Yet another article about a mobile home park that is being torn down in the near future to make way for an apartment complex. Are you shocked? With apartments at an average rent of $2,000 per month and mobile home park lot rents at an average rent of $300 per month it’s not rocket science as to why this is the most common article theme you’ll find in the news.

This is a very one-sided story, as the journalist clearly favors the resident over the landlord (big shock). Basically, it’s a story about the Kim family that started a renovation to their mobile home and were still putting around on it four months later, at which point the park owner demanded that they clean up the debris and get the job done. I doubt anyone would look favorably on their neighbor turning their home and yard into a construction site for four months – so how about the 8 months after that in which they STILL had not completed work or removed the debris. Clearly, the park owner could not let this situation continue and enlisted court help to correct the situation (which was granted).

Mobile home park owners try to be tolerant of residents making repairs and upgrades to their homes, but they also have to respect the quality of life of the general community, and this resident’s inability to complete their work in a timely manner can only be blamed on the resident. 

Put your checkbook away and save the $25 million, Joe Biden. We’ve already studied how to make old mobile homes more energy efficient using a thermal gun and some common sense (kind of like the scene in Ford vs. Ferrari where the old-time car driver fixes the aerodynamics of the GT40 using a ball of yarn and scotch tape). Here’s what you do to improve the energy efficiency of an old mobile home: 1) install new weatherstripping on both front and back doors 2) new caulk around all windows 3) use thermal switch plate covers on all exterior walls and 4) put plastic sheeting or thermal drapes over all windows. Case closed and now you can donate that $25 million to a more important study on how to properly winterize a tortoise or improve the quality of life for crickets.

“The report states the park “operates at a substantial deficit, has ongoing deferred maintenance, and presents increasing administrative and financial burdens on the city… The mobile home park’s expenses have exceeded revenues by a total of $3.6 million during the past four years. Without more revenue, the city projects the park’s reserve funds will be depleted within the next five years.”

That $3.6 million loss is simply the revenue less expenses, not including any debt payment on the property.

This is a park owned by the City of Novato itself. Someone offered the city $30 million for this deferred maintenance mess (which any idiot would take) and yet the city is holding out because of concerns that the new owner might raise the rent.

So if the park revenue does not even cover the expenses – and raising the rent is “evil” – then how will this park even exist 5 years from now? Clearly it won’t. In this case, it’s probably just the city finding an easy way out of having a mobile home park in their boundary, but it’s a further demonstration that all mobile home park lot rents need to go up – way up – for old parks to stay in business. 

Let’s do the math. 58 lots x $745 per month lot rent = $518,520 total annual revenue as a mobile home park vs. 400 x $2,000 per month rent = $9,600,000 total annual revenue as an apartment complex. How high would the lot rent have had to be to make the mobile home park option attractive enough not to file an application to demolish it? If you calculate the cost of building the 8-story building for the apartments, maybe $1,500 lot rent per month would have worked. But, of course, the park owner would have been publicly criticized for a rent increase that big so they never even bothered to consider it. So instead of paying $1,500 per month for their existing dwelling, the residents will end up paying $2,000 per month for an apartment smaller than their mobile home. 

This is the most confusing article I’ve ever seen. The residents are deliberately trying to get their own park shut down. At least that’s how it appears. Read this quote:

“Well, the promises that had been made to us residents was that if nothing got done in that trailer park by December, they were gonna close it down. And then lo and behold, it's still operating and still going strong," noted Mary Davenport, Southport resident.” 

I’m sure they’ll get their wish at the rate they’re going. 

I guess the politicians in Delaware don’t read this weekly publication or they would know that rent control simply leads to parks being torn down and redeveloped. It’s not rocket science.

Saving an average of $872 per year in property tax for park residents is great, but the only reason the numbers worked out is that volunteers did all the work and the court appearances (and appeals). It’s an interesting concept that perhaps state MHAs should investigate, but it would need to be a statewide initiative brought by the state MHA to really work.

Guys, Covid is over. Officially. The masks are in the trash can. Nobody is getting the shots. Nobody can use Covid as an excuse any more. If evictions are soaring in Montana it’s because residents are not paying their rent. There are millions of jobs available. Go back to work and pay the rent. Stop using the Covid nonsense. Nobody is buying it.

