Mobile Home Park News Briefing

And another park bites the dust.

Thursday night’s Planning Board meeting in Warren generated strong opposition to a proposed 22-lot mobile home park off of Route 1. “How are the people that live around this and own property that pay taxes, how are we benefiting from this? Because I pay taxes on waterfront property. And I want to know, like, how am I benefiting from this? What am I benefiting from this?

It’s interesting that Maine – which holds itself out as some type of liberal oasis of original thought – goes berserk with the mere mention of a new 22-space mobile home park.

This exemplifies why virtually no mobile home parks have been built in the U.S. in over 50 years.

Sharon Pevey, 77, moved to Cascade Park Estates seven years ago. She was divorced and needed a place to live quickly. She paid $140,000 cash to buy her pale yellow, 1,400-square-foot mobile home. As with most manufactured home parks, she had to pay rent for the lot her home sat on, priced at $525 per month, plus property taxes. It was expensive but she could manage since she runs a hair salon across the river in Portland.Soon after she moved, the rent increases started. They climbed each year, and today she pays $1,350 each month “for a piece of dirt that this house sits on,” Pevey said.

The Free Rent Movement folks are gearing up for another run at rent control in Washington state. Expect more articles like this shortly. Of course, the one item that nobody wants to address is how long do you think this mobile home park will last if they institute rent control? Not long. It will be torn down quickly and made into a better use with no rent control restrictions. Let’s see how stupid the bureaucrats in Washington really are this time around.

Nick Ubaldi, regional manager for Harmony Communities, which oversees the 221-space mobile home park, said they don’t agree with the denial because they need to recoup the money invested in recent renovations made to the park. “Over $1 million was recently invested in the park. The ordinance forces rents well below market rate, making it difficult to operate a park of this size,” Ubaldi told San José Spotlight. “By denying this increase, the city has set the business back, discouraged further investment and ultimately put residents at risk as the park deteriorates over time.”

Of all the stupid things that bureaucrats have approved over the decades, the top of the list has to be rent control. All it does is create a lower-quality housing market, eliminate new construction, and makes all property owners perpetually weighing the option of closure. Nobody can intelligently argue that rent control is smart – just look at how many famous economists have blasted it over the years – and, when pressed with explaining how it’s beneficial, they simply try to distract with name calling and old, worn-out Democratic messaging.

At some point the people who live in California and other rent control states are going to have to vote to eliminate this idiocy – or live with inferior housing options for an eternity.

As for this mobile home park, I imagine they will be tearing it down for redevelopment. Who would blame them?

“My client only served the 60 day notices because the (California Department of Housing and Community Development) advised the park owner that its permit to operate would be suspended if any resident/homeowner did not immediately correct the violations,” Carroll said.

Most Americans think that mobile home park residents rent their units, just like an apartment. But the truth is that probably 90%+ own their units outright and only pay the park owner lot rent. That’s why it’s so annoying when people blame park owners for the condition of the homes in the park, because they have no ownership nor control over them except by filing rules violations. And many states refuse to allow an owner to evict over rules violations so there is literally no way to get things done. In this case, the owner was told to fix the home or lose their license and, with no other options, they filed evictions to get the tenants to either make repairs or leave for the sake of the other residents.

Then to top it all off, the media spins it that the owner is “evil” to file the evictions.

What a screwed-up world we live in.

It was all sounding good until the woke scam surfaced:

… and a switch to electric appliances.

While I have written articles on the many ways to improve mobile home energy efficiency for the past two decades (better weatherstripping on doors, more caulk around windows, thermal switch covers, plastic over windows, etc.) there is absolutely nothing to be gained by changing appliances from gas to electric. Zero. That’s the now-defeated mantra of the Biden administration, in which they wanted to mandate that you could not use gas appliances because it did not fit in with their “green agenda”.

The bottom line is that anyone can make a mobile home have lower utility bills with simply a few parts, a caulk gun, and a bit of knowledge. But don’t for a minute think that buying all new electric appliances is part of that program. The cost of the appliances alone would offset the energy saving of all the other common-sense items for the next decade or more.

Once they matched the 18 million dollar offer, the board had to find the money. Meadowood knew they would have to carry a big mortgage. The question was, could they get enough grants and low interest loans from local, county and state government overseeing federal dollars to finance what they needed? The final piece turned out to be a $3.475 million low-interest loan from Colorado's Department of Local Affairs."DOLA was our last piece. When we got our DOLA award, had it not been for our DOLA award we would not have made it," Cook explained.

