The tenants are buying this park for around $100,000 per lot. Clearly the seller has no problem with that. But I don’t think these residents realize what they’re getting into. To service that much debt, the rents are going to go up – way up. “Maybe not today or tomorrow but soon and for the rest of their lives” as Humphrey Bogart would say. To think that this transaction is going to keep rents low is a fallacy. It’s called math.

The Governor of Montana is this week’s Smartest Guy in the Room:

Gianforte said in his veto letter Tuesday that House Bill 889 “increases regulation of mobile home parks, disincentivizes landlords from maintaining or increasing the inventory of mobile home rental lots, and, in general, compromises the property rights of mobile home park owners.”

He must be an avid reader of this weekly publication as he fully understands that making mobile home parks a pain to own results in them being redeveloped into other uses. As tenants try to put burdens on park owners that are not in-line with American property laws, they set in motion the park owner selling the land for a different – and more porofitable – use.

OK, let’s cut the B.S. Periwinkle Mobile Home Park is being torn down because student housing for Grand Canyon University is more profitable than a trailer park with $450 rents. The seller of the park weighed the offer from Grand Canyon University to what he was making with the park and the student housing offer was higher. How high would the lot rent have needed to be to make the Grand Canyon offer lower than the park was worth? I don’t know, but maybe $700 per month would have done the trick. That’s the issue that needs to be discussed in order to save parks from the wrecking ball. The question should not be “how can the park owner keep the rents ridiculously low” but instead “how high do the rents need to be to keep the park a park?” I’ve been preaching for a decade that the only thing that’s going to keep mobile home parks alive is much, much higher rents. If you don’t accept this, you’re an idiot.

The average park owner does not have access to the $30 trillion credit line of the U.S. government. Asking an elderly park owner to chip in $5,000 per day, for water alone, for 60 days totals $300,000. And that does not even cover the cost to replace the water lines. So what’s the solution? Do you think there’s a higher use for this land in Durango, Colorado? Are you serious? In this case, a park buyer took the property over and saved it from the wrecking ball. But in 9 out of 10 cases, this park would be torn down and made into a more profitable use. What should have happened differently? The state should have supplied the water and fixed the water lines and prayed that the stress of the situation alone would not have coerced the seller into calling a land broker. The article confirms that if the park was resident-owned the state would have provided grants or low-cost loans immediately to do just that. Since tenants own nearly zero parks in Colorado, the state might want to think about changing that program requirement.

Here’s a new take on the “victim” mentality that all American appear to share. In 1976 HUD kidnapped the mobile home manufacturing industry and declared that any home that did not have a HUD seal could not be brought into a mobile home park. Now they’re closing down Dee Mar and the pre-HUD homes can’t be relocated and the tenants are blaming the park owner for this.

At the end of the day, Gallipeau is less concerned about moving out and more concerned about not getting compensated. He said some of the trailers are valued at upwards of $80,000. “There’s no fair or just compensation for property that we own,” he said. “The developers own the land, we own the trailers.”

The fact that owners of pre-HUD homes do not know (or even research) the ability to relocate a pre-HUD home is not the responsibility of the park owner. If this tenant wants to sue anyone, the appropriate party would be HUD. Good luck on that.

Because of this reality, that’s one more reason that mobile home park rents need to go up in-line with market forces as the problems at Dee Mar on relocating homes will be shared with any park that is redeveloped.

One final note: don’t try to tell me a pre-HUD home is worth $80,000. Nobody is buying that.

Classic tale of a city bureaucrat not understanding zoning law and, when a lawyer goes above their head, is immediately overruled and the mobile home is approved.

Do you seriously think that Cleveland needed this piece of land so bad to make way for a city park that they just had to evict those 100 park residents? Obviously, the truth is probably that Cleveland wanted to get this park torn down because it’s unsightly and costing the city a fortune in school tuition, hospital stays, and public programs. That’s like when the hotel says that it’s not going to wash your towels or sheets to save the environment from toxic chemicals.

