Mobile homes are the new starter homes. Between sky-high interest rates, high home prices, and limited availability of real estate overall, becoming a homeowner is something many Americans feel they can't afford.

While renting is a good option for some, others are finding creative ways to live in their desired locations, despite the prohibitive price tag - like mobile homes.

Mobile homes are no longer just the go-to preference of thrifty retirees. Many people from across the age and life-experience spectrum are looking to manufactured homes and accessory dwelling units (ADU) as a new mode of affordable homeownership.

But if you’ve been...

Basalt Town Council discussed a potential financial contribution to help purchase two, downvalley mobile home parks to help residents retain their housing. 

The Aspen Basalt Mobile Home Park in Basalt and Carbondale’s Mountain Valley Mobile Home Park gave notice to their tenants in late March they were starting the process of either selling the parks to a private buyer or giving residents the opportunity to buy it themselves. 

Residents on Tuesday filled council chambers to discuss purchasing the parks, with the goal of garnering support from local municipalities, as well as Colorado and national nonprofits.

Elizabeth Rivas, an Aspen...

Taking up residence in a mobile home park can be an economical means of putting a roof over one's head.

But more than 50 families at County Road Mobile Home Park in Houston, Texas, were displaced after the land they were living on was sold, according to KHOU 11 News. Residents had until April 8 to move out, and some were forced to spend thousands of dollars to relocate.

Marta De La Garza, who lived in the park with her family for five years, says she had to shell out $9,000 — $3,000 for transportation and $6,000 to set up utilities — to move to a new location.

"We had to pay for the people who moved the mobile home. We had to pay a...

The Connecticut House of Representatives on Wednesday spent hours debating a bill that would strengthen protections for mobile and manufactured home owners, many of whom are seniors, but decided to stop the discussion in the face of Republican opposition.

The sticking point — even in a limited capacity — was a proposal to create a rent cap.

Mobile home owners typically own their homes, but not the land they sit on. Residents pay rent to the park owner on the land. House Bill 5428 would limit annual rent increases to 2% of rent plus any increases in the annual consumer price index and provide a process for park owners to appeal that limit...

A monumental change hit Washington’s rental market this month, one in the works for years: caps on rent hikes.

But what it means for cash-strapped residents, and whether it will curb a market where housing costs have soared in recent decades, remains a live question.

Gov. Bob Ferguson signed a bill into law earlier this month capping annual rent hikes at 10% per year for many apartments and 5% at mobile home parks. That means that for a tenant in a $1,500 apartment covered by the new law, their rent could increase to no more than $1,650 in a single year.

Supporters say the new caps offer a commonsense way to give tenants more...

The residents of Marin Valley Mobile Country Club, an affordable, vibrant over-55 manufactured home community in Novato, have been taking the necessary steps toward achieving the long-awaited goal of becoming resident-owned.

The crucial effort, led by MVMCC’s Park Acquisition Corporation, a nonprofit California mutual benefit corporation, of acquiring it from its current owner, the City of Novato, is important for the thriving community, which offers one of few affordable housing opportunities in Marin. The goal is to become a resident-owned cooperative providing affordability, security and independence now and into the future.

Residents...

Johnson County leaders are standing by their residents, asking the owner of several manufactured home communities to refrain from raising rent in order to address a litany of safety concerns.

The letter, signed by Johnson County Board of Supervisors Chair Jon Green, calls on Havenpark Communities' "owners and management" to impose a two-year pause on lot rent, "while you work with residents to address these health and safety concerns."

"We feel as though this will help to repair some of the harm and hardships that these residents have had toendure during your acquisition of their neighborhood and the severe decline in services," Green...

Residents of San Juan Mobile Home Park are bracing for a steep rent hike that threatens to upend their lives. With rates set to nearly double by July, longtime tenants say they face a daunting choice: find a way to pay or lose the homes they’ve had for years.

They are speaking out against the new owners’ demands, calling for fair treatment and a chance to stay in the community they’ve built. Some residents gathered across the street from the park to air their concerns.

Kelly Garcia, who has a daughter, age 11, and cares for her grandson, 2, said the rent increase will present an unmanageable burden. She said she was notified the rent will...

Lawmakers supported a bill to add $3 million to a fund to help residents purchase their mobile home parks. But its fate hinges on whether it makes it into the budget.

Friendly Village mobile home park in Gorham is one of several in Maine being eyed by out-of-state investors. A bill advancing in the Legislature would help residents make offers to buy their parks instead.

A Wyoming investment firm wants to purchase Friendly Village mobile home park in Gorham as part of a four-state, eight-park deal for $87.5 million. Lawmakers are exploring a bill that would create a three-month moratorium on the sale of mobile home parks

Glenwood Springs City Council voted Thursday to move forward with a $1.5 million contribution from the city’s 2C workforce housing fund to help residents of Mountain Mobile Home Park form a cooperative and buy the land beneath their homes.

The 40-unit park, located along U.S. Highway 6 adjacent to Bighorn Toyota, was recently listed for $4.5 million. More than half of its residents earn less than 20% of the area median income, according to city Housing Development Manager Kevin Reyes.

If purchased by a private investor, Reyes warned, the park could face significant rent hikes or redevelopment. Currently, there are no zoning protections or...

