Well you’ll soon see every mobile home park in Sonoma go on the market as land to be re-developed. Rent control simply makes park owners adapt to more profitable uses. These parks will no doubt be new apartments in the near future. As Ronald Reagan once said “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government and I’m here to help”. And Reagan lived in California so he really understood this stupidity better than most.

This article is just plain stupid. Stupid #1: it does NOT cost $4,000 per year to insure a mobile home. Stupid #2: Single-wides DO NOT average $86,400 for 1,064 square feet of space, while doubles run about $158,600 for 1,757 square feet.

Does nobody fact-check this stuff anymore?

Can’t wait for AI to replace these writers.

Look at the video. This is a really nice property, right? Then read this quote:

“Residents at Lake Bradford Estates met to share stories of dealing with alleged poor living conditions, rent increases and eviction threats at a Tallahassee mobile home park”

So let’s cut out the B.S. and get straight to the truth. The property is really nice and the “poor living conditions” claim is a lie. The residents simply don’t want to pay market rent, which at $750 is about right. That’s all this story is about, nothing more.

Florida has no rent control. The rent appears to be fair. There is absolutely no story other than people trying to take advantage of a screwed-up media and political system to try to coerce maintaining their rent at below market levels. It’s not going to work long term. Never does.

You gotta love the hypocritical nature of the woke community:

“To develop a commercial RV Park and Glampground, large or small, in an environmentally sensitive area so you can offer an eco-camping experience to explain how “eco-sensitive the Ozello environment is” is confusing, to say the least.”

Of course, you later learn that there was an RV park in that same location decades ago.

This is not a case of “saving the environment” but simply homeowners not wanting an RV park next to their homes but refusing to tell the truth and blaming it on their deep desire to save the planet.

Another mobile home park bites the dust – this time from a county government initiative. Anyone who tells you that cities and counties are big fans of affordable housing has no idea what they’re talking about. Actions always speak louder than words.

I’m a big believer that the future of U.S. housing will revolve around modular construction (look at the photos in the article to see that this is a god idea). Warren Buffett also believes in it, as do many others. But the big problem right now is found near the end of the article:

The base price for the 640-square-foot Ridgeline, a one bedroom, is $245,000.

If modular housing is going to be taken seriously, it can’t be at a price-point of $400 per square foot NOT INCLUDING THE LAND UNDERNEATH.. When the price gets down to $200 per square foot – which it can – then you have something.

Hurricane Harvey did $200 billion in damage and only $20 billion was insured. That’s what happens when you have major flooding as few people are insured for it. Mobile homes sit about 3 feet off the ground and actually do better in floods than stick-built dwellings (just ask any park owner who survived Hurricane Harvey).

Wait a minute – is this a typo?

Once the factory is completed in 2024, it can begin producing modular homes. It is expected to produce 12 to 15 homes per year in its first few years of operation, but eventually will ramp up its production to up to 50 homes per year.

The average mobile home park factory produces 7 homes per day. That’s 1,820 per year. And this one is going to produce 12 homes a year initially and then a whopping 50 per year in the future?

I know that marijuana is legalized in Colorado, but these would have to be the slowest assembly line workers in history, right?

Look at the photos. Look at the price. Look at the photos again. Then look at the price again. If you think this is a good deal then you need to immediately check into rehab because you must be out of your mind.

Back before Zappos founder Tony Hsieh died in a tragic fire his personal assistant gave me a tour of his Airstream Village community in which he lived in downtown Las Vegas. She told me the story of how he originally wanted to make Airstream Village out of shipping containers (it ended up being Airstream RVs and tiny homes) but found them to be unsuitable from a utility cost standpoint (“they were like tiny ovens” she said). So that’s problem #1. But the bigger issue is that I don’t think that anyone will pay $200,000 to live in a shipping container in Indiana – and then pay lot rent on top of that. This is a product that might work on the beach or a mountaintop. But maybe I’m wrong.

I hope this project makes lots of money because when the city, residents and media go after the owner on such ridiculous technicalities as if the permits were supposed to be filed in “10 days” or “10 business days” you kind of wonder if the project is worth this much hassle.

