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Mountain State Spotlight: Mercer County mobile home residents struggle with rent hikes and neglected maintenance. Here are their stories

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PRINCETON — Melissa Poe barely sleeps. She goes through spells when she can’t get out of bed, because at any second, her body and mind tell her another tragedy is bound to happen.

Her dad died when she was nine, and her daughter died at age two. Her fiancé died the next year. Now a single mother with cancer, Poe said her breaking point was the purchase of her Mercer County mobile home community by out-of-state companies.

“I don’t know how to smile because I have nothing positive,” she said.

Several years ago, the companies bought the Mercer County Gardner Estates, Elk View, Country Roads, Delaney and Shadow Wood mobile home parks. Poe...

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I always find these articles confusing. The park looks very nice in the photos yet somehow the residents claim they are living in “deplorable” conditions. The rent hike from $225 to $500 sounds like a lot until you take the five seconds to go to Bestplaces.net and see that the Princeton, West Virginia single-family home price averages $141,000 and the average apartment is $1,010 per month – so the lot rent has gone from ridiculously low to only just spectacularly low based on all competing housing options. And then there’s the fact that the residents complain that at $525 they’ve had to move back in with family members and can’t afford to live which means – based on the Federal Government’s claim that 33% of income is a reasonable housing cost – they must earn less than $1,500 per month, despite the fact that the minimum wage in West Viginia is $9 an hour. $9 per hour works out to exactly $1,500 per month, so these folks must be earning less than minimum wage and should immediately report that to the employment commission.

What’s also confusing is why there is such a fury in the article about “the purchase of the Mercer County mobile home community by out-of-state companies”. Is there something wrong with being an “out-of-state” company vs. an in-state? If that’s indeed a bad thing then there must be real problems in Princeton because a quick review of just about every business there – from McDonald’s to the Hampton Inn – is owned by an “out-of-state” group.

So, let’s just be honest. The former mom-and-pop owners of this park were out of their minds charging $225 per month in lot rent. That was the typical rent back in the 1970s. The rent should always have been $500 per month or higher for the last decade. The residents surely know this but, gosh darn it, it was a great scam while it lasted. So don’t pretend that it’s evil or that “out-of-state” ownership is the problem here. This is just another article promoted by the Free Rent Movement which simply wants all rent to be free. To them, even the $225 rent was too much.

PROBUILDER: Mobile Home Price Growth Outpaces Single-Family

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Home prices remain high across the U.S., and this has caused some buyers to explore more affordable options, such as mobile homes. However, while mobile homes are generally less expensive than traditional site-built houses, a recent study from online lending marketplace LendingTree shows that mobile home prices are actually rising faster than prices for single-family homes.

As of 2023, the average sales price of new mobile homes exceeded $124,000, while the average price of a new site-built home cost $409,872 during the same time. Between 2018 and 2023, mobile home prices increased by 58.34%, outpacing the 37.66% increase in site-built...

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The classic manipulation in which you focus only on the percentage increase but not the actual price:

As of 2023, the average sales price of new mobile homes exceeded $124,000, while the average price of a new site-built home cost $409,872 during the same time. Between 2018 and 2023, mobile home prices increased by 58.34%, outpacing the 37.66% increase in site-built single-family home prices. 

So let me get this straight. Mobile homes are evil because they went up $72,000 while stick-built homes went up $160,000 during the same period? Well, that’s what the article is saying. Good thing for McDonald’s that they didn’t include the McChicken Sandwich because it’s the most evil of all at a 300% increase during that same period, going from $1 to $3. News flash: there’s more to cost than percentage. It’s the actual dollar amount of increase that is all-important.

The Coast News Group: San Marcos sets moratorium to protect senior mobile home parks

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SAN MARCOS — The San Marcos City Council enacted a 45-day moratorium this week to prevent mobile home park owners from altering age requirements at senior-only parks, protecting senior housing in the city.

City leaders adopted the ordinance on Tuesday night in response to a situation at Lakeview Mobile Estates, one of 12 senior mobile home parks in the city. The park rents to those 55 and older.

In July, park owners distributed a notice to residents with updated rules and regulations, stating that ownership reserves the right to change the park to an all-ages park at any time. 

According to the City Attorney’s Office, this raised...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Under the California Mobilehome Residency Law (MRL), senior parks are defined as those where at least 80% of the residents are 55 and older. In an October letter to the city, Dowdall Law stated that mobile home park owners have authority over the MRL after the U.S. Supreme Court ended 40 years of precedent set in Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. earlier this year. The court’s June 2024 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo states that courts are no longer required to defer to a federal agency’s interpretation of ambiguously written law and restores the right to the court to interpret these laws independently.

