Mobile Home Park News Briefing

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Delaware Gov: Delaware State Housing Authority Shares Preview Of The 2023 Housing Needs Assessment Report

Preview:

Dover, Del. October 10, 2023 – Delawareans, including government officials, nonprofit and for-profit partners, and service providers, joined the Delaware State Housing Authority (DSHA) at POLYTECH Adult Education Center to hear preliminary findings from the 2023 Housing Needs Assessment report compiled by Root Policy Research. 

Key findings from the report include: 

  • Overall, 50% of renters in Delaware are cost-burdened, with 25,000 severely cost-burdened—paying more than 50% of their income in rent.
  • Since 2010, the homeownership rate has dropped for all age cohorts except seniors, with the most significant decline among ages 35 to 44,...
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Our thoughts on this story:

There are not that many mobile home parks in Delaware so this stat in the report was remarkable:

  • The composition of the state’s housing stock has changed little over time, with the most significant change being a 6,800 unit decrease in manufactured or mobile homes.

I guess Delaware has seen quite a lot of redevelopment where mobile home parks got torn down and made into other uses (probably apartments). But any way you cut it, that’s a lot of parks lost.

Pine County News: Tiny home community in Pine City?

Preview:

With a shortage of suitable housing and skyrocketing home prices in the Pine City area, comes a new prospect for the city: tiny homes. 

The idea of a small/tiny home community has come to the city as part of the Community Action Plan put in place in 2022. As part of a forum, made possible by a Blandin Foundation grant, the city explored what a tiny home community might look like, current statistics on housing in the area and what would be necessary to move forward with such a venture.

Tiny Timbers – An agrihood community 

Small/tiny home developer, Melissa Jones, shared her and her husband’s vision and project, Tiny Timbers, which...

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Our thoughts on this story:

This property owner gets points for creating a new word to help avoid the “trailer park” designation:

“An agrihood community”

Not sure if the variance will pass, but they should definitely get an award for creativity.

The Columbian: WA mobile home communities organize against ‘economic eviction’

Preview:

From her pristine garden to her punchy graphic tees, 78-year-old Judie Short emanates a great warmth and appreciation for everything around her.

Upon entering her home in Aberdeen’s Leisure Manor Estates, guests find an office nook lined with vintage knickknacks and Seattle Seahawks memorabilia. Her kitchen shines in a resplendent shade of cherry red, and its many windows let in sunlight that carries on to the rest of the house. It’s a three-bedroom home, but she has converted the second and third bedrooms into a cat-themed craft room and a playroom for when her grandchildren come to visit.

“When we moved in five years ago, it was...

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Our thoughts on this story:

When you read this article and you cut through all the gas-lighting of 30% and 50% increases – which sound impressive – you realize that we’re talking a few hundred dollars more to live for literally $1,000 per month less than every other housing option in these markets. If your lot rent is $500 per month and goes to $700 that is a 40% increase – nobody can deny the math – but if you simply look at Bestplaces.net you see the apartment rent is $1,700+ per month. So can we please start putting the actual cost of housing in these articles? Have you noticed that none of the woke writers bother to do that even though they could get it off Bestplaces.net in ten seconds? That’s because it destroys their narrative and offends their audience.

The bottom line is that these parks are the best deal in town and that’s why people live there. Period. Do residents hate higher rents? Of course. But do they move out? No, because it’s still an incredible deal even at the higher prices.

Miami Herald: New development will rise to dizzying heights — and wipe out their trailer park Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article278731494.html#storylink=cpy

Preview:

Carol Hatchet, 61, stood outside the small office of Miami Soar Mobile Home Park on a blistering hot Saturday evening among around 100 other residents. A familiar face, former park manager Steve Carroll, stood atop a water tank and began to tell the sweaty residents a familiar story: about a new vision for their old neighborhood. That new vision for their trailer park, bisected by Northwest 82nd Street between Miami Court and First Place, calls for a massive residential, office, retail and hotel development whose centerpiece would be a 50-story tower, far taller than anything currently nearby. It will obliterate their community,...

