Mobile Home Park News Briefing

More idiocy out of Maine. Thankfully there are very few mobile home parks in Maine (and soon to be fewer).

There’s a lot of liberal lunacy to unpack in this story, so let’s break down the false assertions one-by-one.

Shawn Belobraidic, a Harvey’s resident and bargaining team member, said mobile home parks are promoted to out-of-state investors as profitable because they can pass costs onto vulnerable residents who typically don’t push back.

No, that’s not correct. Investors can increase rents because their existing rents are ridiculously low and everyone knows it. Interesting how the writer forgot to mention that the single-family home cost in Missoula is $512,000 and the average apartment is $1,560 per month. And the lot rent is audacious at around $700? Give me a break.

“We are going to demand a fair lease that treats us with the dignity and respect that we deserve,” he said. “We are not vulnerable, we are informed. We are not going to be taken advantage of. We are organized. We are not going to back down.” 

A Montana “tenant union” has no official power whatsoever, and here’s what the state law says about it: “the most concrete legal power is found in the Montana Residential Landlord and Tenant Act of 1977. Under Section 70-24-431, a landlord cannot legally evict you, decrease services, or increase rent specifically because you joined or organized a tenant union.” As you can see, it gives them no power to control rents, only the power to potentially not get evicted for joining the “union”.

Harvey’s resident Jacquie Thompson asked the crowd to support the union’s mission. Thompson said she moved to the Bonner park after retiring in 2019 because it was small, quiet and the $335 lot rent was affordable. Now, with rent and fees more than double that amount and her monthly fixed income at roughly $1,000, that’s no longer the case, she said.

Yes, the former owner’s lot rent was absurdly low, given the $500,000 local home price. Their mismanagement does not bind the new owner to continuing the absurd practice of practically giving away the lots for not much more than the actual cost of utilities, insurance, repair, property tax and management. As for the fact that this resident can’t live on $1,000 per month it should be noted that they reside in one of the most expensive housing markets in the U.S. (the average single-family home cost in the U.S. is half that), and perhaps the solution is for them to move to a much less expensive place. They could move to any city in Missouri, for example, and live happily on $1,000 per month with money left over.

 “Most of the residents at Harvey’s are seniors or people on fixed incomes. We simply cannot absorb these kinds of increases.”

Under the rules of Fair Housing, there can be no exception for seniors such as offering them a lower rent. As a result, the 80-year-old has to pay the same as the 30-year-old. And, yes, the younger folks with active jobs can afford to pay more than those on fixed incomes. If this rule was changed at HUD perhaps more owners would be willing to accommodate seniors with a lower rent, but until then it’s basically illegal. That’s not the fault of park owners who are merely following the law.

But on top of that – and what’s even more infuriating – is that food, healthcare and transportation costs have gone up far faster than mobile home park lot rents, yet that reality is never mentioned. A dollar is a dollar and if groceries go up $100 a week, then isn’t that just as bad for fixed incomes? Why are only mobile home parks singled out for the U.S. reality of inflation?

And another park bites the dust.

Sure, stop all rent increases forever. Why not make landlords reduce their rents 10% annually instead? Why not end private property completely and just take it from the owners and give it to the tenants?

I know these city council people know better than to embrace this socialist nonsense, but they simply don’t have the guts to stand up to the screaming mob. What a bunch of cowards.

Finally, someone has the guts to stand up to the Washington socialists. But what a shame that it has to go to that extreme simply to protect their property rights. What a nasty state.

“The bargain struck between landlord and tenant is always advantageous to the former in the greatest possible degree.... Besides the advantage he derives from the nature of the case, he derives a further advantage from his position, his larger fortune and greater credit and standing”.

That’s a quote from Karl Marx, the founder of communism. Folks in Maine sound more and more like him every day, which is odd for a state that was originally based on the concept of hard work and not handouts. What a disappointment Maine has become on all fronts. It comes in near the bottom of all states in everything from economic strength to education. Clearly, whatever their leaders are doing – including the new rent control push – is not working. Of course, it hasn’t gone well for most Marx advocates in the past.

Here’s an important announcement for all woke journalists: Montana is trifecta red. It has a Republican Governor, Senate and House. There is literally a 0% chance of ever enacting rent control. So you need to go somewhere else with your socialism pandering. Maine would be a good place. Pack up all your worldly goods in a U-Haul, jump on I-90, and you can be there in 35 hours.

Homes built after June 1976 must comply with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) standards for safety, durability, and energy efficiency, making modern manufactured homes a fundamentally different product from the mobile homes many local zoning codes were written to exclude.