OK, this attorney is smarter than most. He’s exactly correct to attack the California law itself that is potentially no longer valid after the Chevron ruling by the Supreme Court. That needs to be fully litigated before any defense of the park owner is warranted.

I’m hoping that MHI and others are going to litigate everything from the HUD installation standards to OSHA, the CFPB and every other rule and regulation that were crammed down the throats of park owners in violation of the new Supreme Court ruling. One MHA insider told me that it may take at least a decade for all these key regulations to be shot down after all appeals are exhausted. Need to start that process now.

CBS NEWS: Rough police takedown of woman at Sweetwater mobile home park sparks outrage

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SWEETWATER - Tensions are running high at Li'l Abner Mobile Home Park after cellphone video shows the rough takedown of a woman by police at the mobile park's management office Wednesday.

CBS News Miami has learned the woman, identified as Vivian Hernandez, was voicing her concerns about the redevelopment and ongoing demolition when she was taken to the ground.

Hernandez was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, breach of peace, trespass and resisting arrest. The incident has further ignited the anger of residents already grappling with the looming displacement.

"We are aware of the arrest circulating on social media involving one...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Yes, this is the same park that, last week, the residents were demanding $40 million in compensation from, even though it appears that the law says they are entitled to nothing. To quell the rebellion the property owner has “offered $14,000 for those who leave by January 31, $7,000 by April 30, and $3,000 after that. Despite these offers, many residents, some of whom have lived there for decades, are protesting what they see as unfair treatment and an abrupt upheaval of their lives.”

So now the residents have apparently started to physically threaten the park’s management.

I’m sure the Free Rent Movement folks would say that all of this is warranted. But the fact remains that the park is shutting down. And why is it closing? To build apartments on the land, as usual, because the lot rents were too low to make it compelling to leave it as a mobile home park instead of an apartment complex.

The Minnesota Star Tribune: Mobile home park residents seek rent relief from Lake Elmo

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The residents of a Lake Elmo mobile home park say their lot rents have risen so quickly that members fear they’ll be priced out and lose their homes after years, and in some cases decades, of making payments.

The rising rents, along with what they say is a hostile management overseeing the park, were the basis for a new call for relief from the Cimarron Residents Association, a group representing the homeowners at the park on Lake Elmo Avenue N.

“This is my home. I want to stay,” said Marge Schmig, who moved into the park two years ago after her husband died.

Cimarron Park and Golf Course has seen rents for the lots — the...

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Cimarron Park and Golf Course has seen rents for the lots — the land that each mobile home sits on — rise by some 30% since 2020, according to Brey Mafi, a park resident and a member of the Residents Association. For residents living on a fixed income, each rent increase has left them with less money for groceries and other essentials. The next price hike of 6% takes effect on Jan. 1, she said. Resident John Murphy said the increases seem to be excessive when compared with inflation; the residents say services at the park haven’t improved significantly to match the price increases, either, citing problems ranging from inadequate lighting to restrictive hours at the park’s swimming pool and poor upkeep of the park’s golf course. A spokeswoman for park owner Equity Lifestyle Properties, based in Chicago, said rents have risen 5.6% each year over the past five years. The raises have been commensurate with what’s happening with apartment rents across Washington County, said spokesperson Jennifer Ludovice. The average price for a new home at Cimarron was $76,500, while the median price of a home in Lake Elmo was around $650,000 this year, based on numbers provided by Realtor.com,

The response by ELS says it all. This is just more Free Rent Movement insanity. Under Biden, everything in America has gone up just as much as the mobile home park rents have (20% to 30%). As I’ve written before, rent only ranks as 5th on the average American’s expenditures list, outranked by healthcare, childcare, transportation and taxes. Where’s the Free Health Movement, the Free Childcare Movement, the Free Transportation Movement or the Free from Taxation Movement?

But you gotta love the residents’ claim that the park is a mess due to “inadequate lighting, reduced hours at the swimming pool and poor upkeep of the golf course”. Is that seriously the best you could do to try to make your case? That would be like complaining to the Ritz Calton’s management that you should not have to pay for your hotel stay because the mint under your pillow was not large enough.

The Dispatch: Cooperative preserves affordable housing in Parkland

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The Pierce County Community Development Corporation (PCCDC) is awarding $750,000 to a resident-owned cooperative for the purchase of Olga Dor Court, a Mobile Home Community (MHC) for seniors aged 55 years or older in Parkland.

Olga Dor Court residents were notified earlier this year that the property owner intended to sell the community, which is a 5-acre, 100%-occupied MHC consisting of 48 manufactured housing pads and a single-family residence. With the assistance of the ROC Northwest program at the Northwest Cooperative Development Center, a nonprofit specializing in cooperative development, they formed a resident-owned cooperative to...