Let me first say that I am not in any way opposed to residents buying their mobile home park. What makes me mad is that the media tries to make it a "David vs. Goliath" story under which the residents slay the corporate landlord. Clearly, the seller in this story was more than happy to take the $18 million regardless of who gave it to them. But there's no biblical moral here. The lot rent that residents will be paying, however, is THE EXACT SAME AMOUNT as they would under a corporate buyer – perhaps even more. Here's the simple math behind that statement:

1. All of the operating costs of the mobile home park are the same regardless of ownership (water, sewer, electricity, gas, insurance, repair, etc.). You don't get a "resident-owned discount" on any of these.
2. The monthly mortgage payment on the roughly $15 million mortgage will be identical no matter who the borrower is.
3. You add these two together and you come to the same monthly number no matter if the residents own it or a professional investor owns it.

The only difference between the two options is the bizarre concern that somehow the corporate owner is buying it for land development. While that's true in some cases (like last week's $1 million per lot park sale) that's very much a rarity. So what's the benefit to the residents with these transactions?

I would suggest that the lot rent will be HIGHER under resident ownership, as the tenants are lousy managers of these properties and will allow the delinquency to go up and the needed cap-x repairs to go down. It would be like letting the guy in row E fly the American Airlines jet and expect the same outcome as the highly-trained pilot. But when the media pretends that the residents are just as good pilots as the professionals, it demeans those who actually know what they're doing: the corporate investors. And that's simply not true. Go drive a "tenant owned" community and tell me how it compares to one owned by a corporate owner. You won't be impressed.

On the subject of longevity of the park not becoming redeveloped, the worst part of these stories is that they fail to tell the truth about an essential fact: these "tenant-owned" deals are not built for long-term financial survivability. When a corporate owner buys a mobile home park they typically do so with 10-year notes structured at 70% LTV. When the tenants buy the park, the financing is typically cobbled together from short-term notes (typically 3 to 5 years in duration) and other flimsy hand-outs. As a result, the deals will probably go back on the market again since they can't get them refinanced under a traditional structure and the non-profits lose interest and refuse to keep going with personal guarantees and grants.

I wish that, just once, somebody would have the guts to tell the truth about resident ownership! Again, I have no problem with it as a seller, but the lies have had a negative effect on the industry with many state governments and that part of the story has to end. Many blue-state bureaucrats have bought into the false "landlords are evil" manipulation over time, which is just plain wrong.

A 146-unit manufactured housing community in North Charleston has changed hands for the first time in more than two decades, fetching $15 million. Marcus & Millichap's Charleston office represented the seller, Daniel Island-based Sherwood Community LLC, which purchased the property in 2004 for $1.3 million.

How do you turn $1.3 million into $15 million in twenty years? Buy a mobile home park in Charleston, SC.

Another mobile home park bites the dust. Seeing a trend here?

In a Jan. 27 letter to the Pines Trailer Park Homeown­ers Association (HOA), Pines Park Investors LLC offered to sell the mobile home park to the residents for $75 million. Commissioners said they support the continued exis­tence of the Pines, but don’t have the authority to interfere with private ownership of the park.

This park has 86 lots. That’s nearly $1 million per lot. There’s no way on earth this park is not being torn down, and no way on earth the city government is going to support denying legal zoning for this giant improvement in their tax base. There’s not a thing the residents can do or say to stop this freight train.

Out with Lamplight Mobile Home Park and in with expensive townhomes. Was there a higher lot rent level that would have kept Lamplight intact? That’s the big question that nobody wants to talk about.

Another mobile home park bites the dust – a victim of lot rents that were too low to justify staying in that capacity. Will people ever learn this simple lesson? Doubtful. It’s been a common theme since I started doing this weekly News Review.

"The minimum amount of notice they need to be given is 30 days, and outside of a nonpayment of rent situation, there really is no way they should have given a ten-day notice," Protheroe said.

Taylor's Rental Mobile Home Park is being torn down for redevelopment. And all that the media can come up with is the suggestion that tenants were given ten-days advance notice to leave and some personal injury lawyer claims they should get thirty. Big Deal. Nobody's going to benefit from an additional 20 days of notice. But they might still have their homes in Taylor's – potentially for a lifetime – if the lot rent would have been higher. That's the big issue here: simply how high mobile home park lot rents need to be to prevent parks from being redeveloped, right?

But there is a growing movement to develop more mobile and modular housing in Maine Despite the negative perception some people may have of them, advocates say they can help alleviate the housing crisis while providing better living standards and cheaper rates than similar developments. 

Is the demand for affordable housing finally so high that even city officials are starting to overcome their "stigma" against "trailer parks"? Possibly so. The U.S. housing crisis is so severe that all bets are off.

This is exactly what states need to be doing. Giving grants to mobile home parks to replace aging infrastructure is the correct way to bring old parks back to life and to sustain affordable housing. This is exactly what bureaucrats should be working on if they really want to make a difference.

Well, here’s something new. Howard County, Maryland wants a blanket first-right-of-refusal on every mobile home park or motel going up for sale in the entire county. I guess it’s not a bad thing, as the more buyers the merrier, but the only saving grace is that the county – thank heavens – has to exercise that option in just one week. My bet is that they will never, ever, exercise that option. But it sure created great P.R. for them, right?