As I recall, this was the park in which the residents tried to buy it under their first option and only raised $4,000 of the $16 million purchase price over a period of months. Was anyone surprised? To match the offer the tenants would have had to put up $1 million in earnest money on day one. Give me a break.

There are 44,000 mobile home parks in the U.S. The residents own 300 of these. That’s .0068 of all parks. Focusing on that initiative is hardly the way to accomplish the goal of helping affordable housing. Devoting millions of dollars for 55 residents to buy their own park is not nearly as smart as spending that same money to act as grants to fix roads, pipes and other infrastructure at many, many parks. Let’s be honest, this has nothing to do with the public good. This is simply virtue signaling by the City of San Antonio.

At the May 3 Poulsbo City Council meeting, Councilmember Gary McVey told Josh Brooks and Shah, “We will take you at your word that you are not sprucing the place up to raise rents exorbitantly or to evict people who don't deserve to be so. We will hold you to that…”

And with those words the IQ of the entire room fell 10 points. Obviously, making the property nice should result in higher rents. Mobile home park lot rents are ridiculously low and until you break the $1,000 per month barrier in most markets (but not LA, Denver and others) you are not exorbitant. And park owners never evict people who do not need to be removed, as it costs a park owner about $5,000 in costs to evict a tenant when you factor in vacancy and home renovations.

The writer of this article just doesn’t get it.

“The plight of the residents, he maintains, underscores the need for legislative change to counter the power owners of mobile home parks have over tenants.“The man did win. Maybe that’s the way Utah legislative laws are set up. The one gets richer, the poor get poorer,” he said.”

No, Lesley’s mobile home park did not get torn down because mobile home park residents don’t have power over the owner of the park. It got torn down because 152 apartment units is way more profitable than 55 mobile home park lots. In this case, there’s no way you could have raised the lot rent high enough to stop the apartment development. Instead, you have to accept the reality that mobile home parks have really good locations and cities will provide the developer any zoning necessary to get rid of them.

The moral is that the tenants and media need to stop harassing and publicly shaming mobile home park owners because there is always some type of development that any mobile home park can be turned into – and pretty easily.

There is some part of society that celebrates taking conspicuous consumption to a new level. Paying $3.5 million for a 800 square foot mobile home is not prestigious or cool -- it’s just plain stupid. Wasting money does not make you a big shot, spending it wisely is what makes you superior. Think of everything that could have been done with that $3.5 million to benefit others. You could buy 10 people a debt-free home, for example, or put 20 people through college.

Bingo.

At least six such communities have been torn down in Arizona in the last 18 months, he said, adding that Grand Canyon University "bent over backwards" to help residents more than other park owners."A lot of these parks are 70 years old," said Anderson, noting an uptick in demolitions of older communities for redevelopment. "It's going to be a big problem down the line."

So people are starting to have second thoughts about the importance of making sure that more parks don’t get town down. Easy solution. HIGHER LOT RENTS. You don’t need an academic study.

Guyon, Georgia has a new idea. They will require a Special Use Permit for each and every new mobile home to enter any mobile home park in the city. But this should not be considered a way for them to keep mobile home tenants from moving in but instead because “It allows the community the opportunity to participate in the future of their neighborhoods”.

Yeah, right.

Let’s see how that holds up in court.

Seriously? $150,000 for that?

Could this be any more predictable? New owners buy the park and raise rents and enforce rules. A few residents try to get back at the owners by claiming that somehow the park is going down the drain (when it’s really being brought back to life). Some young reporter who makes less than the cashier at Dollar General writes an article about it without probably doing any fact-checking at all or attempting to get the other side of the story.

As required under the Florida Mobile Home Act, they first offered the park to the homeowners association for purchase. The law requires a park owner to give 45 days notice of an intent to sell to unit
owners and gives those homeowners the first right of refusal. Homeowners in February voted to form a cooperative to rally for the purchase of the land but negotiations between the property owner and the HOA failed April 20 due to a lack of funding, according to Bill Gorman, a real estate professional hired by Pines homeowners to help facilitate the purchase of the park from the ownership.