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Our thoughts on this story:

At least there’s some honesty to this article:

“The park is not closing tomorrow. Do not panic. You’re not being thrown out,” Carroll told the gathering. Not yet. But it’s coming."

The bottom line is the same as in every issue of this news analysis, so here we go again:

LOW LOT RENTS = REDEVELOPMENT.

Every park has a lot rent level that will stave off the wrecking ball. But in many cases it’s probably two or three times what the residents are paying now, which is insanely low throughout the U.S. Just go to Bestplaces.net and look at the single-family home pricing and the apartment rents and then tell me how a $300 national average lot rent is justified. It’s not.

INDY Week: Families Living in Cary’s Chatham Estates Mobile Home Park Fear Displacement

Preview:

On a Friday afternoon at a mobile home park in Cary, dozens of children spill from a beeping yellow school bus, skipping up to meet their parents who are huddled around an intersection.

An elementary schooler in a pastel pink sweater and purple backpack runs to her mother who greets her with a warm hug and a kiss on the forehead. A middle schooler walks past them to the parking lot where his dad waits with the car. 

It’s a scene that plays out in suburban neighborhoods across Cary. But here at Chatham Estates mobile home park, the daily routine may soon come to an end if, following an impending sale, the community is broken up and...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Can you get any more hypocritical? The old owner is getting offered over $1 million per acre for his land. His current rents don’t justify anywhere near that figure as a mobile home park. He summed it up for the reporter:

“My property has gotten old and needs to be revived. Everything changes. This is just a continuation of Cary’s growth.”

And I bet you $50 if the owner instead raised the rent to a level that would justify $1 million per acre in value, the media would go berserk claiming that he was ruining lives by gouging rents and the residents would stage a protest.

So the media and residents have pretty much done this to themselves. The old guy is just too smart to get involved in that type of mess and is simply going to take the easy way out and sell the land for redevelopment.

News 4 JAX: Councilmembers: Clock is ticking for Westside mobile home park owners in outrageous water bill dispute

Preview:

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The owners of a Westside mobile home park have four more days to explain to city inspectors why they’re charging some tenants thousands of dollars a month for water or they could face consequences.

City Council members held a public meeting on Monday about Moore Enterprises which owns Three Seasons Mobile Home Village on Collins Road.

Similar complaints were lodged against Moore Enterprises at a property they manage outside of Columbus Ohio.

Jacksonville City Council President Ron Salem, District 14 Councilman Rahman Johnson and City Council At-Large member Matt Carlucci said they are hoping this issue gets resolved...

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Our thoughts on this story:

I know nothing about this case or this park but I do know that having a tenant run up $1,000 per month in water is certainly not outrageous. All a resident has to do is fill up a commercial water tank on a work trailer every night (landscaper, paving, construction, mobile car wash) and you can easily exceed $1,000 per month. So let’s stop the theatrics.

The Daily World: Attorney general proposes rent refunds at mobile home park

Preview:

A recent letter from the Washington State Office of the Attorney General called on the owner of Leisure Manor Mobile Home Park in South Aberdeen to refund tenants for recent increases in rent and fees after finding some increases violated state law.

The letter, dated Oct. 3, spells out preliminary findings of the Attorney General’s office investigation into complaints from Leisure Manor tenants about new rules and business practices of Port Orchard-based Hurst and Son LLC, which owns dozens of mobile home parks across the Northwest, including the one in South Aberdeen.

It gives Hurst and Son until Oct. 17 to either contest or concur with...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Easy conclusion: any place with the name “Washington” – either on the west or east coast – should be avoided.

KTVU: Petaluma mobile home park residents facing 300% rent increase

Preview:

PETALUMA, Calif. - Residents of Little Woods Mobile Villa in Petaluma fear they may be homeless after receiving notices that their monthly rent would more than triple come next year.

The mobile home park on Lakeville Highway has nearly 80 occupied spaces where some residents have lived for decades.

