Mobile Home Park News Briefing

Spending $23 million to build 47 apartments in an old school building on the bad side of town is one of those non-profit projects that only somebody with zero common sense or business experience would love. I mean, that works out to around $489,000 per apartment. You could literally move those 47 families to Arkansas, buy them nice brick homes with yards on the good side of town, give them the houses free and clear of any mortgage, and have around $16 million left over. What a bunch of idiots.

On Monday night, the Charlottesville City Council voted on and unanimously approved providing funding to help Habitat for Humanity and its partners make a counteroffer to purchase the Carlton Mobile Home Park.

You probably remember this story from last week, in which Habitat for Humanity is going to buy this mobile home park and promises the residents they won’t tear the park down and build apartments on it for three years (but no commitment after that). Clearly there is more going on here than meets the eye. Habitat owns most of the surrounding apartments. My bet is that the city council was willing to provide the money for Habitat because it gives them the ability to get the park torn down without leaving any fingerprints on the demolition, using Habitat as the hit man

Awfully interesting that this mobile home park has operated just fine for decades and suddenly the state and city will do absolutely anything to get it shut down immediately. Another “more than meets the eye” story and I think any rational person would be suspicious of the sudden change in bureaucratic direction without any apparent desire to work together in a transparent and inclusive manner.

It has been five days since the Town of Southport issued a Notice of Violation to the Cherry Lane Mobile Home Park. On Thursday, August 1st, a special town board meeting was held to discuss what comes next for the park. The board decided to hold a hearing to determine whether the park should keep its operating license. Cherry Lane Park could lose its license to operate as early as the second week of August.

If a homeowner didn’t mow their yard the city would have to go through a lengthy process that could take months to resolve simply to force the property owner to get the grass length corrected. The system is built that way to make sure that all the rights of the homeowner are respected. So doesn’t it seem odd that the city wants to skip the same formalities that they would on lawn mowing so they can suddenly shut this mobile home park down before anyone can even file a legal challenge? I think this park owner needs to find a good municipal attorney who can hit the brakes, sift through the facts, and get to the bottom of it all – the whole scenario seems suspicious to me.

People who live at Oak Park Terrace are worried that 80 more homes could be added, making their already crowded community even tighter. They believe this move is driven by corporate greed. “It’s just not the same. When I moved here 30 years ago, I had a larger lot. When they put the double lot in next to me, it shrunk my lot but didn’t shrink my rent,” Pat Huxtable, a homeowner at Oak Park Terrace, said. “It’s all about expansion. They just want to keep growing. More money, more money, more money, but that’s corporate for you.”

Now here’s a new one. Instead of the regular “raising rent is evil” narrative now it is apparently “evil” to simply fill your vacant lots. Never mind that the residents are only paying for one lot and yet have strewn their stuff across the vacant ones without paying a penny of rent for all these years, but now that the owners are filling those vacant lots with homes they claim it has injured them because they liked that extra free space.

Only a liberal U.S. media would support this logic. Using this same argument I could also complain that Southwest Airlines is “evil” because their ridership is up and the middle seats are now filled. What a pile of rubbish.

At Harmony Communities we don't believe in housing discrimination.  We believe a single mother with two kids should have the same affordable housing opportunities as people over the age of 55.  We believe our community is well suited to accommodate struggling families and this change will help open housing opportunities for all, and in a non-discriminatory manner. 

Am I the only one that has always found it odd that HUD allows you to discriminate based on age? It seems to be completely inconsistent with HUD’s mission and I can’t help but wonder what really happened behind the scenes for it to come about. I also wonder how they picked “55” as the age of a “senior” since retirement begins at “62”.

You’re going to see more of these cases in the years ahead, because Baby Boomers are shrinking as a demographic and Millennials are growing in stature. When you run ads offering mobile homes for sale in mobile home parks, 9 out of 10 callers are younger than 55. That’s who really needs the bulk of the affordable housing stock in the U.S.

It will be interesting to see how this problem – which HUD created – gets resolved.

A picture tells a thousand words. Look at how out-of-place the park is surrounded by new multi-story apartment buildings. And then look at what Habitat for Humanity promised the residents if they let them match the developer’s offer of $7 million for the land:

The agreement says that Habitat for Humanity and Piedmont Housing Alliance commit to allowing current residents to continue renting their trailer pad (also called a lot) for at least three years from the date of purchase, as long as residents follow community rules. The organizations also commit to not increasing lot rents more than 5% or $15 per year, whichever is smaller.

Clearly, all Habitat is going to do is to get the land bought, use three years to get their plans approved, get their financing worked out, and then demolish the park to build more of these apartments you see in the picture. The story references that they have done that on former park purchases, too.

Habitat simply doesn’t want another developer to buy the land as they don’t want any competition.

As always TENANTS DON’T BUY MOBILE HOME PARKS: NON-PROFITS DON’T. Or in this case, the non-profit is buying the land for their own use – not the tenants – and then cutting them loose.

