Pulte Homes has bought the land occupied by the Winchester Ranch Mobile Home Park in San Jose next to the world-famous Winchester Mystery House, according to documents filed on May 28 in Santa Clara County.The just-bought parcel totals 15.7 acres and is located at 500 Charles Cali Drive near the corner of South Winchester Boulevard and Tisch Way, county property records show. Pulte Homes paid $50 million in cash for the property, according to documents on file at the County Recorder’s Office. The project will consist of 320 single-family homes and 368 apartment units, according to the city documents. The residences will include seven-story apartment buildings as well as four-story town homes and condominiums. Winchester Ranch Mobile Home Park is reserved for residents who are 55 years of age or older. The park contains about 110 mobile homes.

This exemplifies what happens when you enact rent control: parks get torn down. Case in point, this property can hold 688 condos and apartment units instead of only 110 mobile homes. Do the math. The thing that many people forget is that mobile home parks are only on one level, but multifamily can go up several stories into the air (and in this case seven stories). As I have correctly identified for two decades, mobile home parks make for VERY attractive redevelopment opportunities as they have great locations on major roads and all utilities are present. On top of that, cities will give any zoning needed to get rid of “trailer parks”, which they inherently hate. Maybe that’s why last week’s articles alone announced no less than six parks being closed for redevelopment into other uses.

It seems odd that the only people who are willing to inject the capital needed to bring old trailer parks back to life are criticized as “ruining” the industry. But, of course, the only reason this article came out was because the Chicago Tribune was hoping to push Illinois rent control across the finish line. It failed. Better luck next time.

Ah yes, once again the Washington state government wants to pass rent control. And you know they just have to push it because higher rents mean nobody can buy food or medicine, right? Here’s what one of the backers of rent control had to say

“I ended up stopping my meds for three months, trying to figure out what I could do to make up that $66,” Hammond said. “After three months, I finally figured it out: I turned my heat off at night.”

Although virtually all of the Republicans in the Washington state house are opposed to rent control, hopefully at least a few of the Democrats are reading this, so here’s some things they need to know:

1. If someone cannot afford to pay the exorbitant price of housing in Washington, they should move to a cheaper state. It makes no sense for a senior on a fixed income to live in one of the most expensive locations in the U.S. The free market should set where you live, not price controls.
2. Rent is only the fourth highest cost for renters in Washington, being exceeded by healthcare, transportation and childcare. All three of those have zero pricing controls. So there will be no net benefit to the consumer.
3. Rent control has been proven to destroy the availability of housing stock as nobody builds in a rent-controlled state.
4. Property owners will not put money into capital repairs if there is rent control as they can’t get the money back.
5. In over 100 years, only six states have been dumb enough to enact rent control – and they have suffered greatly as a consequence.

I knew that rent control would be a hot topic again in Washington this year since it failed last year. Let’s hope that the Republicans – the only ones with common sense in Washington apparently – can fend it off again.

And another park bites the dust.

The Fremont County Public Trustee’s office has received two separate foreclosures encompassing four mobile home parks in Cañon City. Rivermaze Cooperative includes the parks at 1634 Poplar and 295 S. Raynolds. The outstanding principal balance for this foreclosure is $1,234,398. Rocky Mountain Homeowners Cooperative includes the parks at 1527 Chestnut and 1611 Cedar. The outstanding balance for this foreclosure is $1,930,924.

According to foreclosure records on the public trustee’s website, the current holder for both foreclosure cases is CC Canyon & Cedar LLC, and the lender for both is Resident Ownership Capital, LLC d/b/a ROC USA Capital. Nicholas Salerno, chief program officer for ROC USA Capital, in a phone interview with the Daily Record on Thursday, said each homeowner owns their home, and each co-op owns the land. He said there are 35 homes in the Rivermaze Cooperative and 55 in the Rocky Mountain Cooperative. “The homeowners themselves are not going to be held liable to the default in their loan – it’s the co-op,” Salerno said.

For years I have been writing about the fact that these “tenant-owned” mobile home park deals are built on incredibly shaky financing. And now my prediction is starting to come true. Read the above quote and tell me if it does not appear that the ROC deals on four different Colorado parks have gone into loan default. That’s how I read it.

It would be one thing if the tenants in these deals actually bought their own parks, but they don’t. Instead, they rely on non-profits to put up the down payment and guaranty the debt. And, unlike real corporate buyers that typically obtain 10-year conduit or agency debt, these things are cobbled together from flaky loan products that are never going to hold up upon renewal.

And now – in front of the whole world – the inevitable has started to happen.