Lot No. 7 of the Golden Hills mobile home park is empty right now, but a year from now, it will be the site of a unique modular home.

And, longer-term, locals hope Lot No. 7 will be the beginning of a larger trend that could help hundreds of others across Colorado and beyond.

Golden Hills residents have been working with the Neighborhood Rehab Project, Colorado School of Mines students and staff, and a local housing development company to design a first-of-its-kind modular home that’s affordable, sustainable and scalable.

The 12 Mines students — now Class of 2025 graduates — designed it during the academic year as part of the Capstone...

DEWITT TOWNSHIP, MI - A piece of printer paper stuck to Tina Riggs’ front door gave an official notice: she had four days to move out.

Riggs was shocked by the letter given to residents of Kristana Manufactured Home Park on Friday, March 28. It said due to “declining occupancy rates and the inability to maintain the community’s infrastructure,” the park would close on Tuesday, April 1.

Then on April 2, the water was shut off.

Riggs, 62, is now one of a handful of residents still living at Kristana – an aging manufactured housing community in DeWitt Township about five miles north of Lansing.

“I’m staying here as long as I can,”...

Santa Cruz County’s transit agency is sticking to a June 30 deadline for property owners of two Live Oak mobile home parks to move homes and other structures off land designated for the Coastal Rail Trail. But county officials say they have struck an agreement with one of the parks’ residents to defer any legal action against residents until they can study the issue further.

Last year, residents of Castle Mobile Home Estates and Blue and Gold Star Mobile Home Park received notices from the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission. The notices said the agency had completed a boundary survey and found that some of the homes...

LUDLOW — Workers continued to fell trees at the West Street Village Mobile Home Community in Ludlow Thursday, the smell of freshly cut wood filling the air, mixing with the sound of a woodchipper.

Several dozen trees that once provided shade and privacy for residents at the mobile home park were reduced to stumps. Some residents say they believe the tree work was being done because they are legally challenging an increase of rent at the park.

“These were mostly all strong and healthy trees,” said resident Ethan Field, the president of the park’s housing association.

Hundreds of people living at a Sweetwater mobile home park are now forced to find somewhere else to live as the official deadline for their move out arrived Monday. Still, some say they're not going anywhere.

Li'l Abner Mobile Home Park is where more than 900 residents first received eviction notices last November, learning they'd have until May 19 to move out.

The owners of the park have already started demolitions of vacated mobile homes, but some residents have stayed till the end.

On Monday, the community looked as if a tornado had torn through. Some houses stood, and others were already knocked down.

In some spots, the ground was...

BUENA VISTA – Jerry Champlin had a plan to help ease the housing crunch in Buena Vista. Why not build a dozen tiny homes around a central courtyard on a residential lot a block from downtown and rent them out for $1,000 a month? 

He bought a small home on a big lot in 2019 and floated his plan. Six years later, he’s about to start renting. But the plan, pushed and shoved by local rules and soaring costs, has changed. 

He’s now stacked 21 shipping containers around the courtyard in a community he’s called BV Basecamp. He built 16 units in 17 of those steel boxes and the rest are community spaces for office work, storage and studios. 

And...

A bill making its way through the Oregon Legislature would prevent new planned communities from banning manufactured and modular homes.

House Bill 3144 would not impact existing communities, only new communities moving forward. Manufactured units would still be subject to the same design requirements of other homes in a community.

“While successfully addressing the crisis will take many types of creative solutions, frankly, this bill is an easy one,” bill sponsor Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland, told the Senate Committee on Housing and Development on Monday afternoon.

Marsh is the chair of the House Committee on Housing and Homelessness. She...

This story is the first in a series on manufactured housing and solutions to help mitigate threats facing mobile home residents, from private equity ownership to climate change.

In addition to rising costs and threats of displacement, U.S. mobile home residents face “serious health hazards,” according to a new report from Human Impact Partners and advocacy group Manufactured Housing Action (MHAction).

As Hope Davis explains in an article in Next City, the report used tenant interviews, information from mobile home operator Homes for America, and public records to understand how poor infrastructure and deteriorating conditions put manufactured home residents at risk from extreme heat and cold, poor water quality, and unhealthy air. “In the report, researchers documented water quality violations at five Homes of...

The eerily quiet lull on Li’l Abner Mobile Home Park’s 112th Avenue is routinely interrupted by the clang of a demolition crane. In just four months, half of the mobile home park in Sweetwater, Florida, has been razed to the ground. An old hibiscus bush nurtured by one family for decades is gone. A handful of mobile homes sparsely populates the once-packed community, giving way to a towering new development and leaving ample space for its inevitable replicas across what used to be affordable housing.

Despite an ongoing class-action lawsuit, tenants have chosen to evacuate their own homes before a May 19 deadline in order to secure a...

MARSHALL — Residents of the Broadmoor Valley mobile home park said it’s a place they’ve called home — and they were calling for help to keep it from being closed down.

“We are part of Marshall. We are residents from Marshall, and I want to stay here,” resident Anais Rodriguez said during the hearing.

“It would be really hard for me to start all over,” another resident said in a written statement read at the hearing.

More than 60 people, including Broadmoor Valley residents and Marshall area community members, attended a public hearing held by the Marshall City Council on Wednesday night. The city was required to hold the hearing as part...