Across the US, homeownership is becoming increasingly inaccessible for low- and moderate-income households. While land costs are a driving force in this trend, construction costs carry some of the blame as well. However, “Comparison of the Costs of Manufactured and Site-Built Housing,” a new paper I co-authored with Chris Herbert and James Shen finds that manufactured housing offers a potential solution to rising construction costs, with a significant cost advantage over site-built homes. Given this cost advantage, we suggest that housing advocates and policymakers take steps to promote more widespread adoption of manufactured housing as...

A TINY home dweller has narrowly avoided homelessness after she was evicted from the property where she had lived for nine years.

Back in 2017, Yvonne Perrigo and her retired mother were living at the Skyview Trailer Park in Missoula, Montana, when the landlord left a note saying they needed to leave within six months.

There were plans to raze the park and build a new affordable apartment complex.

That's when Perrigo had to begin the painstaking and financially taxing process of moving her mobile home to another trailer park, the Missoulian reported.

"It was one of the roughest times I’ve ever had," she told the outlet.

"We were seriously...

LONGMONT — The popular tiny home movement is growing bigger in Colorado thanks to a new law aimed at allowing factory-built homes of about 400 square feet or less to become permanent fixtures in neighborhoods and in one case, to be used as an emerging therapy to get homeless military veterans back on their feet.

Advocates say House Bill 1242 , which went into effect July 1, will spur more purchases since it sets building standards for the scaled-down structures. The new rules also allow cities and counties to create legal pathways to let people live in tiny homes for a lifetime as opposed to just 180 days, advocates say. 

“Before this...

The Albemarle County Planning Commission recommended approval of a Special Use Permit request for the new owner of the renamed Crozet Mobile Home Community (MHC) at the commission’s June 27 meeting. The mobile home park on Park Road just east of Crozet Park has existed in that location continuously for over 40 years, predating most of the development around it. The 15-acre community currently hosts 73 manufactured homes, and the parcel’s new owners—who acquired the MHC in 2022 for $4 million—would like to add 14 more units to the site.

County senior planner Kevin McCollum explained that because the mobile home park was established before...

In 2021, a California-based investor group purchased Golden Hill Mobile Home Park in Golden, Colorado, a small city just outside Denver in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Less than two years later, rents doubled for the nearly 40 households that called the community home, pushing residents—some that had lived there for decades—to seek cheaper alternatives in an area already feeling the pressure of an affordable housing crisis. 

But this week, residents of the Golden Hills community got some good news: They are now the owners of the land their homes sit on, thanks in part to a 2020 state law that gave them the opportunity to purchase...

Christy Nair waves to neighbors as she strolls to her house perched on the edge of Silver City West, a 55-and-up mobile home and recreational vehicle park in Morro Bay. As she opens the front door, her 13-year-old pug, Duke, skips from a sunny spot on the sofa to the door — wagging his tail in anticipation of treats or head scratches. Nair, a retiree, has called Silver City West home for the past 11 years — but she worries about difficulties others may face when they choose to rent there or at other mobile home parks in the city.

About three years ago, Nair discovered black mold in the home she originally purchased at Silver City West,...

ROWAN COUNTY, N.C. (WBTV) - A group of families in a mobile home park in Rowan County reached out to WBTV after their running water was restricted by the landlord to only three hours a day.

The landlord says there’s a leak and that until it can be located and fixed, they have to limit the water to more than a dozen homes. It’s been going on for a month now, and they want answers and water.

The taps and the spigots are dry at the Mobile Manor off Hartley Road, except for certain times of day.

“7 in the morning to 8:30, then it’s cut off the rest of the day until 7 to 8:30 at night,” resident Brandy Brewer said.

It’s been that way for a...

A Colorado state agency confirms to CBS News Colorado it is investigating complaints of unfair and exploitative practices at a mobile home park in Arapahoe County. 

Activists claim the alleged issues there are an example of a problematic trend happening to mobile home parks across the country. They say large private equity companies are buying up mobile home parks, raising rent prices, and implementing costly policies, which they say take advantage of the people who live there, and critics say the same is happening at Foxridge Farm in northeastern Aurora. 

Residents say some people at Foxridge Farm are having to pay up to $3,800 a month...

Relatively few affordable housing-oriented bills cleared the General Assembly this year, albeit with a high-profile exception.

In early June, housing justice organizations celebrated passage of a bill guaranteeing most tenants a right to legal representation during eviction proceedings — a version of a bill that failed in a dramatic midnight vote at the end of the 2022 legislative session.

And last week, Gov. Carney quietly signed legislation enabling counties to use realty transfer tax revenue to fund affordable housing projects, opening the possibility that Sussex County could use a portion of its substantial revenues from pandemic-era...

Mobile homes and similar single-family dwellings that are built elsewhere and placed on rented land have long been a low-cost option for aspiring homeowners across Pennsylvania.

Manufactured-housing communities are disproportionately in rural areas, but they’re not exclusive to small rural pockets. In Pennsylvania, a slight majority are in urban areas, particularly in suburbs outside midsize and large cities, according to the first statewide analysis of these communities, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

Trends in lot vacancy suggest that demand for these homes is strongest “on the outskirts of larger urban areas,...

Through her search for a new apartment, one question on rental applications seemed to jump off the page at Debbi Halsted: Have you been evicted?

The answer was no — at least not yet.