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"Our top priority was keeping housing affordable for the people here," said Ben Ward, president of Olga Dor Homeowners Cooperative. "Without this opportunity, many residents couldn't afford another rent increase. Cooperative ownership lets us manage our community - setting our own rules, overseeing the budget and securing a stable future. Achieving this goal brings financial stability and peace of mind. We're deeply grateful to everyone who helped make this possible." 

Here's the problem with this narrative, which is a darling of the Free Rent Movement folks:

  1. The loan payment is the same for non-profits and for-profits, namely the amount borrowed at the prevailing interest rate, plus principal reduction. So the residents have no advantage there.
  2. The operating cost of a mobile home park (water, sewer, electric, insurance, property tax, etc.) are the same with a non-profit or a for-profit. So the residents have no advantage there.
  3. As a result, the lot rent to the residents is going to be the same whether it’s bought by a non-profit or a for-profit. This is just a mathematical fact.
  4. The for-profit has a huge advantage, however, over the non-profit in operations. The residents will never vote for the necessary lot rent increases, invest in required cap-x, or even collect money from their friends. So the quality of the park goes down the drain rapidly.
  5. In the end, the residents are actually better off NOT owning the park. Just ask the residents of the park called Sans Souci as described in this article.

The whole “tenant owned” initiative is – for the most part – nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

Valley News Live: Residents of Jamestown mobile home park still upset over evictions

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JAMESTOWN, N.D. (Valley News Live) - Pamela Syverson, of Western Park Village, has just days to vacate her home after she said she’s getting wrongly evicted.

She previously came to Valley News Live asking for help back in April. “I’ve never imagined myself in a situation like this,” she said. “Since then, things have gotten worse for me.”

She’s had five open brain surgeries and is now deemed medically frail. She can barely walk, lift anything over 15 pounds, or even go outside.

Syverson explained, “It’s hard not being able to go outside and not being able to assist. Never in my life have I been the one to ask for help. I’ve always been...

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“I just don’t understand what would possess someone to do something like this, to people like this”

It’s a fact that it costs a mobile home park owner around $10,000 between lost rent, legal fees, home demolition, etc. when you evict a resident. Park owners only do this as a last resort. It all begins with unpaid rent or really bad rules violations and escalates when there’s no payment or property clean up after repeated warnings in-line with state law.

This is yet another article sponsored by the Free Rent Movement with no apparent basis in fact. I’m sure that if you flew out to the property right now and inspected the premises you would say in two seconds “OK, now I understand why they’re being evicted”. The property owner is too good-natured to expose the facts.

NEWSBREAK: Florida Mobile-Trailer-Home Conundrum: Affordable Housing at a Perilous Costs

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Fla. News — In the Sunshine State, mobile homes have long been a refuge of affordable housing, offering a viable alternative to the soaring costs of traditional homes. However, this affordability comes with significant risks for those who rent in mobile home parks. As more parks close and sell their land to developers, mobile homeowners are left struggling with expensive moves and the challenge of finding new parks willing to take them, especially older trailers.

Florida is home to nearly 1 million mobile homes, with over 3,000 mobile home parks scattered across the state. These parks often provide a community atmosphere and an affordable...

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The parks are closing and the land is being redeveloped BECAUSE THE LOT RENTS ARE NOT HIGH ENOUGH. It‘s not any more complicated than that. The same people that complain that rents rise too quickly are also the ones that then whine when the park is torn down to make way for a more profitable use. Surely, this can’t be that hard to grasp: THE SOLUTION IS TO FOCUS ON HOW HIGH LOT RENTS NEED TO BE FOR THESE PARKS TO CONTINUE TO BE MORE ATTRACTIVE AS MOBILE HOME PARKS RATHER THAN A DIFFERENT USE. Here’s an analogy. Tom is the best salesman at Ajax Tire company. He tells his boss “you know I’m getting a lot of other job offers at a higher salary than I get at Ajax so I’m going to maybe quit” to which the owner says “how dare you ask for more money, can’t you see how hard my life is?” So Tom resigns, goes to ABC Tire and Ajax later goes bankrupt. Wouldn’t it have been smarter for Tom’s boss to say “OK Tom, we don’t want to lose you, so how much more do we need to pay you?” Yes, obviously.

Steamboat Pilot & Today: Deal in the works for Milner Mobile Home Park purchase

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For more than 24 years, Melanie Stewart, a longtime Yampa Valley resident, has called the Milner Mobile Home Park home.

“I’ve always known that I’ve lived on rented land,” Stewart said Monday when asked about the offer the Milner Park Community Co-op made to purchase the park late last week. “To know that our neighborhood will be here long-term with reasonable costs … We will still have monthly (lot) fees because we must pay the loan, our operating costs and build our reserve, but to know that it is going towards just securing our long-term housing — that makes it worth it.”

The Milner Park Community cooperative, a group that includes...