Earlier this week, several neighbors received a packet of paperwork notifying them rent would increase by 300% or more.

"That’s outrageous," said resident Darrell Pike. "This is greed, pure greed."

 

Pike said his notice shows his $500 monthly rent would increase by 343% or more than $1,700. That would bring the total to more than $2,215 a...

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Our thoughts on this story:

OK, let’s cut through the B.S. and get straight to the truth:

  1. Petaluma housing costs $839,600 for a house and $3,850 per month for an apartment. So a lot rent of $2,215 per month is actually insanely cheap.
  2. If you are on a strict budget then you should never even think of retiring in Petaluma. That was a really bad choice.
  3. The City of Petaluma set all of this in motion when they stupidly decided to pass rent control which then forced all property owners to raise rents as high as they could before future increases were capped. "As property owners, we’re seeking a fair market rent or considering closing the business before we are forced out," owner Nick Ubaldi said in a statement. The City of Petaluma passed an updated ordinance earlier this year that capped the annual rent increases allowed by mobile home parks. The intention was to strengthen protections for renters, however, it has resulted in threats of closure in July at two parks, including Little Woods.
  4. The property owner will most certainly redevelop this land if it can’t command fair rents.

So who is the real culprit in this story? The City of Petaluma. And the resident who thought that this was a good place to live on a limited budget. If I went to an expensive steakhouse with $10 in my pocket, I would be accused of being out of my mind not receiving any empathy from anyone.

MSN: Corporate landlords are snatching up mobile home parks and jacking up the rent — here’s why such cheap properties are so appealing to wealthy investors

Preview:

The hunt for yield has pushed private equity firms and professional investors into new segments of the real estate market.

In recent years, sophisticated investors have snapped up multi-family units and single-family homes. Now, corporate landlords are targeting the most cost-effective segment of the real estate market: mobile home parks.

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Read More

Our thoughts on this story:

This article was clearly written by AI as they got so many easy things wrong, such as crossing RV stats with mobile home stats (including using an RV photo on an MH article) and not knowing that Sam Zell is deceased. I can’t figure out if the point of the article is that mobile home parks are good or bad and, like most AI articles, neither did the computer that wrote it.

WFLA: ‘Devastating’: Seniors frustrated by another lot rent increase at Lakeland mobile home park

Preview:

LAKELAND, Fla. (WFLA) — Deborah Dicus has lived at Holiday Mobile Home Park since 2012. Her neighbors are considered family. She feels she has to leave after being hit with another lot rent increase at the park.

“It’s like leaving the family I built here,” she said.

Holiday Mobile Home Park is a 55+ retirement community. Most residents own their mobile homes but rent their lots from the park’s owner.

 

Dicus said when she first moved in, her rent was $325 a month. Come January, it will be $767. Her social security check is $900 a month.

“I’ve been trying to sell my place way under market value and when they hear the lot rent, they just go...

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Our thoughts on this story:

First, let’s review the math.

LAKELAND, Fla. (WFLA) — Deborah Dicus has lived at Holiday Mobile Home Park since 2012. Dicus said when she first moved in, her rent was $325 a month. Come January, it will be $767. Her social security check is $900 a month.

Over 11 years, the increase in rent from $325 per month to $767 equates to 10% per year. That’s pretty much in-line with most all of her other costs including gasoline, utilities, insurance – basically everything. So clearly you can’t complain that the park owner is “gouging” the rent.

The bigger issue is that – for some unexplained reason – while every other good and service in America has inflated at the same rate, only the mobile home park is singled out as the lone bill that ruins Deborah’s life.

The reality is that you can’t possibly live in Florida on a $900 per month social security check. Perhaps she has a pension or other retirement funds, but the fact is that Florida was a really poor retirement choice. If she lived in Missouri, for example, she could easily get by on a $900 per month check, as rural Missouri lot rents are maybe $250 per month.

So this is really a story about how expensive Florida is as a state coupled with how social security is not sufficient to retire on unless you made really good decisions on how and where to live in retirement.