This comes after complaints in recent years from people in Bismarck and Minot who say out-of-state companies have bought up their parks and then charged people higher fees for lot rent, water, and late fees. This bill requires a park owner to provide information to residents, such as proper notice before eviction, as well as a ‘right to first refusal’ if the park is in the process of being sold.

Everyone needs to realize this is all built on a false narrative. Let’s explore where North Dakota is getting this all wrong:

1. “Out-of-state companies buying up parks” is NOT what’s causing higher lot rents. What’s causing lot rents to go up is that, when you buy a park from the mom-and-pop owner, you put debt on it and that requires significantly higher lot rent to service the debt. In addition, professional owners must factor in – as dictated by lenders – higher levels of capital repair, regular maintenance, and management cost. It doesn’t matter who buys the park (local company, out-of-state company, or the residents) you end up at the same lot rent figure. All of these groups pay the same mortgage, utilities, insurance, etc. So let’s cut the false narrative that “out-of-state” owners have anything to do with it.
2. The tenants knowing the ownership information on their park has no bearing on anything – that’s as crazy as pulling up to the window at McDonald’s and them telling you the name and address of the franchise owner before you order French fries. The only reason a tenant would want to know the owner’s name is to use that information to try and put a blitz of negative attention on them to try and manipulate some type of result that they think can be accomplished through harassment.
3. The amount of notice required for eviction is set by the court. If you go to court, and the law says ten days’ advance notice and the park only used five days, then the judge will toss the case. This is just plain stupid to codify on park owners that which the court system dictates already.
4. Tenants successfully buy the parks they live in maybe .000000000001% of the time. This is nothing but a delay tactic that causes inconvenience for sellers who must wait until the time expires before they move on to real buyers. I looked online and there are no actual stats on “resident-owned” parks in North Dakota, but I guarantee you it’s laughably small.

At a time when the nation has voted to end all the ridiculous red tape in America, it’s mind-boggling that politicians in North Dakota have apparently not received the message and want to still heap more on.

For those who are interested in building new mobile home parks, here’s a sign of hope. I can tell you from experience, it’s a herculean task to get a permit to build a park in a location where customers would want to live, but this applicant apparently pulled it off with what appears to be a 90-lot park. Good job in getting that accomplished!

“In 20 years, I have never received a call about somebody asking to close their parks. In the last four weeks, I have received five. Five calls from landlords representing over 5,000 spaces in the state, that are asking: ‘How do I go about closing my park? Because if this bill passes in its current form, I just can’t operate,’” Miner said.

Oregon is on very flimsy ice right now. Far-left politicians are pushing to revise their current rent control which allows 7% + CPI to simply CPI. There is no question that this revision will trigger a housing apocalypse in that state. For park owners, that means simply shutting down and redeveloping their land into a better use. But to the bureaucrats, this is another opportunity to exert “control” over the private sector, and to appease their whacky “Free Rent Movement” constituents. If Oregon is dumb enough to pass this rent control revision, then they deserve what they get.

Gulf Shore and Twin Shores Mobile Home Parks residents say they received damage and destruction unlike they’ve ever experienced. Residents say they’ve been approved for building permits to make necessary repairs, but they’ve been blocked by the town’s building commission.

I saw the same thing firsthand during Hurricane Harvey in Austin, Texas. The bureaucrats and city managers in the whole surrounding area saw the flooding as an opportunity to get mobile home parks torn down so they could be rebuilt into prettier uses that would pay more property tax. However, when pushed (and under the risk of litigation) the city bureaucrats would suddenly claim that they never knew there was an issue. It’s all just a big game to them that only ends when you call their bluff.

The medical examiner’s determination of what contributed to the death in each case: environmental heat exposure. Arizona Luminaria requested and analyzed heat-related or heat-contributed death data provided by the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner to gain an understanding of the lethal impacts of heat on mobile home residents. 

This sounds like the beginning of one of those studies that DOGE has been racing to defund.

The simple fact of the matter is that Tucson is incredibly hot in the summer, and nobody can survive there without air conditioning. Google shows the temperature that can kill you from heat stroke is 104 degrees. So this is not a mobile home issue but simply an issue of older people not being exposed to 104 degrees or higher, which means you have to be indoors with the air conditioning on all day long.

If, in fact, more people are dying of heat stroke in mobile home parks than surrounding subdivisions, I would imagine it’s for one of several reasons:

1. People in mobile home parks typically do their own yard work, whereas in subdivisions they hire it out. In many of the examples given, the park residents died outside in their yards, not inside.
2. People in mobile home parks probably run their air conditioning less to keep their utility bills lower.
3. People in mobile home parks like to be outdoors more, which was part of their attraction to living in what equates to a pseudo-RV lifestyle.