“I have lived at the San Roque Mobile park for over 30 years now. I have seen many changes – some good, and far more bad ones. We have big potholes in our streets. Our park has become a trash mesh. Things get started and never get finished. Now they have closed off some of our streets, and the stupid gates are so silly indeed. This is not a nice place anymore for us!”

Translation: “You increased our rents, brought the old park back to life, and installed classy security gates – and we hate you for it!”. For every one of these type of residents there are 100 that are thrilled with the improvements and don’t mind paying higher rent to have a nicer property.

Wow, economics must be hard to grasp in the Bay Area. The owners are trying to save the park by raising the rents to market levels. Otherwise, as they explained to the residents, they will simply close the park and redevelop the land. But any way you cut it there’s no way that folks are going to continue to live in the San Francisco area at 1980s pricing. It’s really up to the residents how this movie ends – and the owners have been more than transparent.

Sure, the headline is misleading. This quote from the owners is very sensible on an Act of God they had no control over:

Maine Real Estate Management has been working daily to coordinate with experts to resolve the problem and anticipate a new well being installed very soon. In the meantime, we have arranged for regular deliveries of water to fill the holding tanks, as well as supplemental drinking water deliveries,” the company wrote.

So what’s the problem here, other than the considerable expense to the owners until the new well gets drilled? Well, apparently, none of this is good enough for the residents who claim they don’t like the taste of the “imported water” and it messes up their washing machines (which I’m sure is a complete falsehood). If the residents don’t get a better attitude I’m sure there’s a land re-development plan in the making for this tract – and who would blame the owners?

I don’t know anything about this park or its water and sewer problems, but I do know the fundamental laws of economics and I’m sure that the heirs will simply condemn that park and sell the land off at a huge profit. 1,500 individuals will then be left homeless. It would have been much smarter for the government to make the required repairs for the late owner’s estate and then bill the park monthly until repaid in full. But, once again, it exemplifies that the most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help’. In this case the quote would be “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you be homeless”. Does nobody from the government realize that there’s no way the heirs are going to do any of this incredibly costly cap-x work when the land is worth more than the park in all likelihood and they probably just want to settle the estate?

I guess the residents did not read the fine print. But it’s right there in the article:

In years to come, residents, with the help of the land trust, intend to redevelop the park by removing the trailers and transforming the units into homes. The co-op and land trust are currently in the early stages of redeveloping the park, and residents are leading those discussions.”

So all the trailer park folks are going to be going bye-bye and replaced with single-family homes which they will never qualify for or afford. And they voted for it! What would you call this: “political suicide”?

Let’s be honest: these are not celebrities – these are “has-beens”. Nobody is leaving Bel Air for the trailer park if they are doing well in their movie careers. Tom Hanks should not even be on this list as he only used an RV on-set. The others would dump their “tiny” home in one second if they could amass enough cash to buy a decent house in the Hollywood Hills. I know that there is so much media out there today that writers struggle for content, but these type of articles insult our intelligence.

Every time I drive across America I am confronted by those hideous wind turbines that make scenic vistas look like industrial graveyards. And now suddenly people are waking up to the fact that all this wind and solar energy is really, really ugly to look at? I could have told them that 20 years ago.

This non-profit is spending $60,000 to build an 8’ x 20’ house? That’s $375 per sq. ft. A mobile home costs around $40 per sq. ft. So my first thought is why are they reinventing the wheel when they can just call up any mobile home park dealer and do this for a fraction of the price using a HUD-code home? But the bigger issue is that it’s just plain dumb to think that the key to ending youth homelessness is by sticking them in a 8’ x 20’ hut and getting them on the nation’s welfare dole starting at 18. A better plan would be to take the $60,000, put them into trade schools, and teach them how to make a decent living. Those who want to take advantage of that program would become successful citizens. Those who refuse are going to trash these 8’ x 20’ shacks and run off. I just can’t make any sense of this initiative given the realities of life.

This is the future of housing. Even my small town in Missouri recently passed a “tiny home ordinance”. Give the people what they want for heaven’s sake. Look at the drawings of the homes and you have to admit that they look a lot better than most of the larger homes in town. Who always shows up at the zoning meetings on this topic are stick-built builders who don’t want the competition and try to claim that tiny homes will cause the apocalypse. They won’t. In many applications they make infinite sense. Holding back this type of product is as hopeless as holding back Uber – it’s just going to happen in the end so better get out in front of it. Nice to see that this town is doing so.