Oil City News: Mills City Council accepting public input tonight before final rezoning vote

Preview:

MILLS, Wyo. — People interested in commenting on a City of Mills proposed rezoning ordinance are invited to speak at a public hearing on Tuesday.

The Oct. 10 hearing regarding the Mills Downtown and River Front Corridor Commercial District rezoning is scheduled during the regular 7 p.m. Mills City Council meeting in the council chambers at Mills City Hall, 704 4th St.   

A downtown and riverfront district would run along the North Platte River and Wyoming Boulevard. 

Current uses of properties proposed for rezoning include single-family residences, mobile homes and a four-unit multi-family complex, plus several vacant parcels, according...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Why can’t they just be honest and admit that they want to kick the mobile home parks out?

Lockport Union-Sun & Journal: Town of Newfane approves mobile home park changeover in Wrights Corners

Preview:

NEWFANE — A new residential development has received approval at the town level to start construction at the site of a longtime mobile home park in Wrights Corners.

Earlier this month, the Newfane Town Board unanimously passed a resolution to rezone the property, 6520 Ridge Road. Property owner Bart Adams said they will need to make one last appearance in front of the Niagara County Planning Board next month before “pulling the trigger” on construction at the property.

The development, Wrights Country Cottages, will consist of 19 stick-built homes replacing nearly all of the existing mobile homes on the premises. The development will...

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Our thoughts on this story:

And another mobile home park bites the dust. Same old story – low rents killed the park and the city was more than happy to oblige with any zoning needed to get the park torn down.

The Gazette: Iowa City mobile home park residents say out-of-state owners boost rent, neglect parks

Preview:

IOWA CITY — Four years after a Utah company started buying Johnson County mobile home parks, residents say they’ve seen annual rent hikes of 10 percent or more, reduced services and poor maintenance.

Jeff Ramsey, 52, who has lived in Modern Manor Mobile Home Park on Iowa City’s east side for 16 years, said he and his brother, Jim Ramsey, 62, feel squeezed. Not only are they paying more in rent, but Havenpark Communities, the Orem, Utah company that bought the park in 2019, no longer pays for residents’ cable TV and mowing.

“It’s our first time being able to own our own place,” he said. “We both have disabilities and a fixed income. If...

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Our thoughts on this story:

You don’t even need to read the article. Yes, out-of-state owners raise rents. Yes, in-state residents raise rents just as far and fast. Why? Because the rents are absurdly low. When you see any market in Iowa in which mobile home park lot rents are higher than apartments or stick-built homes then you let me know. Until then, how dare you say that mobile home park rents are too high? If they were too high then they would not be 100% occupied – yet they are. It’s called supply and demand and it’s one of the most basic formulas of economics.

9News: Denver gets its first community-owned mobile home park

Preview:

DENVER — When Capitol City Mobile Home Park in Westwood went up for sale in July 2022, residents were scared. The threat of redevelopment or a new owner could have priced them out of their homes, putting them at-risk for displacement with no other affordable options. 

So, the residents decided they would all become the new owner, together. They just needed to secure $11.5 million to purchase the park themselves. Then, they could create a cooperative or land trust, a mobile home park owned by the community. 

After more than a year of organizing, residents finally have a signed contract with the current owner of the mobile home park, thus...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Sure, you’re saying “gee this looks suspicious”. No, it’s the usual media trying to change the direction of politics schtick. Hopefully the elected officials of Colorado are smart enough to see through this attempted manipulation.

CBS Colorado: Colorado community rallies around residents of Wikiup mobile home park facing evictions

Preview:

Several families at the Wikiup Manufactured Home Community in Henderson, located in unincorporated Adams County, are facing evictions due to allegedly not following common guidelines.

Less than a month ago, CBS Colorado shared Tomasa Hernandez's story. She was asked to remove her fence surrounding her home -- a fence she says was there before she even started renting there -- among other requests.

