Mobile Home Park News Briefing

Ohio senior citizens are so fed up with spiraling rent costs at their mobile home parks that they want the state legislature to enact rent control laws. They recently protested in front of the statehouse to emphasize their demand for curbs on rent. However, it is unlikely that those protests will yield the results they are looking for, mainly because Ohio's state legislature enacted a statewide ban on rent control in 2022.

Ohio made rent control illegal in 2022 because IT’S A TERRIBLE IDEA. And, since Ohio legislators had the common sense to make it illegal, what’s the point in writing an article promoting the need for rent control in Ohio? I’m betting the author of this article was unaware of the 2022 law when he wrote it and then didn’t have time to write a different article when he found out this fact so he said “f**k it”, added that one sentence disclaimer, and submitted it anyway. What a waste of time.

For those who falsely claim that there will be any meaningful number of new mobile home parks built in the U.S. in the years ahead, please read this quote from the article:

Residents of Victoria Hills can breathe a sigh of relief after the Harnett County Commissioners voted unanimously to deny a request to rezone a 10.5-acre plot of land for a mobile home park.

That’s pretty much the normal reaction to proposed new mobile home park construction in every American market that I have ever attended a zoning meeting in (including my small town in Missouri). And I’ve been to hundreds of them.

You see, NOBODY wants a mobile home park built in their neighborhood. No zoning board or city council is ever going to approve a new park as a result. And no laws passed in Washington, D.C. are going to be able to negate the simple rules of local zoning.

End of story.

That does not include limited park expansions in which the “sting” of a new mobile home park neighbor is off the table nor does it mean that there is no path forward for higher-density subdivisions using new methods of construction, like 3-D printed homes. But as far as new mobile home parks – in the classical sense – that’s got about as much chance of success as me bouncing a basketball over the top of the Empire State Building – fruitless but fun to watch.

I know that there are many in the mobile home industry that talk about this topic constantly. So here’s my challenge. If I’m wrong on this theory, please send me a list of actual new parks with addresses constructed over the last few years. Not just talked about. Not just plans drawn. Not just investor funds raised. And with around 44,000 mobile home parks in the U.S., for new construction to be “meaningful” it would have to be an addition to the established list of parks of at least 5%, or 2,200 new parks, to be even worth talking about. If you have that list of fully constructed new parks, send it my way. But don’t feel bad if you can’t come up with any to put on the list – I can’t either.

Virtually the entire town of Montpelier, Vermont was wiped out in a recent flood. However, it appears that only the mobile home parks are having problems with the city allowing them to put their businesses back in order. Sure, you can claim it’s for the common good, but we all know that it’s probably simply the city trying to find a good excuse to get the “trailer parks” out of their town. Considering that downtown Montpelier had 5’ of floodwater it only makes sense that those high-rise buildings need to come down, too, unless they can be raised out of the flood zone, right?

Wikipedia tells us that Montpelier has flooded three times over the last 100 years, with the last time being in 1992. Seems odd that the city had no problem letting the mobile home parks be rebuilt in 1992 but now something has changed. That “something” is probably the city’s desire to take advantage of the situation to get the mobile home parks and their residents out of the city limits, of course.

Baltimore Terrace Mobile Home Park in Hastings on Monday, April 17, 2023. After the mobile home park was purchased by hedge fund-linked investment firm, some residents say the water quality is poor and repairs are being ignored while rent prices have increased. 

There’s probably no bigger falsehood forwarded by woke media outlets than the narrative that private equity groups do a worse job of maintaining their properties than mom and pop owners ever did. When a new buyer closes on a deal, they can’t make immediate enhancements without following a defined timeline that includes statues on enactment of rules enforcement, lining up contractors who are often months out on availability, and having to contend with weather issues (for example, you can’t pave roads in the winter, etc.). That means that any writer could drive through virtually any newly acquired mobile home park a few days after closing and declare “look, it’s just as bad as it was before” since there’s no possibility that anything has yet been accomplished. Of course, if they visited a few months later they would be blown away by the extensive improvements and the happy tenants who now love where they live. This reality is further backstopped by institutional lenders that produce property condition reports as part of loans and require improvements to be made within certain time boundaries.

Therefore, the truth – as any person with common sense would already grasp – is that private equity groups inject millions of dollars into infrastructure and home improvements in American mobile home parks on a regular basis (exactly what mom and pop owners cannot afford to do) and, without these groups entering the industry, the overall quality of parks would be substantially lower with a larger number of parks having been torn down and redeveloped.

