What Port Townsend’s New Housing Amendments Mean for Manufactured Housing

Port Townsend is a small peninsular city in Washington with geographic restraints that increase the need for affordable housing options. Photos courtesy of Port Townsend, Wash.

by Lindsay Patton-Carson

A few amendments to the Port Townsend housing code could drastically benefit the mobile home industry in the Washington city. The amendments were recommended by the city A

Planning Commission in late 2019. Included in the amendments are design-modulation modifications, expanding the size of accessory dwelling units, allowing duplexes, triplexes and four-plexes in a zone currently reserved for multi-family housing.

Port Townsend Planning Director Lance Bailey presented the final reading in front of city council on April 6, and the final approval will be discussed when meetings resume amid continued precautions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Bailey and his colleagues started the amendment process two years ago, right around the time Port Townsend was going through a housing crisis. The amendments are important to Bailey because it expands affordable-housing options throughout the city.

“There’s a divide on the working-class side,” Bailey said.

“People working full time can’t afford the housing here.

It had been getting worse and the city council started to address it.”

Port Townsend is a small tourist and retirement town approximately two hours from Seattle. The town has a population of 10,000 and is located on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, at the entrance of Puget Sound. Within the community itself, there are many second/ vacation homes and high-end real estate, which is mostly driven by second-home purchases.

The 9.6-mile town also is a Victorian seaport, so aesthetic architectural standards come into play when considering new developments.

“Any city looking to adopt or have standards that relate to architectural elements, they haven’t thought about how that would affect manufactured homes,” Bailey said. “And the products coming out of the manufactured home industry have aesthetics that are raising the bar. It’s not your old mobile home.”

With the new housing amendments, updated housing codes will make it easier for Port Townsend to incorporate affordable manufactured home communities throughout the city while abiding by state law that requires cities and towns to allow manufactured homes in all residential zones.

“We’re starting to see more manufactured homes here,” Bailey said. “The industry is rapidly changing. People »

aren’t familiar with manufactured homes today. When they think of them, they think of old housing.”

The trouble Port Townsend was running into was finding manufactured and modular homes that fit within the city’s architectural standards for custom home design. Manufactured homes are designed to meet federal regulations and in some cases are misaligned with local codes.

“One of the recommendations I made to City Council at the last meeting was to make it as easy and clear as possible, we could exempt the manufactured homes,” Bailey said. “Personally, I think that would have been a reasonable approach. What we’ve done is change the standard to measure that linear wall space from triggering the modulation at 20 feet - we’ve expanded that out to 30 feet. And looking at the majority of manufactured home plans that have come in, I think that will cover the vast majority of them.”

Bailey consulted with multiple developers to get their input on any regulatory items or obstacles to building lower-cost housing. The Planning Department then started a process based on developer recommendation.

“We wanted to pick the low-hanging fruit to address some of the strategic pieces in our code without doing a complete overhaul,” Bailey said.

The inclusion of more manufactured and modular homes also makes the approval process easier for the city, because the applications come in a template.

“We’ve done more permits in the past two years than previous years, and I’d imagine we’re not alone. We’re seeing dramatically increased volume of permits, which stresses a small city,” she said. “A good manufactured home application is much easier for us to process.”

Overall, Bailey says the amendments will strongly benefit the Port Townsend community, especially for those who are seeking more affordable-housing options in the town.

“The amendments help diversify the housing and community and make it easier to meet the review standards that the city has,” Bailey said. “It helps to address affordable housing.” MHV

Lindsay Patton-Carson is a writer and content and social media manager based in Grand Rapids, Mich. As a trained journalist for over a decade, Lindsay has accumulated bylines with publications that include PhillyVoice, One Green Planet, Girlboss, Care2, The Huffington Post, and Bust. She manages brands and social media platforms.

Name Precedes Central Florida Home Retailer Four Star Leads Vital Market in the Industry

by Patrick Revere

TThe presence of Four Star Homes in the Central Florida manufactured home market can’t be overstated.

Four Star has eight retail locations in a 12-county area. It has more than 25 people on staff and employs about 200 sales agents. The brokerage lists approximately eight of 10 homes that sell in Central Florida each year.

“People just know Four Star. If you’re going to buy or sell a mobile home, that’s where you go if you’re in Central

Florida,” owner Karen Rearden said.

And from a historical perspective, too, the Rearden family business has a name that precedes itself.

