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In 2011, it was chance that took Marjory Gilsrud and her husband, Mike, to a home in the Madelia Mobile Village Cooperative. But it’s choice that has kept them in the resident-owned mobile home park in rural Minnesota.
Before her move to Madelia Mobile Village, the Gilsruds lived in a private mobile home park that got sold to an investment firm. Rent started rising while the home was in a terrible state of disrepair.
“We were paying $450 a month by the end,” Gilsrud told the Daily Yonder. “And the rents were increasing every six months like clockwork.”
The Madelia cooperative, located in the town of Madelia in Watonwan County,...
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In conventional mobile home parks, residents own the home but rent the lot. In a resident-owned community, residents own and manage the property cooperatively. Residents get a say in setting rent and investing in upkeep and improvements. There are many advantages to this system, advocates say, but the biggest is stability: Residents must approve lot fees, and generally they stay fairly stable. “We’ve increased lot rent only once in the last four years,” said Gilsrud. “And that was by $6.”
Oh no, not this story again. Look, I know that American math skills are at an all-time low, but if the residents – who own the park – raised the rent only $6 in the past four years at a time when inflation is up 20% over just the past three years, then this park cannot possibly survive financially. Although the residents can buy a park with the help of a non-profit that guarantees the debt, operating costs are the same for corporate owners as they are for resident owners. Since the residents vote to increase rents, then they never will because the majority will refuse. And the only one with skin in the game is the non-profit that guaranteed the loan. I hope those guarantors don’t read articles like this because they will soon figure out that they are screwed.