Don’t look, but Fleetwood (FLE) is tottering.  The company’s shares are trading for as low as 32 cents this morning.  Just one year ago, they were trading for $9.13.

In some ways, the credit crisis and energy costs are a perfect storm against a company like Fleetwood.  Remember that a good portion of their business comes from selling RVs.  RVs have a reputation as gas guzzlers.  They are, after all, mobile houses.  The classic RV vacation requires trips to the pump on any day of driving.  Even worse, most RVs are financed and a lot of that money comes out of home equity.  Its a logical way for an older couple to finance some fun during the golden years.  Refinance on a home that is largely paid off.  Unfortunately, home equity loans are getting to be harder and harder to come by.  Banks are nervous about taking a second position at a time when home values are shrinking.

A technical analysis says that Fleetwood has to pay off a large amount of debt by December 15th.  They are making an offer to exchange that debt through a refinance this week.  Their share prices have fallen off so much that they cannot tap new shares on their own. The new debt will be collateralized with real property, including their factories.

I hate to be harping on something, but I can’t help but notice a theme in the government reaction to the fiscal crisis.  We have seen the Federal Reserve act quickly and authoritatively when it comes to addressing a problem on Wall Street.  We have already witnessed a $700 billion stimulus package.  We had an emergency equity injection.  Not so far back, the government backed up JPM’s acquisition of Bear Stearns. Now there is talk that another stimulus is needed.

All of this is in relief to the limited efforts that have taken place to help homeowners.  The centerpiece of our foreclosure policy is the Neighborhood Stabilization Program.  That provides about $4 billion for communities – just a drop in the bucket compared to the Wall Street outreach.

[polldaddy poll=1025729]My thought is not that leaders are wrong for addressing challenges on Wall Street.  Rather, they seem to be applying a much higher barrier to the concerns for regular families.

The situation is getting worse.  Homes that a few months ago were merely sporting delinquencies are now in foreclosure court.  A court in Chicago is having to increase the number of judges dedicated full-time to foreclosures.

What’s more, the cost of lending is not going down.  The TED spread remains high.  LIBOr is high.  The banks are not using their new equity to make more loans.  They are hoarding their funds for a rainy day.

And, there are no provisions to make sure that this equity injection is not just a subsidy for shareholders.  I like that taking the funds has an impact on CEO pay, but that is more an exercise in political symbolism than in impactful policy.  It is worth asking if these banks should be allowed to take equity and still pay out dividends.  Some of the dividend payouts are now exceeding earnings.  Are tax payer funds being used just to protect payouts that need to be reduced?

So this is a controversial topic….but here goes.  I got an email the other day from one of the online media outlets that covers manufactured housing.  The article was basically asking people if they realized what a competitive advantage was afforded to landlords when they chose to rent to felons.

I have spent some time working with offenders.  A lot of them are working hard to become better citizens.  It can be hard to get a fresh start.  Many housing subsidies (including Section are not available to felons.

[polldaddy poll=1010758]

So this is a controversial topic….but here goes.  I got an email the other day from one of the online media outlets that covers manufactured housing.  The article was basically asking people if they realized what a competitive advantage was afforded to landlords when they chose to rent to felons.

I have spent some time working with offenders.  A lot of them are working hard to become better citizens.  It can be hard to get a fresh start.  Many housing subsidies (including Section are not available to felons.

[polldaddy poll=1010758]

A lot of people are trying to find a solution for our financial crisis.  It might be several crises by now, actually, as we are seeing problems in derivatives, in insurance, and bond markets, as well as in mortgages.

It is hard to go forward fixing the problem if we cannot figure out how we got to where we are, though.  I like this housing research paper on the roots of the problem on mortgages in the United States.  The main culprits:

• excess housing supply
• buyers were allow to purchase homes with no equity, or negative equity
• easy lending standards
• lack of regulatory safeguards

This is not a surprise to a lot of people.  The warnings bells, well, they were rung.  Its just a matter of listening.

Oddly, these very problems all existed, for better or worse, in the manufactured housing market at the end of the 90s.  There were too many homes available.  Buyers definitely had negative equity, especially if they got financing on furniture and other add-ons.  Lending was not very tough.  The point was to get people in homes and move on.  And, of course, there were hardly any regulatory safeguards at all.

What is odd is how much of a cautionary tale it appears to have been.  No one drew the lessons from the meltdown that took place in 01 and 02 in manufactured housing.  I guess, again, that people had begun to assume that stick built housing was a magic asset class (like Dutch tulips) that can never go down in value.  Well, it did.

The cautionary tale doesn’t portend much for the future of the US economy.  Manufactured housing shipments have never really recovered from the go-go days.  US homebuilders like Hovnavian and K-B Homes don’t want to witness that same trajectory on their future.  Credit is very tight, now.  About half of all applications for credit on manufactured housing are denied.