The issue is she says she doesn't speak English, she did not understand the demands from management and the lease is under her husband's name who is currently sick. She has expressed new management has refused to speak to her on various...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Great quote from RHP:

The Wikiup Manufactured Home Community strives to provide a well-maintained community for our residents. The Community's rules and regulations are in place to benefit all residents. When issues arise, we make every effort to collaborate with our residents and have a track record of successful resolution. In this instance, our attorney is working closely with the resident's attorney to come up with a satisfactory resolution to allow the resident to maintain residency in the community. We remain committed to providing a property that ensures the stability of the entire community.
-Molly Boyle, RHP properties

Park owners HATE to lose tenants. It costs them thousands of dollars. They will always work to resolve every issue BUT THE RESIDENT HAS TO WORK WITH THEM.

The Aspen Times: Aspen Journalism: Organizing mobile home owners as investors gobble up parks

Preview:

Like a lot of his neighbors, John Sullivan looks down his Apple Tree Park street and across the Colorado River toward the small Western Slope town of New Castle and wonders about the future.

The 290-space mobile home park where he has lived for 25 years has one of the more picturesque settings among the 50 or so such parks, large and small, that dot the region from Aspen to Parachute.

The streets and yards are lined with mature trees to provide ample shade in the summer, and there’s a good-sized community park where children can play and families gather for picnics. Many of the spaces even overlook the river — albeit with Interstate 70...

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Our thoughts on this story:

OK, maybe I missed the memo that mobile home parks are supposed to be kept trashy in order to stay to the liking of the poorest 1% of the park residents:

The move away from local ownership has brought new rules for many park tenants, such as limiting the number of sheds and other exterior structures they are allowed to have, ensuring fences are stained and in good repair, and getting rid of junk cars and recreational vehicles or finding another place to store them. The rules are meant to clean things up in terms of the parks’ appearance. But they can be onerous, not to mention expensive for people who are just scraping by.

Do professional owners clean up properties and raise rents? Of course they do. It’s called progress. If you want to let old parks die and be redeveloped then listen attentively to the author of this article. If you want parks to become progressively nicer at higher rents and have longevity in a world of $2,000 per month apartment rents, then bring in every out-of-state professional investor you can possibly find to save the parks in your state from obliteration.

News 4 JAX: Disabled veteran at center of dispute over $2,200 water bill from mobile home park gets new outrageously high bill

Preview:

A disabled veteran who turned to the News4JAX I-TEAM earlier this month after she was threatened with eviction by her landlord if she didn’t pay a $2,200 water bill, said she just received a new outrageously high water bill from the mobile home park.

Stan and Kelly ONeil banged on the door of the Three Seasons Mobile Home Park off Collins Road on Wednesday to demand answers from management after receiving a September water bill for $1,734.88.

“This is ridiculous, there’s no way in hell I used that much water,” Kelly ONeil said. “What I want to know is does their JEA bill reflect the amount of water I’m being charged for, for the last...

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Our thoughts on this story:

I know nothing about this case or about this property. But I do know there are two sides to every story and you are only hearing one. I bet that we could solve this in one day by simply putting on a new meter and seeing the reading 24-hours later. My bet is that where this water goes is not actually a mystery to the tenant, but I could be wrong.

Rocky Mountain PBS: Why Colorado only has a handful of resident-owned mobile home parks

Preview:

This story is a companion piece to the podcast The Magic City of the Southwest, produced by Magic City Studios in partnership with KSUT Public Radio. New episodes air on the first Sunday of each month at 2 p.m.

In 2016, a few Colorado lawmakers were hearing concerns from residents of mobile home parks. At the time, Edie Hooton was a newly elected state representative from Boulder.

“We started having town halls, then more mobile homeowners would come to my town halls,” Edie Hooton recalled. Hooton heard complaints about rent increases, unfair evictions, and a lack of landlord transparency.