Wow, the writer of this article put in literally zero minutes in research. Here are some factual problems:

1. There are NOT 20 million Americans living in mobile home parks (which is what the writer implies). There are 44,000 mobile home parks in the U.S. with an average lot count (nobody knows but just guessing) of 50 units per park. That’s 2.2 million mobile homes in all parks combined. Assuming 3 people per home (which is too high) that’s 6.6 million Americans. What the writer missed is that around 65% of all mobile home residents live on their own land and not in a park. Big difference.
2. When a mobile home park is in floodplain (and subdivisions, too) what’s at issue is how many lots are in the flood plain and how high the water goes (known as Base Floodplain Elevation or BFE). If a park has only the greenspace in floodplain or the water only goes 1” high, it’s not that important.
3. I hate to rain on the writer’s parade who is trying to publicly shame park owners but there are 14.6 million housing PROPERTIES in floodplain in the U.S. – and that number includes apartments that could have 100 units or more. That’s a fact that you can find on Google in 2 seconds (would have been nice for the writer to spend at least 2 seconds of research). That makes this whole mobile home park shaming seem a little out of proportion, right?

The good news is that AI is going to replace writers like this, and they can then devote their lives to higher pursuits like driving for Grubhub.

And this is why it’s becoming virtually impossible to obtain insurance in Florida. When you live in Florida, flooding comes with the territory, and you must work around that fact. Now people no longer want to accept personal responsibility and want to pretend that you can live at 1’ above sea level and flooding magically won’t happen – or that it’s the landlord’s fault. It is estimated that 16 million stick-built homes in the U.S. will be lost to flooding by 2050 – with a huge percentage of those in Florida. This is not a mobile home park issue, this is an every living person in Florida issue.

“After three court dates, Havens confirmed that Lawrence and Glander were willing to settle the case at $25,000. As of June 5, Warrens confirmed that the settlement was paid and will be split between all 15 plaintiffs. Prior to paying the settlement, Glander told the Appeal that he “categorically (denies) all the charges” and declined further comment.“They’ve all got this judgment on the record which is what we wanted so they couldn’t do this again,” Warrens said. “We succeeded in what we wanted to do. Whether we get a dime or not is not the big thing. It’s just nice to know that we did get the judgment.”

I know nothing about this park or any of the matters involved but when you subtract the legal cost of three separate court trials from $25,000 you end up with something like ($25,000) -- or worse – for the residents to split. So the tenants won basically nothing from all this. But wait, they did succeed with one thing… I bet you $50 the park owner puts this land on the market for redevelopment, and nobody on earth could fault him for that. For greater detail read article #1 above.

WARNING: CRAZY WOKE JOURNALIST ALERT.

“So why is Lauren Boebert using her time and energy to introduce articles of impeachment against Joe Biden regarding his handling of the border crisis and illegal immigration? She needs to focus on the issues facing her district; and the issues presented to the committees she serves on.”

So let me get this straight: the allegations that Biden may have taken $10 million in bribes and the complete disaster at the border is of lower priority than vehicle noise, cash transactions and trailer parks to Boebert’s constituency? Nice try.

Let me get this straight – the park residents lost water for three hours and they therefore feel entitled to $5,000 damages per household? I have lost water at my house probably ten times in 20 years due to main water line breaks on the city’s equipment. I never – NOT EVER – would have dreamed to make such an asinine request. This defies all logic and is a testament to what a completely screwed up country we have become.  Fortunately the judge saw through this nonsense and tossed the case.

Also note that the journalist titled this piece “dismisses the mobile home park appeal” which is not true and the title should have been “dismisses the mobile home park RESIDENTS’ appeal”. Gee, I wonder what side the writer was on?

Hmmm … I think I saw that same concept two stories ago. If the residents don’t want to pay a rent high enough to support keeping the mobile home park a mobile home park, then I can already hear the “land for sale” sign being nailed up on the frontage and the apartment developers starting to make offers. IS EVERYONE IN AMERICA TOO STUPID TO SEE THAT ARTIFICIALLY KEEPING RENTS LOW SIMPLY LEADS TO PARKS BEING TORN DOWN? Apparently so.

The good news is that very, very few mobile home parks in the U.S. have cities that read and bill the water meters. Normally, the city sends one master bill to the park owner and then they read their own submeters and bill it back. But before these owners start thinking about installing meters, they might want to change to a RUBS or CAMS system and get out of the metering business altogether. Of course, that’s often the reason the city put the meters in to begin with, because most cities hate RUBS and CAMS (where you send residents either the same bill per lot or a gradated bill based on number of constants). But that’s where this is going for those owners. And the water companies are to blame.

This is an EXCELLENT article – fair and unbiased and based on fact. And the problem is best described in one quote from the article on what the residents of the park found when they had to find a new place to live as the park was being redeveloped: the “rent was often double, or even triple, the $850 a month they paid for their lot”.