While it is true that private equity group buyers often raise rents, that’s also true of any new buyer – large or small – and that includes even when the residents buy the parks themselves under a “resident-owned community” structure. Higher rents are necessitated by servicing large, new loans, fixing up infrastructure, installing professional management, and covering ever-escalating operating costs thanks to the highest inflation in 40 years. With the average U.S. mobile home park lot rent standing at around $300 per month vs. $2,000 per month for apartments, it’s baffling how park owners are endlessly criticized for rent increases which normally hover around $50 per year. The last time I looked, that’s how much more I’m paying for a single gas tank fill-up under the Biden administration.

Did you notice the date on the caption on this article’s photo? April 17, 2023. That’s over a year ago. Why did the writer not use a current photo? Probably because the improvements have now been made and the park  looks a thousand times nicer after the private equity group finished their property improvements! You gotta love the media’s manipulation of the facts.

One solution is cooperatives, where mobile home residents pool money together to buy their park and share ownership. This way, they’re not subject to rent increases or displacement when the park land changes hands. However, this is an underused option, as only about 2% of manufactured housing parks were community owned in 2019, according to a Freddie Mac report.

Why do you suppose that in all these decades -- in the “bluest” of all red states -- only 2% of mobile home parks are resident-owned communities? After all, it’s not a new idea. The problem is, of course, that this concept requires an outside donor for the downpayment and then another non-profit to personally guarantee the loan. In none of these deals do the residents ever “pool their own money” to buy it – they have no money. It’s just a game of massive subsidies from outside the park. Apparently, very few groups want to give away free money or co-sign mortgages. With that reality in mind, can we please stop throwing out this stupid notion that, although it’s failed for decades, somehow it now suddenly has a shot of working? After all, 2% in 20+ years is not much of a track record to brag about.

“Living here at first was actually peaceful,” Navaro said. “We didn’t have issues.” She says that changed when a different management company took over the properties, and new rules were put in place without residents being told. Navaro said her neighbors are tired of what they call predatory towing and constant fines. “The fines became very, very consistent,” Navaro said about the major complaints protestors have with management. “started putting boots on cars, towing cars all at once.”

Obviously, what happened here is that the new owner has started enforcing the park rules and those that hate rules (which is the same rowdy crowd that can’t even march down a street without getting into a fight) don’t like it one bit. Up to bat next are higher rents, nicer property condition, and pride of ownership. They better get ready to march against those, too.

Let me get this straight. A mobile home park is pulverized by a tornado in March. It’s officially closed forever in April since the owner just wants to develop the land into a different use rather than attempt to put it all back together. So he clears the land at 100% his own expense. The tenants did nothing to help nor did they pay a dime. And now they are suing the park owner because he carted away their destroyed homes for free yet did not give them enough time to sift through the debris to look for things like a “measuring cup”? As I see it, the tenants owe the park owner thousands of dollars, not vice versa.

House Bill 73 — This will require courts to automatically expunge eviction records for cases that have been dismissed after 30 days.

House Bill 764 — This bill will give domestic violence or sexual abuse victims the right to terminate a lease agreement early should they have a permanent protective order and need to move residences for their safety. 

House Bill 86 — This bill mandates that during eviction cases, landlords notify tenants of any increases to any money that is requested. 

House Bill 477 and Senate Bill 50 – These bills extend Virginia’s eviction diversion pilot program for another year. 

House Bill 368 and Senate Bill 538 — These increase the maximum fine that localities can impose on repeated violations of the Uniform Statewide Building Code. 

House Bill 1203 — This bill increases tax credit amounts available to landlords who rent to Housing Choice Voucher holders. There is also an earmark for use in rural regions of Virginia. 

House Bill 478 and Senate Bill 49 — These allow localities to set up Community Revitalization Funds, which can be used to prevent neighborhood deterioration, such as revamping blighted structures for continued use. 

Senate Bill 489 — This bill establishes a workgroup that can analyze the possibility and options for creating a Virginia Residential Development Infrastructure fund. 

Apparently, the bureaucrats that run Virginia want all the parks torn down. These new rules are a good start.

Everything in this article seems more than a little odd. The mobile homes shown in the photos are newer models and don’t look that bad. I’m not even sure that the park owner owns these mobile homes, since the monthly rent is $800 per month, which in Florida is around lot rent levels not including the homes. On top of that, the residents are claiming that the park needs to provide 24/7 security, which they don’t by law. And then there’s the resident that says she won’t call 911 because “it’s a pain”. None of it really adds up to me.

There are two sides to every story. I’m betting the news agency is getting “played for fools” by the residents, who are hoping to get their rent reduced as a result. Reminds me of the time that National Geographic did a segment at one of our parks and a resident conned them into going over to their house to “reveal” that we had sold them a mobile home with a furnace that didn’t work. We showed National Geographic that the reason the tenant’s heat was not working was because they had simply not paid their gas bill and they didn’t run that story as a result.

