Dawn Beaulieu lives in a double wide on a corner lot in Friendly Village Mobile Home Park in Gorham.
It's the perfect size for her and terrier mix, Bella.
She has lived in this home for more than two decades and in Friendly Village for close to 30 years. The mortgage, on top of the monthly lot rent of just more than $600, is a lot with her single income, but she makes it work.
"I've paid 22.5 years of a 25-year mortgage. I have two and a half years left," Beaulieu said. "And then I own my home. I am scared to lose it before I get to that point."
She also worries about many of her neighbors in this community of 302 lots, with 263 occupied...
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Fallacy #1: A $600 lot rent is too high in Brunswick, Maine. In fact, it’s far too low. The evidence: the average single family home in Brunswick costs $443,000 and the average apartment is $1,893 per month.
Marieke Giasson, who lives at Bay Bridge Estates in Brunswick, said monthly lot rent typically went up about $15 or $20 a year. She paid $410 a month in 2021. Then, Legacy Communities, an Arizona company that owns about 70 manufactured home parks around the country, bought her park. In the last three years, Giasson said rent has increased by 46%. She now pays about $600 a month.
The fact is that $600 per month lot rent in Brunswick is ridiculously, indefensibly, impossibly low.
Fallacy #2: The tenants buying a mobile home park for $22 million will yield lower rents. The truth is that the lot rent will be the same in order to cover all operating costs and a $22 million mortgage and down-payment loan.
On Tuesday, the Friendly Village residents submitted their own bid to purchase the park for more than the community's initial asking price of $22 million.
How can the U.S. media be this math and logic challenged?