By 2018, Hooton and other lawmakers received a...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Can we just be honest here? Having sold more than one mobile home park to the residents I can tell you that there is a reason why only 12 parks out of 900 in Colorado (yes, that’s only 0.013%) are resident-owned communities. I’ll lay it out in simple terms:

  1. Most residents don’t want to own their own community. How do I know? Just go ask the tenants.
  2. These type of transactions take at least two times longer normally that a regular sale and most sellers are not willing to wait around for it.
  3. A huge number of these deals fall apart in the end so after wasting months of time the seller is left to start over again.
  4. Non-profits are required to guarantee the loans, and most have zero interest in guaranteeing a “trailer park”.

But then there’s the reality of what happens after these incredibly rare and few deals actually close, namely:

  1. Rents seem to go up just as fast or faster (the park we sold in Austin to the tenants had to raise rents faster than we ever did just to cover the bills because they had no idea how to manage a property).
  2. Tenants are often miserable because their elected officers play favorites and there is no uniformity in rules enforcement, etc.
  3. These properties often look terrible as without professional management nobody follows any codes at all.

I love the fact that the writer of this article used New Hampshire as the gold standard of how great the concept is … since New Hampshire has among the fewest mobile home parks in the U.S. That would be like me comparing the cost of snow skiing equipment in Hawaii.

Now I know that the folks that facilitate these transactions really work the media to make dumb articles like this possible, but those are the facts and no amount of B.S. can change them.

Post Independent: Is resident ownership realistic? Some organizations see need for mobile-home-park rent control

Preview:

Voces Unidas-backed bill stalled at Capitol; Roaring Fork Valley’s 3-Mile residents forge ahead

Editor’s note: This is the closing installment of a story by Aspen Journalism that has been published in two parts, beginning on Sept. 25. Visit aspenjournalism.org to read the story in its entirety.

A key policy goal stated in a recent study of local and statewide mobile home parks is to give residents the opportunity to purchase their parks before owners decide to list them.

But that opportunity is very limited under legislation intended to help residents become owners, which first passed in 2020 and mandates a 120-day timeframe for residents...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Basically the same article as above. What happens is that these non-profits get with the media and start to do a ton of articles trying to persuade elected officials that their dumb ideas are actually genius. Unfortunately, all of the facts shown above hold true regardless of how you sugar-coat it, and that’s why the chances of pulling off a resident-owned community will remain at 0.013%. You have better odds of winning the lottery at the gas station.

Marin Independent Journal: Novato council opens door to sell mobile home park to its residents

Preview:

A month after the Novato City Council declined a $30 million offer to sell a city-owned mobile home park to a private operator last month, the council opened the door this week to a new option — to sell the park to its residents.

On Tuesday, the City Council voted unanimously to authorize City Manager Adam McGill to enter into an exclusive negotiating agreement with the Marin Valley Mobile Country Club’s operating group should it express a desire to purchase the park.

The park is owned by the city but operated by the Park Acquisition Company, or PAC, which is led by park residents.

McGill stressed that the agreement is only meant to open...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Yes, you’re not going crazy. This is the fourth article this week stating that resident-owned communities contain unicorns and free ice cream and the whole world would be better if every park was owned by the residents. Is it working? Are you brainwashed yet? Or are you kind of “gosh, this is stupid”?

WFMZ-TV: Manufactured housing is the most popular in southern states

Preview:

Manufactured housing varies in popularity across the U.S., but the South stands out for its higher concentration of manufactured homes. Fast-growing, high-population southern states like Texas, Florida, and North Carolina rank among the top states for total manufactured home shipments. But as a share of all new single-family homes, top locations include lower-income states like Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, and West Virginia, whose residents may be more drawn to manufactured homes as an affordable option.

Below is a complete breakdown of all 50 states. The report was produced by researchers at Construction Coverage, a website that...

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Our thoughts on this story:

If you read the map you will quickly see that this headline is a fraud. There are 7 southern states with higher mobile home reliance yet 17 non-southern states that have roughly the same mobile home concentration. Some New York based journalists find it intellectually exciting to portray the south as poor and stupid and they equate mobile homes with that theory. However, if you actually look at the map – not the headline – you will see that among the states with the highest percentage of mobile homes as housing units is … NEW YORK. That fact must just drive these intellectual snobs crazy.