Again, there’s two sides to every story and this article only provides one of them.

With every other form of real estate, once you build it you’re stuck. If you build an office building you have so much money invested in the construction that – no matter what the city later declares – you have no choice but to accept it because there’s no other way out. But mobile home parks are basically just parking lots and it costs virtually nothing to tear them down and redevelop. As a result, while California may allow crime in retail centers without worrying about closure – because nobody can afford to tear their malls down – mobile home park owners have freedom of choice and no economic barriers to preclude them from building something back on the land that’s more profitable.

As a result, the city’s attempt to control the park owners is simply going to displace the tenants and not really harm the park owners that much. But perhaps that was the plan to begin with, since most cities want all the mobile home parks removed, right?

Nobody with common sense would think for one minute that the reason the city is suddenly demanding that residents raise their homes 10’ off the ground – at a cost of $10,000 each – is because the city is so worried about future flooding issues. They’re obviously just trying to find a way to get the park shut down. But this one quote seemed even more misguided than the rest of the story:

Roth staked a for-sale sign in her front yard, but hasn’t received any serious offers yet. She’s asking $40,000 for her recently repaired home — Roth spent $26,000 of FEMA money after Hurricane Idalia pushed floodwaters inside. She has had few showings since. As soon as Roth discloses the park’s frequent flooding issue, it scares off prospective buyers.“Their eyes get wide and it’s like, ‘Oh, never mind,’” she said. “And they leave.” Roth said she’s worried about braving another hurricane season in her mobile home but doesn’t want to force her daughter and their two dogs into a cramped motel room. “I can’t stay here — can’t do it,” she said. “Because the next time water gets in, I can’t afford to fix it.”

She didn’t even pay to fix it the LAST time – FEMA did. What is she even talking about ??

And on the matter of stupidity, the U.S. government MUST stop coddling and enabling people in Florida to live in flood zones by removing the entire concept of personal accountability. If you live in a flood zone, in the state that has more flooding than any other, you must stop throwing good money after bad. Why did FEMA spend $26,000 fixing this home if it was already tagged as happening again in the future? They should have bought the resident a mobile home for $26,000, moved it inland, and been done with it, right? There’s an old saying that the very definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different outcome.

Ayotte said until now, the state controlled any mediation which could take several months.“Everyone knows what’s going on at the same time and if the parties agree to it, they can elect to expedite the mediation process,” Ayotte said. Park owners can raise rates if they match the Consumer Price Index.

Like any sane individual I am extremely disappointed in Florida, which apparently has decided to make being a landlord impossible. Between this crazy ordinance – which allows tenants to file for a formal mediation every time the rent goes up despite there being no rent control – and the hopeless future of obtaining or retaining affordable insurance in the state, I’m certainly glad we sold our only park in Florida years ago. I’m also more than a little disgusted that Ron DeSantis signed this into law. How embarrassing.

Prices in some of these parks can generally range from $1.5 million to more than $6 million, but that hasn’t put off buyers with that type of cash to spare.

There seems to be a competition in America today to see who can waste the most money – that’s become the new symbol of success. Whether it’s spending millions to see the Titanic or Jeff Bezos’ five-minute trip to outer space, society needs to know that you have so much money that you can blow it on meaningless crap. I guess that spending $5 million on a $5,000 mobile home is a modern status symbol, but to those of us who have not lost our minds it seems stupid beyond belief.

I hate to rain on another fantasy parade, but the homes in those photos are from the 1970s and 1980s. They are clearly in extremely poor condition. They will never survive the move from that property. On top of that, none of these residents will ever be able to afford private land or the $10,000 needed to put in a well and septic. This is just a bunch of hopeless nonsense. The residents had a great run at the world’s cheapest housing under an all too lenient mom and pop owner, but the new investor appears poised to take this property to the next level – benefitting the remaining residents who have pride of ownership – and these homes need to be demolished, not moved. This is not a story of an evil park owner but of residents who did not maintain their homes, to the detriment of their neighbors, and their actions finally caught up with them. It’s called personal accountability.

I’m confused by who the target customer is for these things. 400 sq. ft. is way too small for a family with kids. So it must be focused on young single people or seniors. But these developments are located out in the middle of nowhere so there’s no jobs and, therefore, I don’t know how the young person can pay the rent (unless they work remotely, which is a very small market). That only leaves senior households, and those 400 sq. ft. homes are too small – and with awkward floor plans – that render them difficult to be truly functional.

Until you can solve this riddle, tiny homes have no future. But they do make for entertaining TV shows on the HGTV channel.