Oh, I see. It’s OK for the city to jack up the rates for water/sewer for the park owner but when the park owner raises rents to accommodate these cost increases the media will no doubt go berserk. I’m so sick of all this hypocrisy. 

Another park bites the dust. Same old story: “LOW LOT RENTS = REDEVELOPMENT”.

I loved this example from the article, which might qualify as the dumbest case study of all time:

Someone buying a $185,000 manufactured home with 20% down would pay around $960 in principal and interest a month on a 30-year mortgage…

They engineered this scenario to prove that a mobile home in a park costs more than a $2,000 per month apartment. Here’s the problem: THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A MOBILE HOME IN THE HISTORY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE THAT HAS EVER COST $185,000. Maybe more like $85,000 new. And 99% of them cost more like $25,000 new. And probably 90% of every used mobile home in New Hampshire sells for less than $10,000.

Either the reporter is an idiot or is hoping the readers are.

The previous owner first put the mobile home park up for sale in 2021. Fearing an investor would buy the park and force them out, residents banded together to try and purchase the property. They formed a new homeowners association, called Organización de Nuevas Esperanzas (ONE). But the timeline was too tight, and after spotty communication with the former owner, the deal fell through.

So let me get this straight. The residents tried to buy this park just two years ago and failed miserably on meeting the required timetable of 90 days. Now the price has doubled and they expect anyone to believe that they can pull it off again? The problem on these deals is that the tenants are NOT buying the park, non-profits are and – just like last time – the residents are never going to find non-profits to cough up the down payment and personally guarantee the mortgage. My new saying for this nonsense is: TENANTS DON’T BUY THEIR MOBILE HOME PARKS: NON-PROFITS DON’T. That’s the sad truth.

Over the last decade, mobile home parks — or trailer parks, as they are commonly known — have become something of a rarity in South Florida. As the price of land has creeped up to unprecedented heights, investors have increasingly targeted these sites and the acres they sit upon as being ripe for development.

The harsh reality of the situation has forced many to question the very foundations of the region’s socioeconomic foundation, as decades-long residents are forced to leave the region.

Several residents WLRN spoke to who faced eviction from a Hialeah trailer park in 2018 said the experience made them consider returning to Communist Cuba, faulting the lack of tenant protections in the US for their plight. “We live in a capitalist country,” Carlos Hernandez, the then-mayor of that city, explained at the time. “This is a trailer park where the owners of the land sold it to another company.”

So apparently now even the re-development of mobile home park land is evil. Although mobile home parks represent .000000000000000000000000000000001% of all American land mass, the mere concept of building an apartment complex on the old park site is more evil than “Communist Cuba” (their quote, not mine).

Since LOW LOT RENTS = REDEVELOPMENT, maybe this reporter should instead write an article urging park owners to raise their rent significantly to stave off the wrecking ball?

Amid excavators and partially demolished homes, a handful of residents of the Shady Acres mobile home park in West Kelowna are holding on in the desperate hope of getting more for the homes they have lived in for decades. The mobile home park at 2355 Marshall Road is being redeveloped into a light industrial park, a process that has been paused twice by city council over concerns about how residents of the park were being treated.

Did you get the message yet? LOW LOT RENTS = REDEVELOPMENT.a

The title says it all. Once again, there’s no escaping the reality that LOW LOT RENTS = REDEVELOPMENT.

Residents at an RV and mobile home park in Ocala received a rude awakening last week. Belleview Hills RV Park residents said the original owners of the property informed neighbors that it had been sold. Residents were told they had until August 19 to vacate the premises. Residents first received a letter on their front doors last week that stated the property would be redeveloped.

Maybe these residents could cut out the middleman and talk to the ones that live in the Novato park referenced earlier before they end up with the same fate. While the Ocala residents now know that LOW LOT RENTS = REDEVELOPMENT the Novato ones have not figured it out yet. They will.

In a public hearing on July 17, the Springerville Town Council voted to revoke a previously approved conditional use permit for a proposed mobile home park at 64 North D Street, after hearing strong community resistance. The hearing, filled with concerned citizens and impassioned speeches, emphasized the town’s divisions over the development.

Gee, what a shocker. Never saw that one coming, right? Anyone who tells you that there will be new mobile home parks built in America in the years ahead is as out-of-touch with reality as the folks that refuse to accept that LOW LOT RENTS = REDEVELOPMENT. Nobody wants a new mobile home park anywhere near their property.

I will add that we have now entered the third week of my challenge for someone – anyone – to send me the address of these supposed new parks that are being built somewhere in the U.S. (that’s all you hear from attendees at various industry conferences, right?). To date I have received not one single address to research.

While residents weren’t specific about what type of support they need from the city, one commentor suggested a rent cap, like those proposed by President Biden the same day. According to a news release from the White House, “President Biden is calling on Congress to pass legislation presenting corporate landlords with a basic choice: either cap rent increases on existing units to no more than 5% or lose valuable federal tax breaks.”

