MHI Board approves Community Attributes System (CAS)
 
Arlington, Va., May 11, 2005 – After nearly 18 months of study, the Manufactured Housing Institute’s (MHI) Board of Directors has approved development of a Community Attributes System (CAS) as recommended by a joint task force of the MHI National Communities Council (NCC) and the Financial Services Division (FSD). Development of the Web-based system is already underway at Datacomp Appraisal Services, MHI’s contracted partner for the CAS program.

The primary purpose of the CAS is to provide lenders and appraisers a quick, easy, and inexpensive way to view the attributes of the manufactured housing communities where homes are being sited in order to improve lending on homes in these communities. The system is designed to gather and record a set of uniform and objective information about communities with no attempt to score, rate, categorize, or classify communities in any way. A goal of the system is to eliminate the subjective patchwork of systems currently being employed throughout the industry. The CAS database will be available on a secure Web site to approved lenders, appraisers, and members of MHI and state manufactured housing associations.

The CAS database consists of community attribute information including:

1) Over 75 distinct community attributes such as current and past site rent, home ages, community amenities, recreational facilities, total sites, etc.

2) Information on current homes for sale and recently closed sales transactions within the community

3) Photos of the community’s facilities, streetscapes, and typical homes.

Community information will be updated and added to the CAS by community owners, lenders, and appraisers, as well as by Datacomp’s national network of manufactured home inspectors.

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Greg Harmon - President
Commonwealth Real Estate Services
E-mail: greg@cwres.com
Telephone 503.244.2300 Ext. 101