I wonder if all those state bureaucrats preaching about how great tenant-owned deals are have seen this article?  Can we finally put to bed the whole “tenant first option” scam? Time will tell.

Timothy, 68, relies on monthly Social Security payments to cover rent, insurance and groceries. Unexpected expenses leave her scrambling to make ends meet. She’s used the last of her savings, and her diabetes makes it difficult to get a part-time job like some of her neighbors, who bag groceries at Safeway or work as a cashier at McDonald’s. As she faces a new lease with increased costs starting in May, Timothy said she doesn’t know what she’s going to do. In a few months, she may be living out of her car .“I keep praying for a miracle to happen,” she said.

I know it’s repetitive as it’s yet another article trying to persuade you that rent control will save the world in Washington state but FOR THE LOVE OF HEAVENS, IF YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO LIVE IN WASHINGTON STATE PLEASE MOVE TO A CHEAPER LOCATION. WASHINGTON IS THE FIFTH MOST EXPENSIVE STATE IN THE U.S. IF YOU MOVE TO MISSOURI YOUR RENT WILL BE ROUGHLY HALF OF WHAT YOU’RE PAYING – AS WILL BE THE COST OF EVERYTHING ELSE – AND YOU CAN EVEN GO TO BRANSON ON A FIELD TRIP. All of these articles sound like somebody complaining that they can’t afford the prime rib at Lawry’s so they are going to have to get rid of their air conditioning. How about just eating at Wendy’s instead of Lawry’s?

In the 1800s, Americans moved west in search of cheaper housing. Maybe now it’s time to move back east?

What’s with this fixation on “out of state” owners? It may come as a shock to the writer but every business in America has a 49-out-of-50 shot of being owned by someone who does not reside in that state. If you’re talking about Walmart, and you don’t live in Arkansas, then it’s an “out of state” owner. If it’s McDonalds, and you don’t happen to live in Illinois, it’s an “out of state” owner. And the list goes on and on. It means absolutely nothing.

And another park bites the dust.

"And then we also have the $9 million housing millage. And $9 million seems like a lot of money, but just 530 South Rose alone is $19 million," she says of the new 64-unit senior housing development. 

It sounds like these housing folks need their own DOGE. How can you spend $296,875 per unit on little assisted living apartments? If you really want to fix the “affordable housing” crisis, you need to figure out how to build things a whole lot cheaper – well under $100,000 per unit. You could hit that number only with factory-built or 3-D printed homes and never with traditional stick-built methods. If you really want a solution you have to get creative and nobody is being creative enough yet. The only people out there that are delivering on sub-$100,000 housing are mobile home park owners.

And another park bites the dust.

And another park bites the dust.

So now we know what the above article and its bias against “out of state” mobile home park owners was really all about – they want to brainwash you that only the people of Maine (namely the park residents) should be allowed to buy parks in Maine. I have bad news for whoever is behind this political movement in Maine: the residents only successfully close on something like .000001% of the deals they are offered. It takes about a year to put together and close on a tenant-owned park. A normal seller is never going to wait that long.

And another park bites the dust.

And another park bites the dust.

The Manufactured Housing Opportunity & Revitalization Program (MORE) pays for mobile home repairs, if the homes are in a mobile home park and owned by someone making less than 80% of Humboldt’s median income. Contractors hired by the city do the work. 

This is a good idea and one that would help preserve marginal residents from being homeless or going into Section 8. Any sane person would support this concept.

Roughly one-fifth of mobile home parks across the nation have been purchased by large-scale investors in recent years, according to a 2022 study by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a nonprofit foundation based in Massachusetts.

I’m not sure if the author of this story bothered to do any fact-checking, but there are around 44,000 mobile home parks in the U.S. and if 20% were purchased by large corporate investors in the last few years that would equate to around 10,000 parks. The actual number is probably more like 500 parks tops (ELS – the nation’s largest MH REIT – only owns around 400 in 30 years). And that’s around 1% NOT 10%. But the facts don’t much matter in this case because corporate ownership has nothing to do with higher lot rents.

The real reason rents are increasing across the nation is not because of large corporate owners, but simply because mobile home park lot rents are insanely, ridiculously low compared to $400,000 houses and $2,000 per month apartments. It’s called the free-market system, and it’s the backbone of America capitalism. Price controls are a part of socialism and “can lead to shortages, black markets, and reduced quality, ultimately hindering economic efficiency”. And that’s why the legislature in New Jersey hopefully won’t fall for this nonsense.

And another park bites the dust.

The property with hundreds of home lots and amenities in the northern metro area last sold 14 years ago for less than a third as much money.

Making $100 million with a single mobile home park in 14 years is a challenge but fully attainable apparently.

