Mobile Home Park News Briefing

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?

In April, when the FEMA funding was canceled, mobile-home park residents celebrated the decision, claiming that flood events were infrequent in recent years. All the residents are retirement age and low-income, and many told The News Tribune the money the county would have offered them to relocate was not enough to afford to live elsewhere.

So let me get this straight. Trump shuts off millions of dollars earmarked to move these people out of their longtime homes against their will – and the residents celebrate Trump’s decision. Then comes another flood and some homes are impacted but not significantly enough that anyone still wants to move out. And somehow Trump’s the enemy in this story? The tenants love the guy. Did this writer’s boss actually read this article or was it rubber-stamped because it had a negative Trump headline on it? Every time someone pulls a stunt like this it reduces their respect for the media a little more – and for good reason.

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.

And another park bites the dust.

Residents have told town officials that since the park changed hands in 2021, lot rents have increased while maintenance and responsiveness have declined, leaving many — particularly seniors — feeling vulnerable and unheard.

Of all the arguments these “Free Rent Movement” groups try to make, the most pathetic is the claim that new owners – who inject massive capital in trying to bring these old, ugly parks back to life – are somehow harming the residents rather than saving them. If they want to complain about higher rents, that’s fine. It’s a fact that rents go up across all forms of U.S. housing, as do all related costs, and it’s called “inflation”. But to pretend that this property is going “backward” in quality, with all the work the new owners are doing, is absolutely absurd. I have NEVER seen a park that was not significantly improved in living conditions under new ownership. Have you?

The issues in California are not about consumer protection but simply Socialism vs. Capitalism. You can’t argue that $850 per month in lot rent is abhorrent when the actual stats for Fortuna are a single-family home average of $375,000 and an average apartment rent of $1,720 per month. But to the socialist mind, all rent should be free. They simply don’t believe in the capitalist system of “free market” in which supply and demand set pricing and not the government. They want all prices to be mandated and cheap.

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.

I get calls from park owners in Florida all the time trying to understand how the state got so screwed up when it comes to mobile home park regulations. Apparently the “Sunshine State” is like an M&M with a Red outside coating hiding a nasty Blue filling on the inside. If this bill passes you should expect even faster redevelopment of “trailer park” properties and much less enthusiasm by investors to bring old Florida mobile home parks back to life by injecting fresh capital into failing infrastructure and management. 

Mark Kresowik, senior policy director with the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

Who would listen to a guy with a title like that? Of course, he would spin it that dropping expensive and meaningless changes to “mobile home standards” will ruin the environment. But the reality is that these Biden-era initiatives – which included the electric car mandate and even the proposed ban on natural gas kitchen appliances – never really were to the benefit of the American consumer but, rather, simply a way to force-feed unpopular concepts that academic elites favored. In the end, the supposed “energy savings” of these new “mobile home standards” – over the entire life of the home – would have represented maybe a small fraction of the price increase in the home purchase itself. Thank heavens this Biden administration idiocy is being systematically trashed. I’m not sure the local landfill is big enough to handle it all.

Before the Santa Paula commission makes its final decision, they might want to be advised that LOW LOT RENT= REDEVELOPMENT. You can have low lot rents and demolished parks, or high lot rents and sustainable parks, but you can’t have low lot rents and sustainable parks. Never going to happen.

The Pacific Palisades fire was a year ago. Since then, only 10 homes have been rebuilt out of around 7,000 homes burned down. And amidst the backdrop of this most inept leadership, the paper dares to write an article condemning a mobile home park for not picking up all the debris that nobody else has yet either? What a bunch of hypocritical idiots!

What happened to Maine that made it into a nutcase powerhouse? Look, there are very few mobile home parks in Maine to begin with, so it’s not a big industry issue. But it IS a big deal if you own a park in Maine, and it’s completely unfair and literally raw socialism at its finest. Since it’s a Democrat “trifecta” state the concept of rent control is always in play. The State was trifecta red from 1854 to 1954 and then literally went off the rails. And it’s not really working out well for them as the Maine’s economy is ranked #43 out of 50 states. If you really get upset, you might want to boycott Maine’s products but … there really aren’t any.

And another park bites the dust.

And another park bites the dust.

And another park bites the dust.