Could somebody please explain to the world that mobile home park residents are not going to come up with not only $16 million but with $1 million non-refundable on day one (which was required to match the offer). 

Look at the photos in this article and tell me how these people are not complete idiots for turning down $502 million for this land – that’s over a million dollars to each resident, free and clear. If this is the best you could do for housing on $1 million then I’m speechless.

Yet another article about New Hampshire replacing mobile home park infrastructure but only if the tenants own the park. The writer somehow thinks this topic will brainwash all park residents to buy their parks. Unfortunately, this writer does not read my weekly submissions, or they’d realize that it’s a ridiculous narrative. They might as well write an article stating that if you get a perfect SAT score you will get free tuition in college (which is true). In last week’s articles I highlighted a group of park residents that were trying to buy their property at a price of $16.5 million and had only been able to raise $4,400 towards that goal when the timeclock ran out. That’s the truth in 99% of all cases.

“In a statement sent to Channel 13, Agora Realty said they are working proactively to help residents relocate because of the park's closure, but residents believe even with their help it will be nearly impossible to find an affordable place to live.”

Maybe those residents should spread the word to all the other mobile home park residents nationwide as to the importance of all park owners making sufficient profit as to not seek redevelopment.

This article had some interesting input, but the writer missed it. It’s the interesting way that this park came to get city water after decades of well water:

“The City/IWA entered into an agreement with the State Water Resources Control Board to provide a safe and reliable water supply to the 48 households in Elm’s Mobile Home Park,” city officials said in a statement. The project is being funded by a grant from the Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience (SAFER) Drinking Water Program.”

If more cities and states would do proactive improvements to old mobile home parks, then fewer of them would close each year.

Not much must be happening in Laurinburg, North Carolina when a newspaper prints a major story which is nothing more than a liberal judge dismissing an eviction because the park was not represented by an attorney (which this judge finds somehow offensive). The article admits that all the park owner has to do is simply re-file and have an attorney show up and they will win the eviction. But the resident gets a whopping 30 more days. Big deal.

“Mobile home parks being purchased by developers, subsequent evictions and trauma for the residents will not stop until the root of the issue is addressed. Exclusionary zoning practices must end in order to provide our families and communities the security and dignity that is taken with their eviction, displacement, and destruction of their homes. Our state lawmakers can choose to stop this with three zoning reform bills that are currently at the state legislature, House Bill 2536, Senate Bill 1161 and Senate Bill 1163. Each seeks to unwind exclusionary zoning by: allowing for the construction of casitas, manufactured housing, and affordable housing along the light rail by-right.”

If any of these three bills pass in Arizona, the state is screwed. Property values will be destroyed. More woke initiatives that no sane person would ever vote for, but bureacrats might be coerced into supporting on TV if protestors scream at them enough or harass them in front of their houses.</p>

So let me get this straight: the city and media has hounded this park for years about how much they hate it and now they are crying because it’s officially closing. Kind of reminds me of the old adage “the dog that bites the hand that feeds it”. Maybe city bureaucrats missed out on economics class, but the premise of free enterprise is just that: “free”. If you relentlessly harass a business, it shuts down and converts into a new business that it’s harder to be harassed about. You see this going on throughout American cities today, such as WalMart closing all stores in Portland https://www.the-sun.com/money/7549539/walmart-store-closing-theft-shoplifting/. So here’s a new bulletin for Rochester government and media concerning Bob’s Trailer Park: “you blew it”. Just like Portland.

Yippee, another article that announces that the residents of this park are going to raise $15 million to buy the property:

According to a state notice, the 178-lot community went on the market April 28 for a listed price of $15 million.  The Virginia Manufactured Home Lot Rental Act requires mobile community landlords to provide their tenants and the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development with written notice at least 90 days ahead of accepting any purchase offer.

The odds of this occurring is probably equivalent to the Houston Texans winning the Superbowl every year for the next decade.