Don Glisson, Jr., Chairman and CEO of Triad Financial Services, Jacksonville, Florida has been appointed to serve as a member of the Citizens Property Insurance Corporation Board of Governors by Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater.

Citizens was created to provide property insurance coverage to Floridians who cannot get coverage through the private markets. Citizens currently has 1,439,000 policies in force and their capital is over $5 billion.

“Don Glisson, Jr. has extraordinary business skills and leadership that will benefit the Board of Governors,” said CFO Atwater.  “He has had great success in developing his business in Florida and Nationally for many years and will be a real asset to the Board.”

In June of 2010, Don was named by the “Jacksonville Business Journal” as an “Ultimate CEO” for 2010, as voted on by the newspaper’s editors.  Don has been written about and interviewed in numerous publications such as “The Wall Street Journal”, “The New York Times”, “The American Banker” and many others.

Location: Four Seasons, 2220 Sunrise Dr.

Price:        $65,900.00

Contact:   Teresa Utley, ph #270-210-5980

                 tutley@triadfs.com

Triad’s New Web Site Showcases Manufactured Home

Ownership Benefits and Provide Faster Loan Approvals

Jacksonville, FL – 10/5/10 – Triad Financial Services, the nation’s second largest lender in the manufactured home industry today announced the launch of its new web site at www.triadfs.com.  The comprehensive web site provides information and resources to a number of Triad’s markets including manufactured home buyers, dealers & retailers, banks, credit unions and realtors.  Of particular note is Triad’s fast and easy loan approval online with within minutes.

“As if loan approvals were not difficult enough given the tight credit restrictions in this economy…” said Mike Glisson, President of Triad Financial Services, “…clearly, our goal was to make the process faster and easier for all credit worthy home buyers”.

Triad claims it’s new web site is more visually appealing than others in the industry – which helps potential new home owners, dealers, realtors and others navigate the home loan approval process much easier.  www.triadfs.com showcases styles of homes that are not typical of the image that the public thinks of when they envision mobile homes. Triad’s site also educates and shows customers the overall benefits of owning a manufactured home.

“That age old stigma has begun to lift as the modern manufactured homes have made incredible advances over the last 20 years” said Jed Gleim, Executive Vice President at Triad. “For example, manufactured home owners today can take advantage of most upgrades available to site built homes including wood flooring, granite counters, Jacuzzi style tubs and more.  In this economic climate where the customer is getting back to value and basics, manufactured homes make a lot of sense”.

One of the oldest and most trusted names in the lending business, Triad Financial Services was named national lender of the year for the 3^rd time in 2010 by the Manufactured Housing Institute, the industry’s national association and authority.  Triad itself turned 50 in 2009 and has steadily risen to one of the top lenders in the country over the years since its founding in 1959 by Don Glisson Sr.  Headquartered in Jacksonville, FL., Triad also has branch offices in Chicago, IL. Houston, TX., Wichita, KS. and Newport Beach, CA. for a total of 5 branch offices across the country.

“In a lot of ways we still have that ‘mom and pop’ persona:  largely because of the one-on-one way we take care of customers and our dealer network” said Don Glisson Jr., CEO of Triad Financial Services.  “We want to keep that reputation because it’s still very valid, but our new web site is an extension of our image and growth as well as our need to expand those services”.

Mobile Home Makers Try to Stitch Together A Rebound

by James R. Hagerty and Serena Ng (here)

CLARION, Pa.—Builders of manufactured homes—the kind constructed in a factory and often known to the public as mobile homes or trailers—missed out on the great American housing boom. Now some of them hope their industry has finally stopped imploding.

The Manufactured Housing Institute, or MHI, a trade group, earlier this month told its members that shipments in the first seven months of this year were up 6.4% from a year earlier, in part because of stimulus from federal tax credits offered to home buyers earlier this year.

That is encouraging news for Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., owner of Clayton Homes Inc., by far the largest maker of manufactured housing, as well as a host of smaller rivals.

Lax lending practices in the 1990s—a prelude to what happened in the broader housing market several years later—led to a wave of repossessions of manufactured homes, leaving plenty of cheap used ones available and little demand for new products. Cheap credit for “site-built” homes—those built outdoors—lured people with modest incomes away from trailer parks.

