Get out the pocket watch as it’s hypnosis time again:

Nationwide, ROC-USA works with over 300 resident-owned communities. Now, federal legislation, sponsored by U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, has been introduced to help preserve these communities. The bill, which was introduced by Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, would establish a permanent grant program to help revitalize manufactured housing communities with a specific emphasis on those that are resident-owned. With it would come funding for infrastructure improvements like water and sanitation.

Apparently some bureaucrats have been successfully turned into zombies and now believe that you should only fund infrastructure repair on resident-owned communities. Since there’s only 300 or so of them, that’s not a very big commitment. And maybe that’s why they put that restriction on there?

OK, it’s pocket watch time again. Start swinging it side to side while you read this pile of nonsense:

“Diamond Field LLC (also referenced as defendant) purchased Maple Acres Estates in August 2022. In March Diamond Field issued notice to Maple Acres tenants of its intent to increase their lot rent from $170 to $299 … Diamond Field’s tactics coincide with a nationwide trend, in whcih predatory corporations hiding behind layers of shell companies purchase manufactured housing communities, then raise the lot rent and force mass evictions”

So let me get this straight. Park owners raise rents because they want to do mass evictions? That’s their business model? Where’s the money in that? And, of course, there isn’t. A good rent increase is one in which you lose not a single tenant. And you get there by offering a good value, which at $299 I’m sure it is.

OK, so now let’s get to the down-and-dirty truth. Diamond Field LLC appears to have taken a crazy, stupid ridiculously low rent of $170 per month and raised it to $299 which is still crazy, stupid and ridiculously low but a little less so. And I’m sure they did major improvements and started to enforce the park rules as part of the increase. And if we went to the park right now and knocked on any random door we would find that the residents are absolutely ecstatic with the improvements and have no problem paying the ridiculously low rent of $299 now that the park is nicer. But, as usual, one or two people who were living marginally in the park and having trouble paying $170 per month ran out and found a cheap attorney who filed a frivolous case since there is no rent control in West Virginia. In fact, if you read the preamble to the article, you’ll see that all the attorney accomplished was to file an appeal wanting to get the eviction case moved to a different court in order to buy the marginal folks a little more time before they pack up their pickup trucks and drive off. Big deal.

Was anyone hypnotized by this article and its repetitive mantra? If you have an IQ higher than a lima bean then probably not.

I’ve been in this movie myself, back on a park in Texas in about 1999. The city tried to add an “administrative fee” to the park owners of about $2,000 per year just to get their annual permit renewal. So we all banded together, hired a municipal lawyer, and sued the city. The city lost big time. It turned out that the law in Texas clearly states that the amount of such fees cannot be greater than the actual cost to inspect the property, which was more like $100 and not $2,000. And what this city is proposing is even worse than that Texas city tried:

As of now, what is proposed to take effect on Jan. 1, 2024, “and for each year forward,” is that the “township shall charge and collect for the license an annual fee of $200 and the sum of $7 per calendar week for each mobile home occupying any space in the mobile home park during the calendar week or part thereof.”

These park owners probably need to get together, pool their legal fees, hire the nastiest municipal lawyer they can find, sue the city and stop this nonsense. I hope at least one of them is reading this and can look into these facts.

This is the rule the tenant was evicted under and appears to have admitted they are guilty of:

That included Section E of the lot rental agreement that states, “no bottles, cans, equipment, tires, lumber or debris of any matter shall be stored outside or under the mobile home.”

That’s a pretty bad problem: having junk in your lot, right? Pretty big eyesore for the neighbors and hurts the quality of life for 99.9% of the residents. And they refused to clean it up after they were given every possible opportunity to do so.

But that doesn’t matter because all the author was looking for was some lame intro in order to do the zombie repetition trick with this quote that reads like the article above it:

“Most people that own the mobile home will be facing loss of the mobile home itself,” he said. DeCoil estimates her home was worth about $10,000. She said she tried selling her home, too, but a pending eviction was a black mark for buyers. Experts estimate the cost of relocating a mobile home can cost between $5,000 and $15,000. And that’s assuming it can be moved, Eviction Lab research specialist Jacob Haas said. “They're called mobile homes, but they're often very immobile," he said. "It can be really costly, or often an impossible, process to relocate a mobile home to another site.”

So if some woke writer can engage in the hypnotism scam, then I will respond in kind:

What about selling the home or having another park pay to move it? What about selling the home or having another park pay to move it? Have I mentioned selling it or having another park pay to move it?

What a bunch of idiots these media groups think you are.