You CANNOT jump to the conclusion – as this writer did – that it’s solely because mobile homes are less energy efficient. That’s ridiculous. While mobile homes do have less energy efficiency than a comparable single-family home, that’s not going to take a home with the AC set at 75 degrees and leak enough cool air to drive the temperate to 104 degrees in the home. Give me a break.

These folks may be in WAY over their heads, thanks to pandering non-profits that tend to build deals that are not sustainable based on the laws of economics. While there’s not a whole lot of detail given on this “tenant-owned” transaction that was built from cobbled together non-profit loans, here’s what we do know (based on this article) and why it should be of concern to those with actual real estate experience:

• There are 129 lots but only 48 of those are occupied.
• They paid $8 million for basically 48 occupied lots which equates to nearly $200,000 per lot.
• Of the remaining 81 lots, only 28 of those have utilities.
• They are spending $1 million to get those 28 lots ready, which equated to around $40,000 per lot.
• When you put a home on those 28 lots, you’ll be in them turnkey at around $120,000 each.
• That $120,000 does not include the lot rent.
• The average home in Bangor, Maine sells for around $200,000, but if you go to Realtor.com you’ll see that there’s a whole lot of single-family inventory selling for far less, like this nice one for $120,000: https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/156-Essex-St_Bangor_ME_04401_M32376-24560

So I guess my question would be “what was the goal here?”. If the goal was to provide affordable housing, then clearly that didn’t happen as the residents are now burdened with more debt and total housing payments than what they would have ended up with if they had bought a nice colonial home in town with a yard and a simple walk to a quaint restaurant.

I think the real goal of most of these “tenant owned” transactions are simply for the involved non-profits to believe they have “defeated” capitalism. Well, I don’t think it’s working. There’s no way this deal will survive 5 to 10 years financially. The residents will be crushed under the debt load and the non-profits will grow weary of their complaints and the risk of the debt guarantees. I’ll bet $5 this deal is back on the market within a decade and will sell, at a loss, to a professional investor. You should leave real estate up to real professionals and non-profits should focus on what they’re good at (which is not pretending to be business people).

“If we have to go invest $100 million to rebuild the park and we’re not able to recoup that in some fashion, then it’s not likely we will rebuild the park,” 

A bitter lesson in rent control is coming to California. The owners of the two mobile home parks that were completely destroyed in the recent LA fires may simply elect to rebuild into a different use rather than put back a property that is encumbered with ridiculous rent control requirements. It may be time for all the places that enacted rent control to rethink the concept and perhaps abandon it. There have been a huge number of studies done on the impact of rent control, and the overwhelming conclusion is that it is one of the worst ideas imaginable if you want to have well-maintained and abundant housing. Maybe residents in those states suffering under the suffocating confines of rent control will finally take action to get them repealed.

Like many mobile home residents, Curtiss owns her home, but she doesn't own the land underneath it. She lives in Bona Vista, a community in Otis Orchards. She's rented the 14-by-70-foot lot where her home sits since 2007. When Curtiss first moved in, her lot rent was $300 a month. For more than a decade, it barely increased. But in the past five years, rent in manufactured home communities have been catching up with the rest of the housing market. Curtiss' rent is set to hit $875 per month this spring.

If the rent was $300 per month in 2007 and the rent is now $875 nearly 20 years later, that works out to an increase of around 6% per year. That’s hardly excessive. Maybe they need to look at healthcare rates and car prices during that same period. In 2007 you could get health insurance for a family of four at a price of around $300 per month. That same policy today is over $2,000 per month. But, of course, it’s forbidden for woke journalists to even mention the cost of health insurance as that was the byproduct of the Obama regime and, as a result, is strictly forbidden to be discussed.

Washington has no limit to how much rent can be increased, according to WashingtonLawHelp.org, which means that a manufactured home park owner can charge pretty much whatever it wants to, as long as it gives notice to the tenants. That may be difficult enough for, say, apartment dwellers, but owners of manufactured homes don’t have the option of just packing their furniture and moving elsewhere. According to moving.com, it can cost as much as $14,000 to move a manufactured home from one property to another, assuming the home is even in movable condition.

Of all the lies that the Free Rent Movement spews forth on a regular basis, none is dumber than the claim that somehow mobile home park residents are at a disadvantage to apartment dwellers because they can’t easily move their home. Why would they ever move their home? If they want to move, simply sell it where it stands like every single-family home and condo owner does. Who came up with this argument in the first place? I was on a woke podcast a couple years ago and the host asked me “so you have the tenants trapped because they can’t move their homes” and I said “how does that make them trapped? Why can’t they just sell the homes right where they are and then buy another home somewhere else if that’s what they want to do?” He couldn’t come up with a comeback so he edited that out of the podcast. I can’t blame him – it was an idiotic argument to have made and he knew it.