As a result, shipments of manufactured homes in the U.S. began falling in 1999 and last year totaled just 49,789, the lowest since the 1950s and down 87% from 1998′s total. By contrast, sales of site-built homes didn’t start falling until 2006 and last year totaled 375,000, a decline of 71% from a peak in 2005.

The median price for site-built houses and condos was about $179,000 in August, according to the National Association of Realtors. Manufactured homes, which usually are sold without land, typically sell in a range of about $35,000 to $100,000.

“I don’t think it gets a lot worse than it is,” says Joe Stegmayer, chief executive of Cavco Industries Inc., a maker of manufactured homes, referring to the manufactured-home industry.

Mr. Stegmayer, meanwhile, is counting on a gradual rise in demand from retiring baby boomers and empty nesters seeking smaller houses, as well as first-time home buyers.

When Berkshire Hathaway bought Clayton for $1.7 billion in 2003, many in the industry thought they were near the bottom of a brutal downturn. But the pain continued.

Clayton has since acquired weaker rivals and become the dominant U.S. maker of manufactured homes, with a market share estimated at 45%. But earnings are down, largely because of a rise in provisions for losses on loans to buyers of the homes. Pretax profit was $187 million in 2009, down from $206 million in 2008 and $526 million in 2007. For this year’s first half, Clayton’s pretax profit was about level with the year-earlier period, Berkshire Hathaway says.

“I see this as a temporary blip for Buffett,” says Paul Howard, an independent analyst in Glastonbury, Conn. “There’s value in being the last person standing and being able to survive the downturn.” Clayton officials and Mr. Buffett declined to comment.

The manufactured homes industry still plays a big role in housing, especially for low-income people, retirees and those living in rural areas. About 19 million people, or 6% of the U.S. population, live in manufactured homes, the MHI says. The industry employs around 75,000 people and annual sales are running at about $3.2 billion.

Today’s manufactured homes often have sloping roofs and arched doorways, and are far different from the rectangular, flat-roofed shoe boxes of the 1960s. The industry notes that the materials that go into manufactured housing—such as pine studs and gypsum wallboard—are the same as those typically used in site-built homes.

Moreover, those products remain inside the factory during construction and aren’t damaged by rain.

At a Champion Home Builders Inc. factory here, about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, workers put together “modules,” or box-like sections of homes, complete with flooring, plumbing, electrical wiring and carpet. The makings of an entire home can be completed in six days. Once delivered, the modules can be attached side by side, or stacked on top of each other to make two- or three-story homes.

Unfortunately, “people still think of the old trailer park and the eyesores,” says Phyllis Knight, acting CEO of Champion.

Don Glisson, CEO of Triad Financial Services Inc., which finances manufactured-home sales, says the industry could use an image-building national advertising campaign, but “nobody wants to pony up the money because times are so tough.”

A bigger disadvantage may be financing costs. Most manufactured homes are financed with personal-property loans, meaning the loan is secured only by the home and not the land, which is often leased from the operator of a housing community. Rates on such loans, which are considered riskier, are around 7% to 11%, compared with less than 5% for conventional home loans.

Although 2008 housing legislation required government-backed mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to support financing for manufactured homes, the regulator of Fannie and Freddie, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, recently decided such loans should be funded only when backed by land as well as by homes. Most buyers of manufactured homes either don’t own the land or don’t want to mortgage it.

Unless the financing disadvantage is eliminated or reduced, “the manufactured-home industry seems destined to struggle and dwindle,” Mr. Buffett said in his annual letter to shareholders earlier this year.

Triad’s Glisson discusses MH lending trends with NY Times.

from Bob Tedeschi, The NY Times here

Triad Financial Services CEO Don Glisson was recently quoted in the NY Times, a further sign of Triad’s recognized leadership position in the manufactured home lending market.  Glisson’s comments can be read in the article here.

