Yet another false narrative. Orlando is fining this park owner $1,000 per day because they don’t like the condition of the property. So anyone would simply shut down, right? The city must have known that when they started fining him. So the correct analysis of this story is that the City of Orlando is apparently wanting to force this park out of business and have succeeded in doing so. Shame on this reporter for making it look like the shutdown was the park owner’s fault. He simply gave in to the city’s apparent agenda.

First of all, the rent is going to $975 per month at this park in Castro Valley. If you simply look up Castro Valley on Bestplaces.net you’ll see that the median home price is $1,047,800 and the two-bedroom apartment rent is $2,320 per month and the three bedroom is $3,300 per month. So much for the reporter’s angle that “this new mobile home park lot rent is ridiculous” because it’s not. Not at all. In fact, it’s less than 50% of the apartment rents.

The more interesting part of this story revolves around the new owner’s argument that these are not mobile homes but RVs. Very strategically interesting and could present some really bad case law for the rent control advocates. Technically – looking at the video of the story – most of these are NOT mobile homes, but instead either park models (which are designated as RVs) or pre-HUD homes (which are not then defined as mobile homes which would have a HUD seal). So I think the park owner has a shot. And it will be a cliffhanger for California if this case proceeds to trial as a huge amount of California mobile home parks look just like this one and technically these aren’t necessarily mobile homes based on definition. If that should occur – and this park owner wins -- then it might be possible for all California park owners to use that new case law to upend rent control across the state. For that reason, Castro Valley may want to think twice about litigating this.

Same false narrative as the above article. A simple Bestplaces.net review of Puyallup, WA shows the median home price of $499,500 and a three-bedroom apartment rent of $2,470 per month. The new mobile home park lot rent is $805 per month. That’s right, it’s 66% less than the apartment rent. Yet somehow the article claims the rent is exorbitant. It’s not. Not even close, In fact, it’s ridiculously cheap based on actual math with no optics attached.

Instead, like the above article, the truth is that the residents who are living on $1,000 per month of social security should not be living in an area this expensive. If you are retired you have the ability to live anywhere free from any need for employment, right? So why would you live in an area with prices this crazy high? You could move to Missouri and live on $1,000 per month all day long – but NOT in Washington or California.

The other part of this story should maybe be that social security is not nearly enough to live on at $1,000 per month, right? But the social security program is essentially insolvent so it can’t give any increases.

The bottom line to this is that nobody likes the rents going up, but people have to be realistic in their expectations of housing in retirement. That’s the true narrative in this story.

A resident moves into a rental mobile home and immediately claims that her health is being compromised by carbon monoxide, black mold – even tiny particles of dust in vents.

The management fixes each and every item she complains about, but every day there’s something new.

“At this point, everyone has mutually agreed that this isn’t working out and that we’re happy to pay her move-in cost and she can find somewhere else to live and we can have an amicable resolution to this,” Property Management Vice President, Michelle Oppelt tells 6 News in a phone call.Esham says she doesn’t feel the payment is enough when weighed against what she, her son and her cousin had to go through.

If you don’t know what is really going on here then you have obviously never rented a mobile home to a tenant.

The moral: sell off every park-owned rental you have as fast as you can. Stick with the parking lot part of the mobile home park business only.

This article has nothing to do with mobile home parks, but it’s so stupid that it warranted inclusion in this week’s news list.

Universal (yes, the theme park) is building “affordable” apartments in Orlando. They’re spending $350 million to build 1,000 units. That works out to $350,000 per unit.

Now you might ask how that is affordable? It’s not. Only a complete idiot would think that’s affordable. That’s higher than the median home price in probably 70% of all U.S. metro areas, including such places as Dallas, Tulsa and Omaha.

Has America really lost grasp of the concept of “affordable”? Is next up an article on the new “affordable” Rolls Royce? How did we all get this stupid?

The park owner says that they “do not want to displace residents, but the company needs to increase revenues to meet the costs of improving the parks. That’s the gospel truth. You cannot bring old parks back to life without increasing rents significantly.

So what will it be: 1) acknowledge that new owners are doing great things by bringing old parks back to life and embrace the reality that rents must go up or 2) fight them tooth and nail and make nobody want to do this important task anymore?