I know the MH industry thinks it’s making headway with mantras such as this, but you are NEVER going to weaken the stigma against the mobile home product with the concept that these things are “fundamentally different” from “trailers” of the past. The only way you’re ever going to get Americans to like the product is to create radical new designs that people like to look at and aspire to live in. The “tiny home” movement only works because they look nothing like mobile homes. Same for the 3-D printed home prototypes. Beauty may be only skin-deep but that’s the part the industry is lacking in and has caused the stigma to begin with. Fix that, and you have a chance of getting more appreciation from the public. Harping on things like “energy efficiency” turns on absolutely no one.

A group that represents manufactured housing park owners filed suit against the state of Washington over rent control. In its lawsuit filed last week, Manufactured Housing Communities of Washington says the state’s rent control law, which passed last year, is already forcing their parks to shut down.

Ah, yes, this is the moment that the Washington socialists have been dreading, the exposure of that most basic rent control issue: park owners simply redeveloping their properties into uses that don’t have rent control. You see, that’s the problem with this whole socialist narrative in a country that still has capitalist freedoms. You can’t successfully have rent control if property owners still have the freedom of choice to simply take their marbles and go home. Watch for a huge number of mobile home parks in Washington to disappear soon.

Mobile home parks across the country are being snapped up by institutional investors who see them as low-risk, high-return assets. It’s a shift that’s often followed by sharp rent increases for residents who can’t easily move.

Let’s explore this quote, which is based on the standard narrative of the “Free Rent Movement” advocates.

Yes, mobile home parks are being bought by institutions because they have a far superior business model to apartments. Why? Because apartments are subject to overbuilding and oversupply while there have been nearly zero new parks built in the last 50 years due to city and town zoning restrictions. It’s called “supply vs. demand”.

Yes, when professional investors buy mobile home parks, they tend to raise the rents to market levels, unhindered by what mom and pop has done in the past. With mobile home park lot rents averaging around $400 per month nationally -- despite apartments at $2,000 per month and single-family at $400,000 – there is no question that lot rents are way, way too low and need to go up substantially. Liberals should not forget Kamala Harris’ beloved catchphrase “what can be, unburdened by what has been" because if that was true for her dreams then it’s just as true for setting lot rents at appropriate levels by legitimate businesspeople.

No, the media is once again taking their favorite quote out of context when they claim the problem is that the residents “can’t easily move”. This has nothing to do with the mobile homes not being “mobile”. Instead, it’s all about there not being any options cheaper than the mobile home park, even after the rents go up. Studies have shown that mobile home park lot rents went up at half the speed of inflation since the 1960s, while all other housing went up by twice the amount of inflation. That’s the whole issue. Mobile home park residents received an outrageous discount on rent for decades and now don’t like paying the prices they should have been paying all along.

And another park bites the dust – times two.

If Ron DeSantis does not veto this socialist agenda, then he’s absolutely pathetic. I would expect this in California but not in Florida. WTF.

At-large Councilor Marc Lessard said limiting park owners from raising rent would create a slippery slope. “I know some people might disagree with me, but this is just a path to control businesses on investment,” Lessard said. 

At least most of the city council people in Biddeford, Maine understand what socialism is and have no interest in embracing it.

“What I feel is betrayed,” Commissioner Daniel Finn, who represents mobile park residents and lives in a mobile home, told San José Spotlight.

They ask the owner of eight mobile home parks their opinion on rent increases because they would obviously be a more knowledgeable authority on such things than a crackpot single resident in a park that would clearly be averse to even a $1 increase. This is not a form of betrayal but simply good, common sense. Can you imagine asking a McDonald’s customer if they are happy with the McChicken going from $1 to $3? No, you’d talk to the franchisees to get the true picture.

And another park bites the dust.

Among local concerns are commonly held assumptions that manufactured communities reduce neighboring property values and negatively affect an area’s aesthetics, crime rates, and additional infrastructure costs. AscentDS’s Kim said these views are often misguided. 

Look up any mobile home park on Zillow. Look at the price of a single-family home right next to the mobile home park. Then look at the price of an identical home a block from the mobile home park. The home next to the park is about 20% less. It’s simply a fact that Americans don’t like living next to mobile home parks. Rather than insult everyone’s intelligence, why not just tell it like it is? Nobody wants to live next to affordable housing, whether it’s mobile home parks or apartments. Mayors, city councils, zoning departments and homeowners across the nation all know this. And that’s why there will never be any new permits ever issued for mobile home parks in any city in which people would want to live.

During their retreat back to Berlin in 1944, the German army cut down a massive number of trees to block the roads and slow the U.S. and Russian troops down. It didn’t alter the end result, but maybe it held back the Allied victory by a few days. Delaying a rent increase by a couple months on a technicality is not quite a worthwhile effort, but if it gives the tenants some perverse sense of victory then who cares?