ULTIMATE CEOs: Glisson continues tradition of good business decisions.

from Dolly Penland, The Jacksonville Business Journal here

When Don Glisson Jr.’s father bought Triad Financial Services Inc. in 1977 for $25,000, the company was in poor condition. “It wasn’t even worth that,” said Glisson Jr. “It was a couple of million in debt. We made a decision to pay everyone what was owed [rather than] declare bankruptcy.”
It was a shrewd move that has allowed Triad to grow into what is now the second-largest provider of loans for the manufactured housing industry. Now, seven years into his role as CEO, Glisson Jr. continues that tradition of good business decisions.
Last year, he completed a significant acquisition of CIS Financial. Glisson Jr. is now identifying new lines of business for Triad.
“We think that we will do well with other larger ticket consumer items, like boats, RVs and even possibly aircraft financing,” he said. “When you are making a loan on a manufactured home, which is generally someone’s primary home, it’s done as a consumer loan. We have the lenders and the infrastructure. It’s just a matter of branding ourselves in those industries. It also requires more lenders providing more dollars for us to lend.”
He anticipates that the banking industry will return to more normal lending practices in the next year.
In 1977, Triad employed eight people who focused their services in North Florida. Today, the company is doing business in 45 states and has 130 employees. Annual revenue for the company is $21 million. Triad’s total loan volume is about $250 million annually, and it handles loan servicing in excess of $1 billion.
Glisson Jr. led the company to a profitable year in 2009 while the industry was down nationally.
“He has a really good gut for what the numbers are doing, being able to really understand where this industry is heading and where Triad is heading,” said Jed Gleim, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Triad. “The industry has seen tough times. The sales in general have gone down dramatically since 1995, but we have been able to continue the growth. The most important part of that growth is we have kept quality standards at a high level.”
Robert Larison Jr., president at Atlantic Coast Bank said, “I have always found him to be very ethical, very honest, very easy to work with and generally a nice guy. He’s just a great businessman and a great human being. Quite often you don’t find those two characteristics in the same person.”

BJ50: No. 28, Triad Financial Services Inc.

from Jim Nasella, The Jacksonville Business Journal here

The economy has taken its toll on a variety of lenders recently, but Triad Financial Services isn’t one of them, as they lent to customers of manufactured or mobile homes. “There were a few of our competitors that went out of business because they relied on Wall Street for their funding and that dried up,’’ said CEO Don Glisson Jr. “We, fortunately, have always had a business model of selling our product to banks and credit unions and those types of financial institutions and we have a diversified group of those.’’ Because Triad didn’t rely on Wall Street, the company has been able to grow as others wilted“We had an advantage where we weren’t beholden to Wall Street,’’ he said. “We were very fortunate in that respect. So really, as the economy in the mortgage business has tanked, we’ve gone up.’’
The company, which has about 130 employees across the country, had revenue of $21.6 million in 2008, Glisson said. During the past three years, Triad’s growth has averaged 24.89 percent a year, landing it on the Business Journal’s list of the top 50 fastest-growing private companies.
“We are a true national lender,’’ Glisson said. “Our trade association, which is a thousand members strong, the last three years in a row, named us the national lender of the year in our business.’’
In addition to the dwindling competition, Glisson said his customers don’t nearly fit the negative stereotype tagged on manufactured home buyers.
“Manufactured housing or mobile homes sometimes have a negative image and that image is completely distorted from reality, what the product looks like and the type of people who occupy the homes,’’ he said. “That’s good and bad. It’s bad because investors and banks are a little bit leery of it, but the good news is it keeps the competition down because they don’t understand the product.’’
He’s thankful those customers bought within their means.
“Our buyers bought the home they should have bought over the past five years,’’ he said. “They didn’t go out and try to buy a $200,000 home they could not afford. Our customers went out and bought a $65,000 manufactured home on a fixed-rate, fixed-term loan. We haven’t had the kind of issues the mortgage companies have had at all.’’

Every year MHI industry leaders vote for the companies that are considered the best in their class. This is the sixth time Triad has been recognized by MHI, winning “Regional Lender of the Year” in 2006, 2005, 2003, 2002, and 2001.

“Triad’s ultimate goal is to be the manufactured housing industry lender of choice,” stated Don Glisson, Jr., Chairman and CEO of Triad Financial Services. “With nearly 50 years of experience financing manufactured homes we know we can offer our retailers competitive financing programs for a variety of products. We also know we have been here in the past and that we will continue to be here for our retailers and their customers in the future.”