The News & Observer: Mobile home tenants press Cary council candidates to do more on affordable housing

Preview:

Four months ago, Enir Oseguera moved with his young family to one of Cary’s last affordable housing communities, The immigrant father had been saving money and thought he’d found a place where his two children could be safe and thrive at Chatham Estates, a diverse mobile home park where rent is $400 a month.

Soon after the move, however, Oseguera learned the park property was for sale, putting hundreds of people who live there at risk of displacement and homelessness. “What do we do?” he asked. “We all know the cost of renting an apartment even nowadays and then buying property, well, that’s more of a question for many people.”

At a Cary...

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Our thoughts on this story:

A park owner got a giant offer of $50 million to demolish the mobile home park and put it to a more profitable use. They notified the residents, who now are trying to organize politically to somehow match the offer, naming their group “One Wake” (which maybe should have been “One Woke”?). Of course, this concept has a zero percent chance of ever happening as no non-profit is ever going to spend $250,000 per household to buy the park – and any sensible person would understand that.

Spectrum News 1: Manufactured homes could be a viable solution to affordable housing shortage

Preview:

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The Kentucky League of Cities (KLC) conference is occurring in Lexington at The Central Bank Center. It brings cities across Kentucky together, connecting them with services and finding potential solutions to issues facing their respective municipality.

One of those issues is lack of housing, especially affordable housing. At the conference, city stakeholders from across the Commonwealth could view a manufactured model home. Those homes could be completed within a matter of days, rather than months.

Logan Hanes, with Kentucky Manufactured Homes Institute, said despite the quick construction time, these homes have the same...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Clearly this writer has no idea how the real-world works:

“I think a lot of these improvements in that industry have gone unnoticed by local officials, planning administrators, those who write those ordinances and regulations. I think it may be time to take a fresh look at that”

No, it’s not the fresh look of mobile home parks that will open the floodgates to new construction. The reason virtually no city in the U.S. allows for the construction of new mobile home parks is simply because they cost the city a ton of money on school tuition and city services while bringing in only a fraction of their cost in property tax. Since almost all U.S. cities are having a cash-flow shortage it’s fully understandable why they view new mobile home parks as economic suicide.

Autoevolution: Step Inside the $239K Phillips House With Nearly 600 Square Feet of Pure Luxury

Preview:

If tiny homes require certain compromises in order to meet their primary goal of maximum freedom and mobility, park model homes come with the unquestionable advantage of spaciousness. One of the custom park model homes built by Movable Roots, the Phillips boasts no less than 580 square feet (53.8 square meters) of living space, including two lofts, resulting in a true mansion on wheels.

The fact that its owners had had previous experience with living in an RV full-time helped them envision the perfect mobile home. This is how the Phillips was born – a dreamy, ultra-comfortable family home with gorgeous interiors and ultra-modern...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Come on – do you really think a 400 sq. ft. home for $220,000 is a great deal? That’s $500 per square foot – roughly ten times more than a mobile home costs. Sticking a piece of LED lighting on a wall doesn’t really change that fact. If you have a budget of $220,000 – and this is the best idea you can come up with – you need to move to the Midwest.

Kearney Hub: How residents of an Ashland mobile home court dealt with displacement

Preview:

ASHLAND — A new year is supposed to represent rebirth, a clean slate, a chance to set new goals. Less than a week into 2023, the plans made for the coming year by residents of El Rancho, a mobile home court in Ashland, were scrapped when a letter dropped in their mailboxes.

Upon opening the letter, residents in the court’s nearly 30 mobile homes were notified that El Rancho had been sold to an investment group named Ashland Development, LLC. Soon after, residents learned that the LLC’s plan was to have the five-acre property converted to bare ground by August.

Residents would be given until July 31 to vacate the premises.

“I’m not a...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Another article about a park being torn down for a more profitable use. Week after week I remind viewers that low rents = homelessness. Apparently not enough people read this.