But some residents and District 2 Caddo Commissioner Greg Young say they would like to see more ownership in the area.

No, that’s not the real reason. It’s the politically correct reason, but not the truth. The reason that people don’t want to have a mobile home park built next to them is that it substantially reduces their property values. Just go to Zillow and look at a house next to a mobile home park and one three blocks away. The one by the park is about 30% less in value. Until you can fix that simple reality there won’t be any new mobile home parks built.

This is not going to work. Just more subsidies for the taxpayers and donors to pay. Can’t anyone come up with an idea that is not reliant on hand-outs?

Littleton City Manager Jim Becklenberg said at a city council study session this week that the city does not currently have housing purchase subsidies funding to grant the residents’ original $2.6 million request to help them buy the land. Instead, the council directed staff to contribute $225,000 — some of which will be refunded — to go toward earnest money and pre-purchase expenses.

Clearly, this deal is not going to happen. It was a nice gesture by the city to save face, but to pull this off the residents will need a gift of around $1 million and a non-profit to personally guarantee the mortgage.

Of course, it’s probably better this deal dies quickly as many of these “blindfolded half-court shots” rack up monstrous diligence costs before finding out that they can’t come up with the money.

Mobile home park duplexes are the bastion of “man camps” and parks that are filled with temporary, transient workers who are there to do a job and go home. To pretend that anybody else would live in these dreadfully small, depressing things is completely asinine.

“After I pay for water, electricity, cable, groceries, and my medication I am left with nine dollars at the end of the month,” one resident on fixed income, who requested to remain anonymous, told the Lynnwood Times.

I know that Washington state is blue as can be. I know that it’s the homeland of the woke “free rent movement”. But if you add up the items in the quote above, it means that the resident has a total income of around $1,000 per month. Exactly how would this person be able to live anywhere in the U.S. on that amount? They clearly need to get into the U.S. Section 8 program. But, of course, they can’t because there is a 10-year wait list or something like that. This is not the story of evil park rents but instead the story of a government subsidy system that is broken.

99.9% of park residents like higher lot rents because they bring with them better property condition and professional management. But instead, Washington is seriously contemplating policies that revolve around an incredibly small minority of tenants but will literally destroy the Washington housing market, as rent control has in all other states dumb enough to institute them.

Read these new rules from the Massachusetts Attorney General regarding mobile home parks:

• Clarifies that community owners may not deny tenancy applications based on a single factor, such as credit score or income level, when there is other reasonable evidence of a prospective tenant’s ability to pay rent
• Informs community owners that they must charge new residents entering their community the same rent as residents already living in the community so long as the new residents have similar lot sizes and receive the same services as those already living in the community
• Clarifies the process that community owners must follow to discontinue the use of a manufactured housing community

So now tell me who would want to own a mobile home park in that state?

Ironic that the city that brought you the Boston Tea Party – the origins of the “freedom” movement – would be the place in which woke bureaucrats heap on new regulations that make property ownership completely unappealing.

And another one bites the dust … This time you have a city that is tearing down the “trailer park” to build a “recreational park”. Well, at least it’s still in the “park” family.

I always love the fact that when a private company tries to tear down a park the media goes crazy and demands that the city fathers stop them but when a city does the exact same thing the media thinks it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. Perhaps they can bottle up America’s sheer hypocrisy and use that as an alternative energy solution. It’s the most plentiful product America produces at the moment.

The answer is “no”. Looking at modular homes is like looking at car styles from the 80s – certainly no longer cutting edge. Personally, I would bet that 3-D printed homes are the future of affordable housing when you’re talking about putting attractive small homes on small lots at lower price points in stick-built neighborhoods. Modular homes look lousy and cost way too much for what you get, which is a glorified mobile home. That’s why – even though modular homes have been around for a long time – nobody buys them. Time to move on.

"Kelly cited extensive repairs needed to the park's decades-old infrastructure, specifically the water system, as the reason for the evictions…"

And here we have yet another park being torn down – and it’s the same old story. The lot rents were too low to pay for needed infrastructure repair and the land was now worth more than the park.

Have I mentioned that LOW LOT RENTS = REDEVELOPMENT enough yet?

“The nuisance abatement law provides a solution for problem locations that disproportionately demand law enforcement resources and reduce the quality of life for citizens of North Carolina,” said Scottie Shoaf, the Special Agent in Charge of the Nuisance Abatement Team. “It was a privilege to work with this community and restore peace to the residents living in this community.”

And another one bites the dust… This city had an original idea to get the “trailer park” out of town and that was to use a “nuisance abatement law”. I’ve never heard of that one before. The Park owner was probably OK with that decision as it clears the land for him to redevelop without much fanfare, and he can blame it all on the city.