-supported, conventional residential mortgage loan products. Current plans call for the pilot program to be rolled out in the upcoming fiscal year.

After 15 years of leading the Loan Fund’s Manufactured Housing Park Program, Paul Bradley will be moving on to focus his efforts on the development of ROC USA, a national organization working with practitioners from other states to further develop the ROC system and help others organize to purchase their communities. I will be taking his place as MHPP Program Director and I look forward to building upon the success of the program in an effort to ensure that the network of thriving, respected, and self-governing Resident Owned Communities continues to enjoy economic security and benefit. All of the MHPP staff look forward to our continued work with the members and boards of the state’s 86 Resident Owned Communities. We also look forward to the opportunity to provide homeowners with the technical expertise needed, when the opportunity arises, to form a cooperative and secure the ownership of the land beneath their homes.