But over the past few weeks, she had been worried her answer would change if she couldn’t pay her rent. Her Clinton landlord wanted to raise the payment from $650 a month to $1,250, more than a 90% increase. Halsted is on a fixed income and knew she couldn’t afford that rent. Even if she opted not to pay any other bill, her monthly income is just $1,119, which would leave her $131 short.

“There’s nothing right now that I see that I can afford. So what do you...

House Republicans objected to , arguing that the state shouldn't be setting mandates on manufactured home community owners that could push them out of business, further reducing Delaware’s affordable housing stock.

The First State Manufactured Housing Association, representing mobile home park operators, also expressed concerns about the changes one year after setting the other requirements for the industry. 

But Democrats argued that the changes were needed to offset the "unintended consequences" of the 2022 law indexing rent increases to inflation. 

"The residents of manufactured home communities are some of the most...

A new federal law proposed by three U.S. senators, including Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal, aims to protect mobile home owners. The law would curtail extreme rent increases and other predatory operator tactics.

In recent years, mobile home communities across the country continue the shift from locally owned and operated to hedge fund management.

Dave Delohery, president of the CT Mobile Homeowners Alliance, has lived in mobile homes for about a decade.

Delohery is a resident of the former Jensen mobile home community in Southington. It was purchased in 2019 by Sun Communities, the nation’s second largest manufactured home...

SUPERIOR — Douglas County was willing to give land away and found no takers.

Now officials are going to try it again.

The county's Land and Development Committee on Tuesday, June 27, directed the County Clerk’s Office to advertise parcels that once housed the north and south Country Acres trailer parks for sale again.

No bids were received after the property was advertised in June.

County Board Chairman Mark Liebaert said he anticipated receiving three bids on the property, which was valued at $33,600 during the last assessment in Parkland in 2013. Tuesday, he was worried the lack of bids would leave Douglas County to bear the cleanup...

It looks like the mobile home park at Dotsero will have broadband internet service in the near future.

During a Monday presentation to the Eagle County Board of Commissioners, Scott Lingle, the county’s director of innovation and technology, briefed the board about efforts to bring better service to the county’s rural areas.

A recent request for proposals was sent to internet service providers. Three bids came back. The least expensive bid came from Vero Broadband. The total project is expected to cost about $380,000, which includes both the mobile home park and the Two Rivers neighborhood. Eagle County will pay 75% of that amount, but...

Two years ago, residents of a north Fresno trailer park placed their hopes in local leaders to help them out of a bad situation.

Local leaders, namely the Fresno City Council and a Fresno Superior Court judge, only made things worse.

Today, roughly half as many people live in the former Trails End Mobile Home Park compared to before government “help” arrived. More than a dozen were evicted by new predatory landlords scheming to turn a quick profit off their plight. Those who remain also face eviction in less than a year, but not before being threatened with rent hikes and all sorts of unpleasantries in the meantime.

How did this happen?...

Novato is home to 415 senior citizens who have just learned they’re in danger of losing their homes.

All are residents of Marin Valley Mobile Country Club immediately adjacent to Hamilton. This is affordable housing. Rent for each pad is about $650 per month including utilities. The 315 units are not-very-mobile house trailers, single- or double-wide manufactured homes owned by individual residents.

About 41% of the residents of the well-maintained facility qualify for affordable housing. The reality is that the majority of the remainder chose MVMCC because their retirement savings coupled with Social Security places them in the bottom...

NEWFANE — A new residential development is in the works to replace a longtime mobile home park in Wrights Corners.

The development, Wrights Country Cottages, will consist of 19 stick built homes replacing almost all of the existing mobile homes at 6520 Ridge Road.

The stick built rental homes will be single-story, permanent structures sized between 700 and 800 square feet, according to property owner Bart Adams. He estimated the project cost is about $1.3 million.

The stick built houses are “basically about the same size as the mobile homes that were there,” Adams said.

The development will primarily house tenants over the age of 55.

“I...

A town board denied a developer a permit to dig on the former site of Suni Sands mobile home park after a Native American mound was found on the property

CAMPBELL, CA — Come see this beautiful mobile home in the family community of Timber Cove.

A mobile home park between Miami and El Portal could soon be the site of a massive mixed-use project anchored by nearly 4,000 apartments.

Affiliates managed by David Mordekhay in Hollywood and Tom Grinberg and Gary Otto in Miami are seeking Miami-Dade County’s permission to create a special district that would allow the trio to tear down the Soar Mobile Home Park at 8050 Northwest Miami Court. 

The 22-acre trailer park would be replaced by 3,990 multifamily units, 250,000 square feet of retail, 107,800 square feet of offices and 312 hotel rooms, according to an application filed with the county. 

The project is not a sure thing: It would...

ARNOLDS PARK — Renee Comstock thought she'd found home.

Five years ago, she used the lion's share of her savings to buy a 366-square-foot mobile home and lease a lot at the Okoboji Trailer Park and Storage at 244 Highway 71. When she was a kid growing up near Denison, Iowa, Comstock and her family would make the two-hour journey up to Okoboji in the summer to fish, ride the wooden "Legend Roller Coaster" at the Arnolds Park Amusement Park and visit the historic Abbie Gardner Sharp Cabin.

"And then I just decided I’m going to live up here," Comstock said. 

First she settled in nearby Spirit Lake, Iowa, and spent about 20 years at Polaris...