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Our thoughts on this story:

This article is similar to the one above – and equally misguided. In this case, the residents acknowledge that the rents will pretty much be the same as if a professional owner bought it, but somehow what really matters is this false sense of security that this situation will yield lifetime safety from re-development:

“To know that our neighborhood will be here long-term with reasonable costs … We will still have monthly (lot) fees because we must pay the loan, our operating costs and build our reserve, but to know that it is going towards just securing our long-term housing — that makes it worth it.”

But if anyone had bothered to read their own articles – or use a calculator – they’d quickly figure out the problem with this concept. In this case, the non-profit (who really owns this) is paying nearly $200,000 per lot.

The Milner Park Community cooperative, a group that includes Stewart and five other residents representing the 40 homes, offered $7.75 million for the property.

There’s no way that they will ever be able to handle that debt load. This is a guaranteed foreclosure down the road, unless the rents go into the stratosphere (like $1,500 per month or so).

Santa’s take on this: Non-Profit Naughty

Colorado Sun: Residents rally to buy mobile home park and protect affordable housing in Lafayette

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In small print on a white no-trespassing street sign, the text reads, “Mountain View Mobile Home Park.” It’s one of the last remnants of the former ownership of the now-resident-owned community in Lafayette.

Denise Schafer smiled as she glanced at the sign during a mid-September stroll through the neighborhood — renamed La Luna Community Cooperative — with LaVern Schafer, her husband and the co-op board president. The couple recounted stories of raising their two children and caring for their grandchildren in their neighborhood of nearly 40 years, which they now partly own.

“I’m very proud that we purchased it. … It’s a phenomenal thing...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Apparently, the media that raves over the tenant-owned mobile home park model doesn’t bother to read their own articles. Let’s start off with the myth that the resident-owned model means that rents won’t go up. Here’s the reality, right here from the source that puts these deals together:

That doesn’t mean rents won’t ever increase, but they will become more stable over time…

What does that even mean?

Well, here’s the bad news for these folks. When a private owner raises rents, it’s typically only to catch up to market levels and then increases go into a “stable” period which pretty much tracks inflation. Since the mortgage payment and all other costs are the same under private or non-profit ownership, you’re going to end up at the same monthly rent regardless. But, unlike the professional owner, the residents are typically lousy operators and have no clue on how to collect rents or manage maintenance. And that leads to the following bombshell stat that appears later in the article:

Nine manufactured home communities with 451 homes in Colorado have become ROC USA resident-owned communities, according to ROC USA. The process is complicated and wouldn’t have been possible without Thistle’s guidance, LaVern Schafer said. Two ROCs have since defaulted on their loans, which the nonprofits are working to help resolve by providing them with more resources and support, but none have dissolved or reverted to private ownership.

That’s pretty much an INCREDIBLY BAD performance. So we’re saying that out of nine tenant-owned properties with mortgages, TWO HAVE ALREADY DEFAULTED. That’s more than 20%. If that was the track-record of a professional owner, they would be shunned by lenders and could never get a loan again.

And then there’s the other elephant in the room that nobody ever wants to talk about: THE RESIDENTS DON’T ACTUALLY OWN THE THING, NON-PROFITS DO. So the actual name of these deals should NOT be “resident owned” but actually “non-profit owned”. That’s who is putting up the down payment and guaranteeing the mortgage. And that means the residents – regardless of what B.S. is strewn about – have no control over their destiny at all. When the loan comes due on the park (typically five years in term) the non-profit can sell the park off (it already has happened).

Check out this article about the resident-owned business model: https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/22/sans-souci-boulder-county-mobile-home-park-challenges/. Wow, sounds like paradise, right?

Santa’s take on this: Non-Profit Naughty

FOX 26 Houston: Houston mobile home park residents hope Harris Co. can help save their homes

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HOUSTON - Tenants from the Country Road Mobile Home Park gathered at 7 p.m. inside Houston First Church of God to discuss their next steps in the fight to keep their homes. 

"So I know legally he can do whatever he wants, but morally it’s wrong," said Frankie Schwarzburg. 

Empty lots are a lot of what you’ll see at Country Road Mobile Home Park now, after 53 families quickly went down to less than 40 because the owner decided to sell the land. 

Forcing many to get up and go.

"It hurts every time a person leaves, our heart breaks a little more. Our community is breaking apart. You know people who can move are leaving quickly, they don’t...

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Here we go again:

"We are looking mainly at keeping a trailer park a mobile home park. Maybe if they want to see the first option could be the tenants, give them the opportunity to purchase their land," said Schwarzburg, "If not, it would be good to offer the next buy to demand that it stay a mobile home park," The Texas Organizing Project says they hope Harris County can find a way to help country road mobile home tenants. 

