“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. 

The State of New York funded a study on mobile home parks (probably because some bureaucrat’s unemployed literature major kid needed a summer job) and this was the only interesting thing they found:

The report showed that the “number of registered parks has declined from 1,800 to 1,200”

That’s a really, really big drop (30%).

Do you think it might be time to end rent control yet? Because the wrecking ball and apartment construction crews are working overtime to get those rent-controlled mobile home parks made into a better use since lot rents can’t go up.

It’s rare when a park owner tells it like it is, but this is a classic quote from this story:

"It might not be what some of these tenants want, but I would encourage anyone to take a drive through the property as it sits currently and see the deplorable conditions some of these mobile homes and property are in. I'm sure you have seen in the local news/paper how many tenants here are behind on taxes, but over 80% are also behind on multiple months of rent. This makes the business and property unsustainable going forward as it currently sits."

What are they going to put on this site once the mobile homes are all gone? You’re right … APARTMENTS.

The future of new housing in America has many attributes found in this article – which is all about thinking outside the box. However, I have to believe you can build small houses for less than $350,000. I know they do it with 3-D printing in Europe and I wonder why we’re still using old-fashioned carpentry in an article on the housing of the future.

It’s only a matter of time before more cities revolt against the requirements that keep tiny homes out of mobile home parks. It’s a good thing for everyone involved – kind of like when they allowed Uber to replace taxi cabs.

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.

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.

“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?

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.

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. 

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.

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.

States funding the connection of mobile home parks from private to public utilities is smart. Restricting this to only “resident owned communities” is stupid.

I’m always confused on these articles. The family in the article earns over $80,000 per year. They pay maybe $10,000 in income tax. The kids to go public school. I’m sure the woman’s job includes health insurance. How can they not afford the $2,000 per month rent? Have you ever wondered why the numbers in these stories don’t add up? I guarantee that if you actually tracked their spending on a given month, there’s much more to the story than what’s revealed. But let’s assume for a minute that they really can’t make it happen on $80,000 in the city. Then move 1-hour out of the city to a small town and housing would be cut in half. In addition, they would have a more family-centered environment and probably be much happier. When you remain status quo and whine about it rather than make a move and better your position, it drives me nuts.

Vermont working on a mobile home initiative is as whacky as Kansas working on a surfboard initiative. There are fewer mobile home parks in the entire state of Vermont than there are in a typical Missouri metro. Just a bunch of virtue-signaling and nothing more.

"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!

"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.