This is the part about these type of articles (and they come out all the time) that kills me:

• Her 396-square-foot dwelling at Escape Tampa Bay Village's tiny home community cost her $159,000. 

OK, so $159,000 for around 400 sq. ft. works out to roughly $400 per square foot. You can buy a nice house in the Midwest for $159,000 – brick exterior, 3/2 and 2-car garage. And own the land underneath. So this lady apparently has no idea that there’s a whole universe of better housing options out there. And neither does the writer. And that’s kind of sad.

Last winter, the residents of Whippoorwill Hill Mobile Home Park in Wiscasset struggled with continuous shutdowns of its water supply and the park’s failure to maintain its roads and ditches. This problem continues today..Meanwhile, during the past two years, Maine Real Estate Management and its anonymous owner have raised the park’s lot rents by nearly 66%, all while failing to fix the problems that are causing physical harm to all of our residents at the park.

Well, I guess we all know what comes next. Goodbye mobile home park and hello new apartment complex. And the resident who wrote this letter to the editor will get top billing for causing the park to shut down. If you read the article, the owner is trucking in water until the repairs are completed, which costs a fortune. Yet they get zero respect from the residents. There are two sides to every story, and I’m betting $50 that the park owner is in the right here. They are trying to save the park and bring it back to life, and a few loud residents are fighting them every step of the way.

I’m afraid these residents are in for a rude awakening:

“The county has a collection of four mobile home parks that are up for sale right now. If they sell, new owners or property managers could raise their rents, or try to build on those properties and remove their homes altogether. That being said, those parks are potentially eligible for help from the state or county, if they can find grants to have the county purchase the parks and keep rents low”. 

Most bureaucrats talk a big game until you ask them to write a check and then they hide under their desks. Similarly, any new buyer will surely raise the rents significantly as these parks look to be mismanaged from the photo and will require new professional leadership and capital expenditure, and that will almost certainly require higher rents. And, of course, they are also in a prime position for redevelopment.

Any way you cut it, the probable outcome is that the parks will either be torn down or the rents will go up. I see little chance of the bureaucrats rushing in to save the day as you could make the same argument that they should buy the local apartments, too, and the list goes on and on.

Nobody really appreciates mobile home parks until they are on the verge of going away – kind of like some sad country western song.

I don’t know any of the facts on this story, but the optics to me, the reader, is that Douglas County succeeded in their mission to get rid of these mobile home parks:

“Justag LLC was one of the bidders rejected in July because plans for the properties included creating a mobile home park or manufactured home community with 59 sites.Creating a mobile home park on the sites again would require a zoning change, which is unlikely to gain support from Parkland town officials or the county, Liebaert said. The mobile home parks preexisted zoning regulations adopted in the 1970s, he said. The property is currently zoned for residential development and a mobile home park would require commercial zoning, he said.”

As I recall the county took over these properties claiming they were in substandard condition. Then they were going to sell them off, but the only bidder wanted to operate them as mobile home parks. So they killed that off as fast as they could.

This is the reality of city/county attitudes regarding affordable housing. They don’t really want it at all, but to say that might trigger cancel culture so they instead come up with these absurd stories of how it wasn’t really their fault.

A mobile home is a parking lot. If your car burns down you still are responsible to remove the car and pay the rent until it’s gone. It’s not rocket science. But instead, here’s what the residents are saying:

"We're very frustrated because we've been left in the streets. We've been left on the street, nothing left. If I haven't been able to find a home because I have no money, how am I supposed to pay for this?" said Martin Verduzco, a resident who lost his home due to the fire. 

What the park owner is doing is following the legal methodology to remove the burned homes themselves. Somebody’s got to do it. Obviously, the residents are not going to. The park owner ends up paying the bill, as usual.

Instead of the writer of this article pointing out that the park owner is the good guy who is actually taking it on the chin, they portray the residents – who are neglecting their legal responsibility – as the heroes. When will the U.S. fixation on lack of personal accountability ever end?