The residents have no money but want to “buy” the mobile home park. Do you see the problem with that? These deals revolve around two things: 1) find a non-profit to provide the down payment and 2) find a non-profit to personally guarantee the mortgage. Then repeat every five years or so for 30 years. That’s just not going to happen. How many of these tenant-owned deals have ever made it to the final payoff of the mortgage? Any?

It would be more honest to simply call the “resident-owned” park concept what it truly is: the “non-profit-owned”. And, like any private sector owner, these non-profits can later simply sell the park off to another buyer when they lose interest in guaranteeing the debt or want their down-payment money back. I have showcased that exact outcome in many of these article reviews in the past.

kbps: Future of Vista's Green Oak Ranch means evictions for RV community

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For years, the RV park at Green Oak Ranch in Vista has filled an affordable housing need for many families.

"I paid $20,000 for the house. My rent is a thousand. But because I work at the gate, they take $200 off a month. I pay $800 a month," said Hubert Reed Jr.

He has been living at the park for almost nine years with his family in a tiny house that was already on the property.

"Man, I've been in California 38 years. I have never lived anywhere like this," Reed said.

But now he has to find a new space for his tiny home by Dec. 1. That's a challenge.

"Because of the height, no mobile home park wants it. It's too high," he said. "So it...

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Last summer, more than 30 families lived in the RV community at Green Oak Ranch. Then in July, the nonprofit Solutions for Change was chosen to take the property over in a lease-to-own deal. That takeover doesn’t happen until Jan. 1, but eviction notices have already gone out.

There’s not a lot of detail in this article, but here we have a non-profit kicking out the residents of an RV park they have just taken over to supposedly “help” the residents. You see the Golden Rule is that “he who has the gold makes the rules”. And if the non-profits are required to personally guarantee the debt or the mortgage defaults, then the non-profit is really the owner and can do whatever it likes. The residents have simply traded a private-sector owner for a non-profit owner. They are no more in control of their destiny with a non-profit than they are with a for-profit, contrary to how these groups may try to spin it.

KING 5: Residents in Parkland form cooperative to purchase their mobile home park

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PARKLAND, Wash. — A group of residents in Pierce County banded together to purchase their mobile home park. They made the decision after they found out the property was going to be sold.

The residents at Olga Dor Mobile Home Park in Parkland were able to do this by creating a cooperative with the help of multiple organizations including the Northwest Cooperative Development Center and the Pierce County Community Development Corporation (PCCDC).

The PCCDC gave the cooperative $750,000 to go towards the purchase of the property.

This will be the sixth resident-owned cooperative community in Pierce County. It is the first one to...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Another “non-profit-purchased” mobile home park which will probably limp along until later resold to a professional owner for all the reasons stated earlier.

Santa’s take on this: Non-Profit Naughty

Norada Real Estate: Elon Musk’s $10,000 Homes: A Game Changer for the Housing Market?

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The internet is abuzz about Elon Musk’s introduction of $10,000 homes. If made possible, it can mark more than just an effort to provide cheaper housing options; it will embody a pioneering approach aimed at tackling one of society's most pressing challenges: affordable housing in the United States.

With housing prices soaring and wages stagnating, many struggle to make ends meet. Musk’s plan for these homes suggests a radical shift in how we think about home ownership, making it accessible for first-time buyers and those living in financial uncertainty.

By redefining affordability, these homes may not only lay the groundwork for a more...

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I love how the disclaimer shows the real price of the “Casita” is $60,000 and not $10,000. Talk about “bait and switch” tactics. I was actually interested in this article until I realized I had been scammed.

Daily Montanan: To save affordable housing, states promote resident-owned mobile home parks

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LIBERTY, Missouri — During her 25 years living in a quiet suburban mobile home park, Kristi Peterman got to know the neighbors directly next door and a few across the street.

But since she and her neighbors collectively purchased the sprawling park outside of Kansas City from its longtime owner in 2021, she’s gotten to know just about every resident.

“It’s a community, and not just a neighborhood,” she said. “A neighborhood is a group of houses or homes that are in proximity of each other. A community is something entirely different.”

Housing prices are soaring across the country, and the shortage of affordable housing is a primary...

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Our thoughts on this story:

No, to “save affordable housing” you need higher lot rents. Rents high enough that redevelopment is not as attractive. The “resident-owned” mobile home park model does nothing to reduce lot rent nor to save the park from the wrecking ball – in fact it creates higher rents and increases later redevelopment. Why? Because the residents are lousy at managing the property, collecting rents, and holding costs down. As the income declines, the non-profits that guarantee the debt retract their support, and the property goes back on the open market as a tear-down. Just read about the plight of the “resident-owned” park called Sans Souci in Colorado. This is only the tip of the iceberg.