Here’s a test of your gullibility:

Dianellys Molina: “I was walking, she passed me by, and she told me, ‘You know that you can’t have two dogs here,’ and I said, ‘OK, I didn’t know that, but hey, that’s fine. In a little while, this dog is leaving.'”

Dianellys was fined for allowing a visitor’s dog on the property. She paid the fine and thought that was it.

Eleven months later, she got this letter.

Dianellys Molina: “That letter says that I have 30 days to get out of here for having a second dog. That’s just basically what it says.”

Dianellys was accused of walking her bosses’ dog again. Not true, she said.

Dianellys Molina: “I know that I can’t have two dogs, after all that happened last year.”

While Dianellys owns her trailer, she rents the space it sits on, and now she feared losing the home.

Dianellys Molina: “She won’t accept the rent because that’s usually what she’s done in the past. Then, after she doesn’t accept the rent, she takes you to court like you are not paying, to evict you.”

Dianellys was stunned that she had 30 days before she will be evicted. Enough time to pack up, but not enough time to sell her home.

Dianellys Molina: “She wants me to go, and leave my trailer for her to sell and keep my money.”

Dianellys was left in tears. Her home is worth money. Now, she about to lose all that.

Dianellys Molina: “I need you to help me so she doesn’t kick me out of here, because it’s unfair.”

Doesn’t seem fair, but is it legal to evict someone from their home and then sell that mobile home? Howard?

Howard Finkelstein, 7News legal expert: “This is not fair, but yes, it’s legal. If the landowner has the right to evict you, you have three choices: move the trailer, sell it or abandon it. Giving someone 30 days to sell it is also not fair. The best solution: delay the eviction so you can sell it, but you need to hire a lawyer, and many people who live in mobile homes do not have the money to do that.”

We tried to contact the property manager at Haven Lake Estates. She wouldn’t talk to us.

Our solution: we spoke to Broward Legal Aid.

They took a simple step, but it worked. They got Haven Lake to give Dianellys 45 days to sell her mobile home, and she did, after that call to Help Me Howard.

Dianellys Molina: “Very grateful for you guys. Without you, I wouldn’t have been able to do it.”

Dianellys then used the money from the sale of the trailer to buy a house. A pool in the back, lots of room and lots of smiles.

Dianellys Molina: “I’m able to have a cat, a dog, doing barbecue, parking on the grass, a lot of freedom, thank God. Yes, I’m very grateful.”

And in the end, everything worked out for the best for Dianellys, and I was surprised the mobile home park could end up owning Dianellys’ trailer if she didn’t sell it or move it, but in the eyes of the law, it’s abandoned on their property, and they can keep it. However, in this case, Dianellys beat them by selling it.

This article is such a joke in so many ways. But let me first tell you the story of Buddy back in my Oklahoma park in 2001. He was a guy that could not pay the rent. So instead – when he got served with eviction papers -- he jammed up his own sewer line to make it look like the park’s city sewer system was not working to try to claim it was “landlord retaliation”. He called the media and they took the story without any fact-checking whatsoever. Turned out that an Oklahoma City employee  had just inspected the park the day before and told the media station that the story was completely fabricated. I then threatened to sue the channel if they did not correct the story, which they sheepishly did. And this story sounds equally false. Here are the top three reasons that I don’t believe any of this:

1. I don’t for one second believe that what caused the eviction was simply that the tenant walked two dogs around the park just one time a year earlier. My bet is that the resident did, in fact, have two dogs (or more). Park owners take evicting tenants very seriously and it’s not just some random act based on hearsay.
2. I’m expected to believe that this tenant was able to sell their home because they got an extra 15 days to do so and couldn’t get the job done only in 30. 15 days was the secret, huh? Interesting. And totally unbelievable.
3. We are told that the mobile home sold for so much that the tenant was able to buy a brick house with a swimming pool. So a beat-up old mobile home now sells for as much as a stick-built with a pool in this market? How about that?

Whoever wrote this article needs to either 1) do a better job of fact-checking or 2) find a new career because they are embarrassing themselves.

The city/county is trying to clear out this dilapidated trailer park from the nice lake front to benefit the lives of thousands of community residents. It’s a no-brainer and the residents have zero chance of convincing any sane adult otherwise. Yet here’s what the media claims:

Community advocates said finding affordable housing, especially on the lakefront, remains difficult. “There’s just not a lot of good, affordable housing in the area that is suitable for folks,” said Josiah Quarles, the director of organizing and advocacy for the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless. “They have crafted a life for themselves that fits their needs and means and now they’re being tossed into a market that does not have a wealth of affordable housing.”