If a rent increase is demanded, it would have to be justified by documents such as invoices or material facts proving that there has been an increase in costs and expenses for the landlord. Similarly, the rent would have to be reduced if a service or facility no longer works or is no longer available to the tenant.

If Ron DeSantis does not veto this socialist crap then he’s not worthy of keeping his job. I don’t live in Florida, nor do I have any mobile home park interests there, but if you do then you need to get on the phone and call your representatives and tell them how unacceptable this is.

Residents of Norway Commons, a manufactured home community for those 55 or older, attended a Select Board meeting Thursday to protest what they said were rapidly rising lot rents and urged the board to consider rent stabilization measures.

Week after week the Maine media is doing a blitz to convince you that socialist rent control is mandatory in that tiny, irrelevant state. Maine is such a disappointment, ranking in the bottom ten states in economy, education and population growth. Clearly their leftist policies are a complete failure. If they pass rent control in Maine then the housing stock will go down the drain and/or be redeveloped. But in a state that can do nothing right, why not?

One resident, Sherry Russell, found out that her lot rent would increase on February 1 by 70%, and within six days of taking over ownership of the trailer park

Woke writers always try to use hyperbole and focus on simply the percent of increase instead of the nominal amount. Yes, it looks like it went up 70%. But 70% was only around $250 per month as the rent was ridiculously low. Now $250 may sound like a lot, but that’s a fraction of what apartment rents have gone up, as well as health insurance and auto prices. Remember that the McChicken went up 300% in one year but it’s still the cheapest thing on the McDonald’s menu.

But here’s the most important point. Kentucky is trifecta Red and, as a result, the chances of rent control are absolutely zero. This writer needs to focus their socialist whining attention on trifecta Blue states, like Maryland and Massachusetts, where it might actually have some impact. I know that “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” but sometimes taking a really dumb shot makes you look just stupid.

“There's a lot of people in here that just are living on Social Security and that's it. And they just. It's not affordable.”

Perhaps it’s time to admit that living in Florida is probably not the best idea for someone living on Social Security. Florida has high living costs in every category, most notably insurance. If you are living on the $1,200 a month that the average Social Security recipient receives, then you should live in the Midwest where things cost 50% less. If you choose to live in Florida – despite the extremely high cost – then don’t complain about it because YOU made that decision. I’d love to fly first-class but I can’t rationalize it. If I did fly first-class I’d look pretty dumb if I complained the entire flight about how much it cost. It’s called “personal accountability”.

State Sen. Kelly Dooner, R. Taunton, filed a bill S.2738, "An Act Addressing Rising Insurance Costs for Manufactured Home Residents," to address the problem. If passed, it would establish a commission “to investigate the availability, affordability, and regulatory treatment of homeowners insurance” for manufactured homes in Massachusetts, according to the language in the bill. 

Does anyone reading this think it’s anything more than a total waste of time? Only an academic idiot would think that talking about rising prices will, in any way, lower them. It won’t.

I’ve been getting a lot of calls from Florida park owners befuddled on how their red state has shifted so extremely blue over the past few years when it comes to tenant laws. I couldn’t agree more – Ron DeSantis has apparently lost his mind. If he had any backbone he would theaten to veto all these bills and shut them down immediately, yet he continues to sign them into law. Can there be a more socialist agenda than asking private park owners to beg to try to increase their rents? In a red state? WTF.

The purchase is supported by a $4.7 million loan from HCR’s Manufactured Home Advantage Program, a $420,000 loan from the Village of Lake Placid, a $1.6 million loan from Champlain National Bank, and an equity investment from Mr. Montag. Homestead Development Corporation partnered with the Homeowners Association to assist with administrative work required for the purchase.

Now that sounds like a solid financial footing, right? Anyone want to bet that, five years from now, this “Frankenstein” lending construction has completely collapsed, and the park is back on the market? Non-profits don’t seem to realize that anything other than a legitimate long-term mortgage from a reputable lender is simply a quick fix that never holds together. I would refer people to the recent loan defaults on no less than four tenant-owned parks in Colorado as evidence of this fact. If the non-profits want to inject real non-refundable money and get a real 10-year conduit or agency loan based on actual net income, I can respect that. But instead they never want to actually commit for the long term – just enough to get their 5 minutes of virtue signaling fame and then move on.  I wish someone would track these “tenant-owned” deals and see how many actually make it over the long term. It can’t be many.

Rent control has been the death of healthy housing in every state that has ever enacted it (just use Google for support of that statement). It leads to massive redevelopment into other uses and shuts off all capital investment in existing or new housing stock. Maine ranks #43 of 50 states in economic vitality. It ranks #40 in education and #40 in infrastructure. Is their plan to rank at the bottom of housing, too? If so, they are on the right path.