Four Star Homes Inc. was started by Karen Rearden in 1982. At the time, she was employed with a mobile home brokerage that most people today identify as a leader in home insurance; Foremost Insurance, of Grand Rapids, Mich.

“The division was Foremost Home Brokers,” Karen

Rearden said. “I ran the Port Orange office in the early 1980s, and then I got a call. I was told Foremost was getting out of the brokerage business, and that I could have the phones, the office, the files…

“I’m thinking what do I have to lose? So I took the leap of faith and I doubled my income in the first quarter,” she said.

Nearly overnight, Karen was in business for herself.

She changed Foremost to Four Star and used the same colors in the new company’s branding. The goal was the make the transition effortless, and keep Four Star on the forefront for home sellers and buyers the way

Foremost had been.

“People really didn’t notice much difference,” Karen

Rearden said. “It was amazing how smooth it was.”

Single Mom Raising Two Boys

When Karen Rearden turned the former brokerage into a family business, she had two young boys to raise. As often is the case, Matt and Jon grew up in the business. The first office and the ones to follow would make somewhat of a second home. Certainly, the business dealings and shop talk rubbed off in ways that may be immeasurable.

“They used to have a big three-ring binder and polaroids taped to a page in the office. That’s how they kept track of listings. If you were an agent you’d come in and look at a hot sheet and flip through the binder,” Matt Rearden recalls. “Has a lot changed?”

Today, Jon Rearden is a pastor, and Matt Rearden is their mother’s business partner at Four Star. He is an attorney and worked for large corporations and organizations, including a stint with NASCAR.

“I was in two publicly traded companies, traveled the world and did some fun stuff, but some things changed here,” he said of Four Star and Central Florida. “In the last five years the brokerage business has really taken off, so I came back to help out.”

Karen focuses on sales and operations. Matt works on finances, business planning, and marketing.

In recent years, they built a proprietary database called Four Start Direct, a web portal that staff and sales agents can access for listings, leads, and other information.

“All of our agents can see all of our listings, and they can do it from any device. There’s a lot of development and upgrade time,” Matt Rearden said. “But people ask us how we’ve been able to scale, and I say it’s all »

Karen Rearden hangs her sign in Central Florida. Photos courtesy of Four Star Homes.

about training and the system. Four Star Direct makes it easy to do that.”

Manufactured Home Sales in Central Florida

Four Star serves customers within about 70 miles of each location.

“We’ve gotten more structure since Matt came on board, and we’ve expanded our marketing efforts,” Karen Rearden said.

There were many years when business activity was good, but it was difficult to find sales agents and office staff. The tone today is different, she said.

“We have people walking in the door who want to work for us now,” Karen Rearden said. “A lot of our agents came to us because they bought a home and liked what we do. Maybe it’s a second career, children are out of the house, and they quickly adopt our company. We do have a family feel,” she said. “We mean our buyers, but sellers and agents too.”

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Matt Rearden said everyone knows Four Star sells manufactured and mobile homes.

“But people are our business, and that’s the way it has always been,” he said.

Building relationships across generations creates familiarity and loyalty that cannot be conjured up in a conference room. Success like Four Star’s is the product of prolonged care, determination, and diligence.

“I feel if you take care of the people, the people will take care of the business. I know their kids, and the birthdays, and whatever difficulties might be taking place,” Karen Rearden said. “We’re there for all of it, and that’s one of my favorite parts about doing what we do.”

The Four Star Business Model

Most of the markets Four Star operates in are places they’ve been for 20 years or more. The business as a whole is better than 50% repeat business.

“If they purchased the home through us, chances are they’re going to list with us when they sell,” Karen Rearden said.

Four Star lists homes that sell for anywhere between $2,200 and $232,000. Agents can provide information and access to home finance options, but most buyers are cashing in a retirement account or other investments and have no need for financing. About 70% of Four Star home sales are in cash, and transactions tend to close in two weeks.

The Four Star agents build relationships with Central Florida manufactured home community owners, operators, and residents. This helps when an agent is picking up a Four Star listing in a given community. They have details on the amenities, lifestyle, and culture of a community. And sometimes they’re asked to run a smaller sales operation from the community.

“One of the biggest challenges is to educate the customer on the value of their home,” Karen Rearden said. “We have a saying: ‘Priced Right, Half Sold’ You have to be armed with good data and price the home correctly to sell quickly.” MHV

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