In ten years, there will be a ton of articles like Sans Souci and many of those parks will have already been torn down. Just watch. This is a non-profit, virtue signaling fad that has no hope of long-term success. That’s why there are so few of these deals in America – the non-profits that personally guarantee the residents’ debt realize that this is not viable over a 30-year mortgage horizon.

KFOR: Families face “financial ruin” with state land lease increase

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SHAWNEE, Okla. (KFOR) – Several families in Shawnee will be faced with tough decisions come January—up and move or potentially fall into financial ruin. The families have leased land from the Commissioners of the Land Office (CLO) around the Shawnee Twin Lakes area.

They received a letter in the mail in November that said the yearly lease fees were going up by more than 500 percent.

For nearly seven years, Josh Clark and his family have called a piece of property on Twin Lakes home, purchasing a house on a little more than an acre in 2018.

“Whenever I was a kid, I grew up on this lake,” said Clark. “My granddad had a lake house. I always...

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SHAWNEE, Okla. (KFOR) – Several families in Shawnee will be faced with tough decisions come January—up and move or potentially fall into financial ruin. The families have leased land from the Commissioners of the Land Office (CLO) around the Shawnee Twin Lakes area. They received a letter in the mail in November that said the yearly lease fees were going up by more than 500 percent.

Kind of negates all the positive PR that was spun in those earlier articles about how non-profits keep mobile home park lot rents low and stable. Unless you consider a 500% annual increase low and stable. Not sure I’ve ever seen a professional owner go up 500% in the past 30 years. Maybe 501C3 stands for “501% cash from thee”.

Santa’s take on this: Non-Profit Naughty

The News Tribune: Parkland mobile-home park was being sold. County ponied up $750K to help residents buy it Read more at: https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article295814199.html#storylink=cpy

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ierce County is investing to prevent the displacement of residents at a mobile home community in Parkland that was nearly sold and redeveloped. Olga Dor Court has nearly 50 homes for people over 55 years old. Residents were notified earlier this year that the property owner intended to sell the community.

Pierce County invested $750,000 from the Pierce County Community Development Corporation (PCCDC) fund, which set aside $2.75 million to invest in and maintain affordable-housing stock in the region. The money helped partners preserve the affordable housing the community offered.

In a statement regarding the acquisition, Councilmember...

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Now we come to the next part of the problem with tenant-owned communities:

“Our top priority was keeping housing affordable for the people here,” said Ben Ward, president of Olga Dor Homeowners Cooperative in a statement regarding the transaction. “Without this opportunity, many residents couldn’t afford another rent increase. Cooperative ownership lets us manage our community — setting our own rules, overseeing the budget and securing a stable future.”

If the tenants buy the park from the owner at the market price, they have the same debt load as the private sector, right? And the cost of water, sewer, insurance, property tax – and every other expense line item at the park – costs just the same if the tenants own it or the private sector, right? And these costs inflate at the same pace whether you’re a non-profit or not, right? OK, then explain to me how the resident-owned model saves these folks even a penny in monthly lot rent over an outside owner? Of course, you can’t because they don’t.

The only people who benefit from the tenants buying the park are the non-profits who pocket the fees from the transaction and get their five-minutes of fame. The residents are screwed as their own mismanagement yields rents that are as high or higher than a professional owner would charge, but the quality of life is greatly reduced due to poor operations. I again urge you to read about Sans Souci in Colorado for verification of this.

Ouray News: Mobile home park sale talks stall

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The residents of Swiss Village Mobile Home Park in Ouray have reached a stalemate in their effort to buy the land underneath their homes, potentially casting doubt on the future of the park.

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Our thoughts on this story:

The residents of Swiss Village Mobile Home Park in Ouray have reached a stalemate in their effort to buy the land underneath their homes, potentially casting doubt on the future of the park.

See, told you so. These deals are not about tenants buying the land but instead about finding non-profits to pony up the down-payment and guarantee the mortgage. And then there’s the small problem that a typical mobile home park mortgage has a 25 or 30-year amortization yet the non-profits only want to go about 5 years before jumping ship – just long enough to get the media attention and headlines. When long-term debt and short-term commitment collide the end result is disastrous.

Yahoo! Finance: Over 900 mobile home owners in Sweetwater, Florida handed move-out notices amid plans to transform park

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Residents of Li'l Abner Mobile Home Park in Sweetwater, Florida, were recently notified that they'll need to find somewhere else to live and quickly. The community of more than 900 mobile homes, together housing roughly 2,000 to 3,000 people per the mayor's estimate, will close in May 2025 to make way for new affordable and workforce housing.

Mobile home owners usually own the home but rent the land it stands on. The land owner in this case, CREI Holdings, says it will provide a financial incentive of $14,000 to residents who leave by January 31, 2025. Those who leave by March 31 or April 30, will receive $7,000 and $3,000, respectively,...