And multiple parks potentially bite the dust.

The bills, backed mostly by Democrats, ultimately didn’t pass, even with a Democratic trifecta in state government. Republicans regained control of the state House this year. “We were all so disappointed,” Wisniewski says. “I don’t think we’re going to get very far with the Legislature at all.”

Just because a woke state senator proposes rent control does not mean that it will pass. Most bureaucrats are fully aware that rent control is literally the death sentence for housing, as it strangulates needed investment – resulting in no new starts and no capital improvements. That’s why, in over 100 years, only six states and the District of Columbia have embraced it. And they’re all doing terrible as a result.

And another park bites the dust.

Connors acknowledged the rent bill is a challenge, but said her legislation offers a small but meaningful step toward addressing Washington’s critical housing shortage by making it easier to buy, sell and finance manufactured homes.

If you reclassify mobile homes as real property they will no longer be able to be financed by the industry lenders of PEP, CASH, Triad, and Zippy. Real mortgage companies will never waste time on “trailer” mortgages (which will be sub-$50,000 in most cases) so the bureaucrats will – in one stroke of the pen – kill off the entire mobile home industry in Washington. Absolute genius, right? Do any of these folks bother doing diligence before they propose such stupidity?

State lawmakers are discussing a bill that would encourage the creation of resident-owned communities by providing tax incentives to businesses that sell to cooperatives. The bill would provide a tax deduction of up to $750,000 on capital gains for owners who sell to cooperatives.

In all fairness, this idea was originally floated by Congressman Keith Ellison about a decade ago. Back then, he suggested advantageous tax treatment if you didn’t tear the park down. This time around it’s focused on selling to residents. But it’s a good idea regardless of who proposes it. If you made a compelling economic benefit to selling parks to residents as opposed to corporate buyers then I’m betting every park that qualifies would be sold to residents.

The Cedar Falls Resident Cooperative bought the park for $8 million to prevent a corporate sale that could have led to steep rent increases.

With the sale finalized, residents will see a $100 monthly rent increase, but they believe ownership will help keep costs stable in the long run.

"It's such a relief," she said. "I don’t have to worry about losing my home."

So let me get this straight: the residents deliberately bought the park and increased their rent immediately by $100 per month to fend off a professional investor from buying it and maybe raising the rent $50 or so. This is literally a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face. If the park had sold to a professional buyer, the residents would have received a smaller rent increase, capital poured into fixing aging infrastructure, and professional management with proper collections and rules enforcement. But instead the residents now have no money to make repairs, rent that is higher than what a professional owner would have charged, and a management that will never collect or enforce rules correctly.

And the residents are celebrating what exactly? That they blew it?

Here's what the resident said:

"They raised the rent by $75 last year, and the latest increase will come this May. Rent is going up by $100 for a total of $550 per month.  They figure they got you over a barrel because there's no way to go anywhere, I mean, you're stuck," said Eyneart. 

Here's what the park owner said:

His Burien-based company has invested more than $130,000 into the park, he said. That includes hauling away abandoned cars and trailers, installing new mailboxes and putting in new plumbing. 

Here's what the journalist said:

Residents acknowledge improvements have been made. But that doesn't change the circumstances for people who can't afford the rent hikes.

Clearly, there are many points of view here, but let's explore what's true from what's false.

1. A $550 per month lot rent in Orofino, Idaho is insanely cheap. The median single-family home price is $348,000 and the average apartment rent is over $1,675 per month. Let's stop pretending that a mobile home park lot rent that is 70% less than all other forms of housing is somehow too high.
2. No resident is "stuck" in a mobile home park any more than they are "stuck" in a house or condo. If you have a better living option then sell your home and move to it. Nobody ever bought or sold a mobile home with the expectation of moving it at a cost of $10,000+. And most of the cost of moving mobile homes is the result of HUD requirements!
3. New owners always seem to put significant capital into fixing aging infrastructure and bringing the property "back to life". Living conditions – without exception – are superior under professional management.
4. What is NOT a part of owning any property in the U.S. – regardless of single-family or multi-family – is inheriting some type of governmental responsibility for marginal tenants. That's the job of the U.S. government. Can you imagine an article on McDonald's where they are criticized for eliminating the "Value Meal" because they are not worrying enough about customers who can't afford to eat in a modern America. The reason this topic always comes up is simple: the government cannot afford the massive size of Section 8 programs. So everyone's trying to pin this responsibility on private owners because the government has defaulted on their obligation.

I wish that everyone – owners, tenants and the media – could agree on the basic truths of life in America. You can plead your point, but don't insult our intelligence.