Fortunately, this drama is playing out with a municipal group and not a park owner. But it harkens back to the earlier article in which the media now thinks that all tenants somehow have the right to demand their landlord to be their legal guardian for life just because they paid rent at one time.

Yeah, right. That’s the only reason that they rejected the expansion of the park – because hypothetically a flood would make the additional lots unsafe, even though such a flood has actually never occurred nor probably ever would? I’m pretty sure that this is what actually went on at the meeting behind the scenes, when the Board met before they went on stage:

Board Member #1: ”We need a really good reason to deny this trailer park expansion thing tonight. I’m thinking we go with the flooding idea.”

Board Member #2: “Are you sure? I really like the meteorite might hit the park excuse”.

Board Member #3: “Wait, I liked the potential forest fire one”.

Board Member #4: “I don’t care which one we use – let’s just get this thing denied quick because I don’t want to miss Monday Night Football”.

Great quote from the park owner:

“While our aim is to preserve mobile home parks, Hurst and Son is not a low-income housing provider. At the same time, we want our communities to be mixed income, and we don’t want improvements to displace anyone. Many mobile home parks are at a crossroads, but that doesn’t have to be the future. If we looked at this as a private-public partnership, the state could allocate income assistance for those who are low-income while the private sector makes the required infrastructure improvements to sustain the communities as an attainable housing option."

The bottom line is that bringing old parks back to life is expensive and rents are going to go up and marginal residents are going to be displaced – and 99.9% of residents are going to be delighted by the improvements and happy to pay the higher rent. It’s either that or just tear the parks down and put up apartments which never seem to get any pushback on anything they do. It is NOT the park owner’s responsibility to provide for the marginal group that can’t afford to live in a modern world. That falls on the back of Section 8 which does a poor job of addressing the needs of the American public and has massive waiting lists. The government should not use private property owners as the backstop for their failure to do their job of offering housing assistance.

This park manager – facing rent control – had a not too veiled opinion of the end result:

Vance Verderame, operating manager of Canada Cove mobile home park, spoke against the idea, explaining that Canada Cove maintains all infrastructure and amenities in the park and government regulation could upset this balance.

Here’s the translation: “If you pass this rent control we’re going to demolish this thing”.

Can you blame them?

Only in California …

I am still a little baffled by this new non-profit vision of people buying homes and renting the land.

To address affordability head-on, NeighborWorks introduced the concept of a housing trust, which was created this year to bring in large sums of money for downpayment assistance. This initiative aims to maintain long-term affordability by having families own the structure but lease the land from NeighborWorks.

While this is effectively the business model of mobile home parks, the difference is that mobile home residents don’t pay much for their homes and are not focused on appreciation. But in this case, you are talking about big price points and down-payments. The only reason people buy stick-built homes is for the potential for appreciation and wealth formation which is basically being eradicated under this concept, as they are basically not allowed to make money but simply live in the home and then kind of give it back at the end. I wonder if the folks buying homes under this program really understand the ramifications. It’s a terrible financial choice for them.

Glad to see an article that is positioned to help ease the stigma against “trailer trash” – but hate that they had to title it “Trailer Park Heaven” rather than a classier title (what would be wrong with “Manufactured Heaven”?). But at least they had good intentions, and I hope it starts a new trend for similar articles.

Of course the city would want to increase all setbacks – that reduces the number of mobile homes that can go into the park. This is not about some grand concern for wide-open green spaces but simply the universal desire by city halls across America to eradicate and/or minimize the capacity of mobile home parks.

Another positive article? Unbelievable.

If enacted, the bill would ask the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to implement “a competitive grant program to award funds to eligible recipients to carry out eligible projects for improvements in eligible manufactured home communities,” according to a draft version of the bill obtained by HousingWire.

Grant funds would “assist in carrying out a project for construction, reconstruction, repair, or clearance of housing, facilities and improvements in or serving a manufactured home community that is necessary to protect the health and safety of the residents of the manufactured home community and the long-term sustainability of the community,” the draft bill reads.

Great quote from the city manager: "We want to work with him, not necessarily against him". Three out of four articles positive – that’s a new world record.

How could the city let the park owner get $900,000 in arrears on their water bill? This article gives me the impression that possibly the city baited the park owner to get in over their head so they could shut off the water and force the park to close. There’s more to this story than meets the eye.

Another positive article – that’s two in a row. In this one a mobile home park owner makes good on promises of bringing an old park back to life and the city rewards them with a new license after seven years of denial

NEWS BULLETIN:

The earlier article said that the residents bought their mobile home park for $6 million with 46 lots but this one says 26 lots. If that’s true, then they paid $260,000 per household so they could have the honor of living in a high-density trailer park. I hope this article is wrong on that lot count because – if not – this is a total scandal. There’s no way you can spin that as being in the best interests of anyone.