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Yes, this is the same story from last week, in which a giant 900-space mobile home park is being torn down to build apartments. The fact is that mobile home park lot rents average $300 per month in the U.S while apartments average $2,000 per month. And you can stack apartments three stories high while mobile homes can’t be stacked. As a result, every mobile home park in America has a constant risk of redevelopment into apartments. And why not? Mobile home parks have great locations on major streets with easy access to water, sewer and electricity. Plus, city government hates their existence and would do anything to get rid of them, including granting any zoning a developer wants. The only thing holding back redevelopment is the amount of lot rent the mobile home park charges. In this case, the amount of lot rent was too low to not make redevelopment the better option. But it seems crazy that nobody has figured out yet that LOW LOT RENTS = REDEVELOPMENT. It’s not rocket science. Articles such as this one would be much more productive if they explored this key issue and figured out what the lot rent should have been for none of this to have happened.

You also have to love the pathetic response from the Mayor:

“My administration and the city commissioners are diligently exploring every available resource while we continue to stand by our community to help these troubling times and transition."

Talk about a “Kamala word salad”. It’s similar to Teddy Roosevelt’s classic “we shall endeavor to persevere” – which means absolutely nothing.

Signal Cleveland: Posted inNews What it took to find new homes for more than 100 Euclid Beach Mobile Home park residents

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It was a daunting task to relocate 107 residents from the Euclid Beach Mobile Home park. After more than a year of work, the last few residents recently moved out. What remains is a mostly graveyard of vacant homes, several in the process of being demolished.

Officials from the nonprofit Western Reserve Land Conservancy (WRLC), which owns the 28.5-acre mobile home park on the shores of Lake Erie in Cleveland’s North Collinwood neighborhood, announced in 2023 that the park would close this year. The grounds would be converted into green space and turned over to the Cleveland Metroparks as a part of a major redevelopment of adjacent Euclid...

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Officials from the nonprofit Western Reserve Land Conservancy (WRLC), which owns the 28.5-acre mobile home park on the shores of Lake Erie in Cleveland’s North Collinwood neighborhood, announced in 2023 that the park would close this year. The grounds would be converted into green space and turned over to the Cleveland Metroparks as a part of a major redevelopment of adjacent Euclid Beach Park.

Now wait a minute – I thought non-profits were the folks that guaranteed safety from redevelopment in all those earlier articles? Well, apparently NOT.

Santa’s take on this: Non-Profit Naughty

WWSB ABC7: State inspectors starting damage assessments on Bradenton Beach

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BRADENTON BEACH, Fla. (WWSB) - State inspectors have started going door-to-door on Bradenton Beach as anxious homeowners await to hear what the future holds for their property.

“What they are doing now, they are going around and collecting data. They’ll take that data and plug it into a system called crisis track,” said Bradenton Beach Building Department’s Darin Cushing.

He said that this data will then be used to determine if the home meets the threshold of suffering substantial damage, which means it would cost 50% or more of the structure’s market value to get it back to its normal condition.

If that is the case, Cushing said, “The...

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“What they are doing now, they are going around and collecting data. They’ll take that data and plug it into a system called crisis track,” said Bradenton Beach Building Department’s Darin Cushing. He said that this data will then be used to determine if the home meets the threshold of suffering substantial damage, which means it would cost 50% or more of the structure’s market value to get it back to its normal condition. If that is the case, Cushing said, “The owners are required to bring that building into compliance with flood code, building code, and fire code as well.”

From the same FEMA that brought you the classic “don’t render aid to anyone with a Trump sign in their yard” now comes a new hit that is at least egalitarian “don’t render aid to anyone period”. How can FEMA take this moment to suddenly change the rules of the game and start declaring properties unworthy of aid when the whole point is to help people out that got flooded? This is the cruelest policy I’ve ever seen.

Miami Herald: He emptied his 401(k) to buy a mobile home. It’s being razed to build affordable housing

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Four months ago, Hamilton Dos Santos liquidated his life savings, including his 401(k), to purchase a home — a four-bedroom, two-bathroom trailer in Sweetwater’s Li’l Abner Mobile Home Park, for which he paid $160,000. He found a notice in his mailbox last Tuesday. His home, in effect, was no longer his.

Last week, the park’s owner, CREI Holdings, notified Dos Santos, along with the other 900-plus mobile homeowners, that the park will permanently close on May 19. Residents have until then to vacate the premises, with or without their houses.

According to The Urban Group, a development management company that’s overseeing the property’s...

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The Urban Group did confirm that tenants of the park will have priority access to apartments in Li’l Abner III, the adjacent building that’s currently under construction, as well as any future affordable housing built on the park, “including the first month free,” the company added. Li’l Abner’s closure comes as mobile home parks throughout Miami-Dade are being shuttered. They generally occupy large pieces of land and are relatively cheap to buy out, making them sought-after targets for developers looking to build denser, multi-family units or commercial projects.