I hate to rain on the parade, but Biden’s “5%” proposal cannot possibly make it through Congress. If it did, it would not – in any way – change rent increases since it’s an “optional” concept with the only carrot being tax breaks that few operators actually use. And then, of course, it would obviously be held up in litigation through the court system for years and then overturned by the Supreme Court. Remember the “student loan forgiveness” promise?

But here’s something that all residents need to remember: LOW LOT RENTS = REDEVELOPMENT. And that does not need any Congressional Act – it’s already the simple law of economics.

Sure, put a 4% rent cap on the park. Ignore the simple maxim that LOW LOT RENTS = REDEVELOPMENT. Then sit back and watch this park get torn down in the days ahead. It’s a given.

Residents and bureaucrats don’t want to accept the laws of gravity, much to their own detriment.

Is that all – just $4 million? When will people accept the fact that the whole “residents buy the mobile home park” fad is over? The tenants never bought them to begin with, non-profits did. Or actually didn’t, as these deals are falling apart faster than Biden at the debate. What a waste of time.

When they build a 253-unit high-rise apartment complex next to a 50-space mobile home park, it’s pretty clear that the park is going to be redeveloped in the near future. The fact that nobody will tell these tenants the truth is all part of our new “politically correct” America, but common sense should already communicate that the park is doomed. While there is typically a lot rent that could economically stave off redevelopment, in this case there’s no way that 50 mobile home park lots can match the economic firepower of 250+ new apartment units at $2,000 per month, regardless of how high the lot rent is.

At the same time, people have to accept that redevelopment is a positive thing. It’s called progress. In the pyramid of real estate, mobile home parks are near the bottom of land use, and high-rise buildings are near the top. It’s a natural progression. It’s not evil or wrong.

Another park that might have been saved with higher lot rents. Instead, as always, LOW RENTS = REDEVELOPMENT. 

Now, Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville is scrambling to put together an offer on the park on behalf of residents before that 60 days is up on August 6. “Nothing is certain at this point,” said Dan Rosensweig, Habitat Charlottesville’s president and CEO. “But we feel like we have a moral and ethical obligation, when people — especially vulnerable people — who are in harm’s way, to at least look at it.”

No, actually, something is very certain at this point: there’s no way on earth that the residents are going to come up with $7 million in three weeks. Or three months. Or three years. Or three decades. Or three centuries. That’s because these tenant right-of-first refusal concepts are in complete contradiction to the basics of common sense. Here’s the problem: the tenants personally have no money so they are reliant on a hand-out from a non-profit for the down-payment and a second non-profit to personally guarantee the mortgage. And when it comes time to pony up the cold, hard cash, even the most flippant do-gooders have seemingly forgotten their wallets like some dead-beat on a double date. It all reminds me of the time I got a call from a city councilman in Oklahoma City who wanted me not to evict some guy that had not paid his rent for a couple months and was heading to eviction trial (I’m assuming this tenant barged into his office, terrorized him, and he wanted to get him out of his office). So I told him “OK, no problem, you just pay the amount he owes currently and I’ll call the eviction off”. He responded “now wait a minute, I can’t afford to pay the rent” and I said “well, when you’re ready to pay it, just send in the money and we’ll call the eviction off.” Of course, I never heard from him again. All talk but no action when there was actual money involved.

When will bureaucrats figure out that they’ve all been conned into believing these tenant first-rights ever actually pan out? Because they don’t. Everyone in reality-land knows this and simply view the 60-day period as a complete and utter waste of time. Not because landlords are evil and don’t care about the tenants. Obviously, tenant money is as good as anybody else’s. But because these deals never, ever happen in real life. It’s just a statistical fact.

Of course, it’s only logical that the residents are going to come up with $28 million to buy their park, right? Besides the basic issues of how they’re going to get a hand-out for an $8 million downpayment and a non-profit personal guarantee on the mortgage of around $20 million comes this very alarming statistic:

Maine has more than 700 manufactured and mobile home parks. Ten are resident-owned communities.

Are you serious? I hate to rain on the tenant-owned-community concept, but that’s a ridiculously small rate of success. Assuming that the resident-owned concept has been around since the 1980s (which it has) and there are only 10 tenant-owned parks in the state of Maine, that’s an average of less than one deal per half-decade. AND THAT WAS BACK WHEN PARKS WERE MUCH LESS EXPENSIVE.

These concepts simply don’t work – and everyone in the industry knows this. I wish the bureaucrats that pass these stupid laws would research the actual facts. It would blow their minds.

"We got 60 days to raise $4 million," Cook said. "That’s where we’re at right now."

No, the problem is WAY bigger than that. You see, at $18 million that’s over $200,000 per lot. There’s no way on earth that you are going to find a non-profit to personally guarantee a loan that big. Sure, the city tossed in $50,000 to give the optics that they are really devoted to this concept (why are the folks that pay the taxes not in an uproar over this use of their money?), but even the bureaucrats that threw that money in the trash know that there’s not one chance in a billion that the residents are going to raise $4 million cash or obtain the financing.

What a monumental waste of time.