This article has nothing to do with mobile home parks, but it’s so stupid that it warranted inclusion in this week’s news list.

Universal (yes, the theme park) is building “affordable” apartments in Orlando. They’re spending $350 million to build 1,000 units. That works out to $350,000 per unit.

Now you might ask how that is affordable? It’s not. Only a complete idiot would think that’s affordable. That’s higher than the median home price in probably 70% of all U.S. metro areas, including such places as Dallas, Tulsa and Omaha.

Has America really lost grasp of the concept of “affordable”? Is next up an article on the new “affordable” Rolls Royce? How did we all get this stupid?

A resident moves into a rental mobile home and immediately claims that her health is being compromised by carbon monoxide, black mold – even tiny particles of dust in vents.

The management fixes each and every item she complains about, but every day there’s something new.

“At this point, everyone has mutually agreed that this isn’t working out and that we’re happy to pay her move-in cost and she can find somewhere else to live and we can have an amicable resolution to this,” Property Management Vice President, Michelle Oppelt tells 6 News in a phone call.Esham says she doesn’t feel the payment is enough when weighed against what she, her son and her cousin had to go through.

If you don’t know what is really going on here then you have obviously never rented a mobile home to a tenant.

The moral: sell off every park-owned rental you have as fast as you can. Stick with the parking lot part of the mobile home park business only.

OK, reality check time. Resident-Owned Communities has done 300 deals since inception. There are around 44,000 mobile home parks in the U.S. If you take 300 and divide by 44,000 you get .0068 which equates to .68 of 1%. That’s nothing, right? So can we PLEASE stop hearing this same narrative about how this concept can save park residents from “evil” park buyers and bring forth unicorns and rainbows and the end of world hunger because it’s such a tiny impact that it’s not worth this much discussion.

I one time found a robin that fell out of a nest and took it to a veterinarian. It may have survived to adulthood, I don’t know. But you could hardly write an article claiming that I was the potential solution to all lost robins. That’s what this reminds me of.

The park owner says that they “do not want to displace residents, but the company needs to increase revenues to meet the costs of improving the parks. That’s the gospel truth. You cannot bring old parks back to life without increasing rents significantly.

So what will it be: 1) acknowledge that new owners are doing great things by bringing old parks back to life and embrace the reality that rents must go up or 2) fight them tooth and nail and make nobody want to do this important task anymore?

The bottom line is, has been, and always will be: LOW RENTS = REDEVELOPMENT. That’s never going to change.

If there was an apartment complex that had code violations, the city would no doubt go to them and say “here’s what we need to get done to bring this up to code and here are some grants and programs to help pay for it and take all the time you need” and they would work together. But when it’s a mobile home park, the city says “fix this up or we’re shutting you down and you have zero time to get it done” and approach it from a confrontational perspective.

Galveston clearly wanted this park gone. Period. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

Why would you think that Pinellas country would tell people to raise their mobile homes up 9’ in the air or move out? Because they thought it would be too obvious if they said 90’ in the air. Clearly this story has the optics that the county is simply trying to raise the bar as high as possible to get rid of the tenants, the mobile homes demolished, and then have the land converted into a use that they like more.

When you spend $11.5 million to save 76 mobile homes crammed into a tiny parcel of land you just spent $151,315 per household to live in a tiny trailer. I’m sure the park owner is delighted to have scored this much for the land but how do rationalize these numbers from a non-profit perspective? If you said to these folks “here, I’m going to give you $151,315 cash OR you can stay in your trailer” NOBODY would have taken them up on the offer to stay. They’d take the cash, drive another 30 minutes out, and buy a brick house. I think there’s some type of disconnect going on between non-profits, reality, and the true wishes of the people who live in these properties.

Not to be a party-pooper but there are two glaring problems with this story:

1. The residents paid over $130,000 per lot to own the land. Including the value of the mobile homes on those lots they are in this deal at maybe $160,000 per lot. Based on my memory of real estate in Texas, you can buy a nice brick house for that amount in many markets. Wouldn’t they have been better off simply giving these folks $160,000 cash to go buy a brick house free and clear? I’m confused.
2. The article admits that this is the third resident-owned community in the entire state of Texas. Since Texas has the largest number of mobile home parks in the entire U.S. that’s a stunning admission. When woke media discusses how residents buying communities is the solution to all the world’s problems they never include the actual statistics of how many of these deals actually close. It’s a really, really, really, really, tiny number – and then half that again.