Preview:
At the end of the month, Edmund McGahey plans to load up his U-Haul with the American flag neatly rolled behind his front door, take his wind chimes down from his front porch, pack his eight potted Christmas cacti, and leave for Texas.
With an outstanding mortgage he has no choice but to hand the keys to his double-wide manufactured house within Great Brook Village over to his bank. He can’t sell it due to rising park rental fees.
McGahey, a 74-year-old Vietnam War veteran, envisioned the over-55 community as an affordable place to retire when bought the home in May of last year for $80,000.
When he first looked at the property, the rent...
Read MoreOur thoughts on this story:

Median home sale prices in New Hampshire recently hit $500,000 and rental vacancy rates remain below 1 percent statewide. With this landscape, they fear they have nowhere else to go. Meanwhile, McGahey said he has no choice but to walk away. “He’s holding me hostage here because I cannot sell my house and I have to get out of here,” McGahey said. “I never thought I’d be in this kind of predicament where I’m just going to turn the house back over to the bank. I just can’t do it. The stress alone is enough to drive anybody crazy.”
Well, obviously this woke writer didn’t take debate in high school – his opening statement negates his theory, rather than support it. If this mobile home owner is in a market with $500,000 homes and less than 1% housing vcancy then how exactly can he fail to sell his mobile home for $80,000? Clearly, he probably never ran an ad, answered the phone, or endeavored to sell it at all. The worst salesman in the world could have sold that home in a week, but you have to put in at least 1% effort.
And, using this same preamble, it’s very clear that mobile home park lot rents are going to go up exponentially over time as they are a tiny fraction of local apartment and stick-built housing prices.
I thought that people in New Hampshire were smarter than this – they don’t deserve this writer.
STUPIDITY LEVEL: HIGH