In a letter to shareholders last month, Buffett wrote that a “very high percentage of [Clayton’s] borrowers kept their homes” during the 2008 housing meltdown and ensuing recession, thanks to “sensible lending practices” that were, he has said, “better than its major competitors.”<p>“Our blue-collar borrowers, in many cases, proved much better credit risks than their higher-income brethren,” Buffett wrote.<p>Yet the company has provided scant data to back up this claim. “I wouldn’t give much credence to those comments,” said James Shanahan, an analyst with Edward Jones who follows Berkshire Hathaway.<p>Berkshire declared each year since 2010 that 98 percent of its loan portfolio is “performing.” Yet elsewhere in its financials, the company discloses that the only loans it considers “non-performing” are those currently in the foreclosure process. That means the impressive-sounding ratio ignores loans that are delinquent and those that have already been foreclosed or the homes repossessed.<p>Across the industry, about 28 percent of non-mortgage mobile home loans fail, according to research prepared for an industry conference by Kenneth Rishel, a consultant who has worked in the field for 40 years. Clayton’s failure rates are 26 percent at 21st Mortgage and 33 percent at Vanderbilt, said Rishel, who cited his research and conversations with Clayton executives.