This is the same article as above (there were no less than 9 similar articles on this same topic) but what’s interesting in this one is that it’s revealed that the Sweetwater park is being torn down to build apartments. I’ve been writing forever that LOW LOT RENTS = REDEVELOPMENT and that’s exactly what’s happening here. What would the lot rent have needed to be to keep the park from being torn down? I’m not sure. But America is going to have to realize that mobile home park land can be used for many other things and that the insanely low lot rents (around $300 per month on average versus $2,000 per month for apartments) means that every park in the U.S. is a potential target for a different use.

Cascade PBS: Priced Out: Fear and resistance in WA mobile home parks

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Debbie Chandler’s landlord had threatened fines if she didn’t tidy up her lot in Hideaway Community, a mobile home park near Spokane. Because she suffers from chronic illness and a bad back, the 65-year-old former veterinary tech already struggled with yard work in the August heat, but the cloud of yellowjackets that dogged her as she worked made it nearly intolerable.

“I’ve already been stung so much this week, it ain’t funny,” she said.

The underground wasps’ nests all over the park were just one sign of poor upkeep at Hideaway. Chandler said she slipped on a perennial patch of ice surrounding the mailboxes last winter and...

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Many can no longer afford to live there, but leaving would mean abandoning the homes they own, and there is nowhere cheaper to go. 

I wrote an article recently regarding the McChicken sandwich at McDonalds, which has gone up 300% within two years, yet still sells just as well as when it was a dollar. Why? Because even at $3 it’s about the cheapest thing on the menu. In this case, you have mobile home park residents who say “I hate my landlord for giving me the cheapest place to live in my city”. It makes no sense. Shouldn’t the title to this article be “thank heavens they don’t redevelop this mobile home park”?

Are the folks that write these articles aware that housing is only the fifth highest monthly cost for the average American family? The four ahead of housing are healthcare, childcare, transportation and taxes. Why are there no articles addressing how punishing those costs are and how much they’ve gone up under the Biden regime? Once you fix those four, then you can talk about housing, in my opinion.

CBS NEWS: Partial victory for Colorado mobile home park residents seeking to buy park

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Residents who started a cooperative to purchase a mobile home park in Littleton have pieced together enough financing to buy the property, but that's only part of their mission.

"We still need to raise a million-and-a-half dollars to ensure that every single person in this park does not have to move," said the cooperative's operations manager Sandy Cook.

The 129 residents of the over-55 park are seeking to purchase the property after a Utah-based corporation offered to buy the property from its current owners for $18 million. It would have been a tidy profit for the owners, who purchased 18 acres in 2016 for $7.4 million, then split off...

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"We do not want to lose anyone at all in this park. And the only way we can do that is to raise another million-and-a-half," said Cook. There's been little money to be found among agencies and non-profits that work to create housing or prevent homelessness.

Here’s a reality check: raising $1.5 million by passing the hat around the mobile home park is not going to work. This is what I’ve been writing about for years: RESIDENTS DON’T BUY PARKS: NON-PROFITS DO. Finding non-profits that want to chip in cold hard cash is tough, if not impossible. That’s why virtually none of these tenant park purchases ever pan out.

CiberCuba: Residents of a Miami mobile home park appeal to the goodwill of owners to reach an agreement

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Residents of the Lil' Abner mobile home park in Sweetwater remain distressed over the eviction order looming over them and are seeking to reach a satisfactory agreement with the property owners by any means possible.

A video shared on TikTok by user Alejandro González Páez showed a segment of a meeting held on Friday night by a group of neighbors from the mobile home park, where a woman was heard saying that, for the time being, those affected did not have legal representation.

"We don't have a lawyer at the moment," the woman said to those gathered. According to González Páez, "the residents of this community still hold out hope in the...

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“neighbors appeal to the "goodwill" of the owner…”

The owner of this park in Sweetwater, Florida wants to redevelop the land into another use. He has apparently taken all the correct legal steps. But the residents want him to chip in 45 MILLION DOLLARS to them as an act of goodwill – plus give them another 6 months to get out. Gee, that’s not asking for much, right?

I know that there used to be an America that had common sense. Deep down, surely it still exists. How did people get this insane? I guess that watching the Biden administration continually violate Supreme Court rulings (the evictions moratorium, student debt forgiveness, etc.) has empowered them to simply ask for whatever meets their fancy and hope that they can coerce it out of good-natured business people without any ramifications.

But, at the end of the day, there’s this one obstacle they will have to contend with: the actual law. I know it’s no fun, but that’s one line of defense they will not prevail on. So, they better start packing.