In ALL of these type of stories – and there are several every week – the reason the park shut down was that you can build apartments on that land, stack them two or three high, and rent them for $1,850 per month per unit (that’s the price that the apartments that just went up on another nearby park are priced at). So what landlord needs a mobile home park for $850 per month in lot rent when you can get nearly $6,000 per month for that same spot of land?

Of course, the only difference is that the park already exists and you have to build the apartment building which costs capital. But the moral needs to be that all these residents and media advocates – and the idiotic politicians that pander to them – need to be chasing after park owners begging them to raise their rents high enough to not be tempted to tear the park down and put up apartments. It’s not rocket science.

“About 60 modular homes in Phoenix that were meant to be prioritized for Almeda Fire victims were recently discovered to be uninhabitable. Replacing the homes could cost $20-25 million.”

Basic math yields that for 60 modular homes to be worth $25 million means that the bureaucrats spent $416,666 per home – that’s right nearly half-a-million dollars per unit.

Do you seriously believe they spent $416,666 per unit on homes that you and I can buy factory direct for maybe $80,000 all day long?

I know that government spending is out of control, but how can taxpayers read this and not freak out?

Getting approvals to expand RV parks are so much easier than mobile home parks as most Americans have a positive stigma of RVs and a negative one towards mobile homes. It’s interesting tha the #1 assertion of the city to get the permit is that no customer can stay more than 180 days – they want to make sure that this in no way resembles a mobile home park. 

"Henderson was on the city council when Councilman Lee Meyer said the council should explore condemning the property, but she offered no opinion on Meyer’s comments. “I had people coming and tell me that you want to close down the trailer park,” Lane said to Henderson. Henderson denied Lane’s claims without explanation."

Come on, nobody can be this stupid. Clearly the city wants the park gone because it’s ugly and offers little in property tax. The greatest B.S. in the world can’t distract from this fact.

"The apartments, which are being built across from the entrance of the Verde Valley Medical Center on State Route 89A, start at $1,575 for a one-bedroom and go up to $2,235 for a three-bedroom, according to its website."

Wait a minute – that’s affordable? Then how can you criticize mobile home parks which offer 3 bedrooms for $995 per month including lot rent? Total hypocrisy!

“Everyone talks about the missing middle. This is part of what a solution to the missing middle looks like, 1,500- to 1800-square-foot homes with a price of under $500,000 for a base unit,” said Malcolmson."

I know Canadians are richer than Americans on average (nearly twice as rich) but $500,000 is considered “affordable” housing and does not even include the land, which is leased? Wow. I need to open a Louis Vuitton store there.

I’m all for these type of programs – we have sold several parks to the residents so far – but can we all admit how few properties this benefits in the end? Residents in the entire U.S. only buy about 20 or 30 parks a year. Wouldn’t this money be better served if every mobile home park got a grant to build a pavilion, charcoal grills, playground, and nicer entrance? That would benefit ten times more people for the same money. I’m not sure what this obsession is with the residents buying the land underneath their mobile homes, but it does nothing to stop rents from increasing, if that’s the myth that people are counting on. I don’t have any stats, but I know of parks that have significantly higher rents under resident-owned scenarios as they then have to contend with covering the rising costs of everything from insurance to property tax, as well as try to pay a crushing monthly mortgage.

Not to sound like the Grinch but the non-profit spent $2.4 million on a dirt-road 20 space park, and are looking at spending maybe $600,000 more in infrastructure repair. That’s $150,000 per household spent so that they can continue to live in a dirt-road trailer park. Would it not make more sense to buy each household a debt-free stick-built house in another state? Would that not be infinitely better than what they ended up with? I’m all for programs that benefit those in need, but I’m afraid that the virtue-signaling this non-profit was after exceeded common sense.

This quote shows how stupid this story is:

"Alondra Ruiz has lived at Periwinkle mobile home park for nine years and has been a central voice at protests and City Council meetings about the park’s closure. She said attorneys for the university asked her to sign a contract with a “non-disparagement” clause that would prohibit her from saying anything negative about GCU or Trellis, the housing nonprofit GCU hired to help residents relocate.If Ruiz doesn’t sign the contract, she said she will not receive the compensation package GCU is offering her, including $10,000."

It's standard business in the U.S. to get release clauses signed when you get paid. Either stop blasting GCU and take the money or get nothing. The resident has no power here and the journalist is giving her false hope. This park closed in May – by the book – and Ruiz and others have no apparent legal basis to still be living there. Grand Canyon University is trying to stop this PR nightmare and have bent over backwards. Their patience is at an end, and I don’t blame them.