The bottom line is, has been, and always will be: LOW RENTS = REDEVELOPMENT. That’s never going to change.

If there was an apartment complex that had code violations, the city would no doubt go to them and say “here’s what we need to get done to bring this up to code and here are some grants and programs to help pay for it and take all the time you need” and they would work together. But when it’s a mobile home park, the city says “fix this up or we’re shutting you down and you have zero time to get it done” and approach it from a confrontational perspective.

Galveston clearly wanted this park gone. Period. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

Why would you think that Pinellas country would tell people to raise their mobile homes up 9’ in the air or move out? Because they thought it would be too obvious if they said 90’ in the air. Clearly this story has the optics that the county is simply trying to raise the bar as high as possible to get rid of the tenants, the mobile homes demolished, and then have the land converted into a use that they like more.

NEWS BULLETIN:

The earlier article said that the residents bought their mobile home park for $6 million with 46 lots but this one says 26 lots. If that’s true, then they paid $260,000 per household so they could have the honor of living in a high-density trailer park. I hope this article is wrong on that lot count because – if not – this is a total scandal. There’s no way you can spin that as being in the best interests of anyone.

Now you have the State of Washington trying to emulate the new laws of New York on tenant first right of refusal. That means that Washington park owners may also now have to wait an additional 70 days while their tenants do absolutely nothing to buy the park but simply waste time and energy. Again, this concept has a 99% FAILURE RATE! That’s the actual stat. Why would anyone bother to spend time crafting and enacting laws that fail 99% of the time? Because it panders to their base, who have no idea how pointless it all is apparently.

At least one person in the room is still sane:

But the new requirement may adversely impact investment, said Jeff Cook, CEO of Rochester-based Cook Properties, the state’s largest owner of manufactured housing communities. “This onerous extra step represents another hurdle for owners and potential owners of these communities, who will now think twice about making investments in New York,” Cook said. 

It would be interesting to know how this “tenant right of first refusal” concept began in the first place. It certainly is not based on fact. Currently over 99% of mobile home park transactions do NOT include the tenants buying the park. Anyone who has ever sold a park to the tenants knows that it takes forever and a huge percentage of those then fail to materialize (as no non-profits want to guarantee the debt, which is required).

These kind of laws make as much sense as giving each and every person in the State of New York the first option to buy the Brooklyn Bridge – and about as useful.

Yet another state wants to drink the Kool-Aid that “resident first option to buy mobile home parks” is the solution to world hunger, global warming, drought and pestilence. If I got a dollar for every mobile home park that is successfully purchased by the residents in Maine. I’d have … zero dollars.

If this article says what I think it says, the city is discontinuing curbside trash just to mobile home parks due to city budget constraints. Obviously, that makes zero sense. Why are mobile home park residents singled out as not being worthy of curbside trash? Personally, I think the park owner should go to HUD and get their opinion on this.

MY HAT IS OFF TO THIS GUY!

Steube said the mobile home parks and communities he dealt with had the same recovery needs as individual homeowners and should receive the same support.

America needs more politicians like this guy – people who don’t waste time on nonsense (tenant first options that never materialize) and focus on real issues like putting homes back together after a major storm and flooding.

Bravo!

It’s interesting how people can be manipulated by a “spin”. In this case you have a group that bought a mobile home park, found the land was worth more in a different use, and was able to demolish the park without any pushback because they claimed it was all about focusing on this corny “missing middle” spin. The guy with the boatyard project in the earlier article should have told the city he was working on the “missing middle” and they would have said “yes, that’s extremely important to our city so go ahead and tear those last two trailers down” – without even knowing what he was talking about.

Reminds me of when they re-labeled “garbagemen” into “environmental engineers”. My hat is off to the “missing middle” label – pure genius.

Only in California …

The approval was ultimately granted in 2020, in part based on promises from the developer to ensure no resident would become homeless through the closure process. As the closure process comes to an end, the developer has failed to ensure the residents are relocated to safe and affordable, local housing as promised.

How can you task a mobile home park owner with what the U.S. Government itself can’t even accomplish (the waiting list for Section 8 is years long, right?). Where in the world would you find cheap housing in California and what keeps any resident from simply saying “I don’t feel this proposed housing is safe and affordable, in my opinion”?

What a stupid, stupid provision.