One Ponderosa resident told commissioners she fears being forced out if rents rise as development proceeds around the community.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the mobile home park is clearly not the highest and best use for this property. Clearly, anyone can see that, right? How can you think that a mobile home park on just one level can equate to the value of multi-story housing options that charge rents five times larger per month?

Prieto, who works at an auto body shop, and Ibarra, who works at Walmart and is also a cleaner, could no longer afford an apartment in the area, but the couple was lucky enough to secure a spot at a mobile home park in Redwood City. But that’s when other problems started to arise. The couple settled on something within their budget, but unlike manufactured homes, RVs and trailers are often financed like car loans, yielding much higher interest rates than traditional home loans. Even with decent credit, the couple ended up with a 27% interest rate.

I’m guessing the real reason this couple is paying 27% interest is that they fall into the credit grouping known as “subprime” with a credit score of 500 to 600. How do I know? Here’s what Google says about car loans (which has even lower interest rates than RVs):

Typical Rate Ranges by Credit Score (Approximate): 

• Superprime (780+): New car: ~4.9-5.1%; Used car: ~7.4-7.5%
• Prime (660-780): New car: ~6.5%; Used car: ~9.7%
• Nonprime (600-660): New car: ~9.8-10%; Used car: ~14.1%
• Subprime (500-600): New car: ~13-13.3%; Used car: ~19% 

Whoever wrote this article knows nothing about credit and interest rates and is trying to build a case that doesn’t exist, namely that – once again – capitalism is evil and takes advantage of everyone.

We all know that “Rent Stabilization Ordinance” is short for “Socialism Reform” the same way that a “sanitation engineer” is just a “garbage man”. You don’t need “stabilization” in rents under the tenets of the free market system. You only use price controls under socialism. Let’s all just be honest about this stuff and admit it’s socialism, nothing more. Why bother to hide it in semantics?

Since Westbrook put the property up for sale over two years ago, some residents have since moved, but most of the roughly 700 residents couldn’t afford to. Emidia Roblero, a WakeMed housekeeper, said they likely couldn’t afford to live in Wake County — much less Cary, where the average rent is $2,100 a month, according to Zillow. Residents pay $400 a month for a plot on Chatham Estates.

Since the very first issue of this weekly news review and discussion I have used the simple formula that sums up all of these types of articles: LOW LOT RENTS = REDEVELOPMENT. Why would anyone think that when apartments rent for $2,100 per month you would keep a mobile home park going for $400 a month and NOT SIMPLY REDEVELOP INTO APARTMENTS FOR $2,100 PER MONTH? Imagine a farmer that can either grow a crop that nets $1,000 per acre or one that nets $10,000 per acre – which would he choose to plant?

And, as always, another park bites the dust.

“Residents are concerned about increasing rents”

Isn’t everyone concerned about increasing prices on everything? What’s the point of the article? Well, we all know that it’s an attempt to persuade society that capitalism is evil and should be abolished. One of the comments on the article was more honest:

“let people have shelter”

It’s called the “Free Rent Movement” and it wants all shelter to be provided to all Americans for free. The advocates of this cause don’t believe it’s enough that the U.S. taxpayers already provide nearly free housing to around 5 million people through the Section 8 program – they want everyone to get it for free.

It’s interesting to note that there is a similar movement going on in healthcare, which wants socialized medicine, just like in England.

Society will have to sort out this battle between capitalism and socialism. Mobile home park owners are simply being used for practice by socialists as they perfect their battle cry. Apartment and single-family landlords will be the next targets.

And another park bites the dust.

And another park bites the dust.

And another park bites the dust.

Yup, that’s what I’ve been writing about for years now: rent control = park demolition. It’s not rocket science.

Less than a year ago, Li’l Abner Mobile Home Park in Sweetwater was home to nearly 900 families, many of them immigrants, retirees, and low-income workers. Today, its streets are silent, its trailers marked with red crosses and eviction notices. The land’s owner, Consolidated Real Estate Investments (CREI), is redeveloping the site into a mixed-use project touted as “affordable and workforce housing.” Yet the new rents-more than $2,000 for a one-bedroom-well exceed the grasp of residents who once paid $700 to $1,200 a month for their lot space. If I live as a retiree with $1,200 and the rent is $2,000 or $3,000, that’s not affordable, said Mario Leiva, a former resident.

Maybe someone should send this quote to all the states with – or considering – rent control. When you enter into rent control, you set in motion the demolition of mobile home parks like Lil’ Abner.