Mobile Home Park News Briefing

I also liked her on Shark Tank, but this story is embarrassing. No way you can spin it that she made a smart financial move.

So the residents think a 10% rent increase is a scandalous thing when inflation is up that much or higher on the park’s costs? Well I have news for the bureaucrats of Chico: if you don’t let rents track or exceed inflation then you better get ready for the “land for sale” signs to go up and the parks being redeveloped because only government workers (and those who have no real-life experience) think that property owners are going to put up with that nonsense without simply pushing the “eject” button and redeveloping into a different and more profitable use.

In conventional mobile home parks, residents own the home but rent the lot. In a resident-owned community, residents own and manage the property cooperatively. Residents get a say in setting rent and investing in upkeep and improvements. There are many advantages to this system, advocates say, but the biggest is stability: Residents must approve lot fees, and generally they stay fairly stable. “We’ve increased lot rent only once in the last four years,” said Gilsrud. “And that was by $6.” 

Oh no, not this story again. Look, I know that American math skills are at an all-time low, but if the residents – who own the park – raised the rent only $6 in the past four years at a time when inflation is up 20% over just the past three years, then this park cannot possibly survive financially. Although the residents can buy a park with the help of a non-profit that guarantees the debt, operating costs are the same for corporate owners as they are for resident owners. Since the residents vote to increase rents, then they never will because the majority will refuse. And the only one with skin in the game is the non-profit that guaranteed the loan. I hope those guarantors don’t read articles like this because they will soon figure out that they are screwed.

Debbie Suits, who lives at a mobile home park in Tempe, said when she and her husband moved in five years ago, the lot lease was $700. Now it’s $1,000, but she said they have nowhere else to go. “Go where? My husband and I have talked about it — that's enough, we’re out of here, tell me where else I can go,” Suits said.

Arizona is one of the 15 most expensive states in the U.S. to live in. Unfortunately, a whole bunch of seniors moved there for the weather back when the state was cheap. Times change. If you are a senior who cannot afford to pay $1,000 per month lot rent, let me suggest you look into the other 35 states which are MUCH less expensive, such as my home state of Missouri where lot rents average around $300 per month.

As for the non-profit which promoted this article – “Love From Above” – the problem persists that the only way that tenants can buy parks is with the help of a non-profit that personally guarantees the loan. And that’s about as likely on a large scale as finding people to volunteer to set themselves on fire.

A group of people who live at Old Orchard Village and Atlantic Village are attempting to form a tenants' cooperative to try and buy the parks for themselves.
But it's no small task.

The accent needs to be on the words “no small task”. That’s an understatement. The seller wants around $40 million. The tenants probably have collectively around $1,000 in cash between them. So the only way this deal happens is if a non-profit guarantees the debt. That’s the problem with all these resident deals – they forget the one small thing which is they have to find the “rich uncle” to actually secure the financing. And nobody wants to personally guarantee this stuff in non-profit land. So that’s why these articles are so infuriating as they suggest there is the remote possibility of success when, in fact, there is none. That would be like articles suggesting that homeless people could make big money by renting out their shopping cart wth a tarp roof as Air BNBs.

The $15.5 million in federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act will go to 46 mobile home parks.

Common Sense Perspective: Good news for park owners, bad news for inflation.

These communities have been made even more vulnerable because corporate investment companies buy the land that mobile home parks sit on, then charge steep rent hikes that stretch low income households to their limits. These companies often neglect the grounds, and because these homes are not actually mobile, this puts entire communities at great financial risk.

Common Sense Perspective: When a mobile home park changes hands from a mom-and-pop owner to a corporate owner the rents go up to pay for the needed capital expenditures to bring it back to life, as well as professional management and the higher prices of carrying the correct amounts of insurance, etc. The intent of the new owner is not to stretch the affordability of those few households that have substandard incomes, but to provide a better quality of life for the majority of households who welcome the changes and are more than happy to pay the increases. That’s the concept behind all urban reclamation and progress. As for this focus on the fact that mobile homes can’t move, the truth is that all homes since 1976 CAN move at any time, but nobody does so because there is no place cheaper to live than the mobile home park. It’s not a question of holding residents captive but instead offering a product so good that nobody ever wants to leave.

Honeylion definitely wants to be that: a premium, super fancy mobile home for a family looking to downsize in style and total comfort.

Common Sense Perspective: Based on these photos this home is absolutely not capable of delivering on any of these claims as far as I can tell.

Ron Hall has lived in his manufactured home in Bonnet Lake Estates in Avon Park for decades. The 80-something retired masonry contractor may have to abandon his home in the lot where it sits. He can’t afford to move the home to a less-expensive mobile home community.

Common Sense Perspective: Has anyone ever considered the concept of just … selling the home where it sits? Following the logic of this article, any real estate you can’t move should be abandoned. That means that every single-family home in America should be abandoned instead of listing it with a realtor. Maybe the dumbest article of 2024 so far.

With the help of the Community & Economic Development Clinic, attorneys secured a loan for the tenants with the state of California at an interest rate they could afford. Community Development Financial Institution ROC USA provided a bridge loan.

Common Sense Perspective: Can’t wait to check in on how this all turns out with a debt construction that sounds about as stable as the foundation on the Eiffel Tower.

On Friday, Idaho House lawmakers voted 66-0 to pass HB 590 from Rep. Elaine Price, R-Coeur d’Alene, after it went through a round of minor edits. The bill would require owners to give 15 days of notice to a mobile home park association before a park is sold.

Common Sense Perspective: No wonder it passed 66 to 0 without any discussion – it’s absolutely meaningless. It takes residents about six months to a year to get a deal done on average, not 15 days.

Common Sense Perspective: The residents are paying $11.5 million for a dilapidated park. The owner waited two years for them to gather the money. Do you think they might have overpaid? And then comes the issue that the financing is cobbled together from a bunch of non-profits on short-term loans. There’s no way this deal is going to make it without continual subsidies. What happens when the non-profits lose interest and move on to different virtue-signaling opportunities? The residents would have been far better off with a stable corporate owner with long-term debt.

Judy Youngs had gotten used to modest increases in her mobile-home rent. Then late last year, she learned it would soar by 60 percent over the next four years.

Common Sense Perspective: If you don’t raise rents significantly annually – to keep up with inflation that is averaging 5% right now – you have to play catch up and raise rents significantly higher later.

Another factor to consider is that Arizona is the 15th most expensive state to live in, right up there with New Jersy, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Oregon, Maryland, Vermont, New Hampshire, Colorado, and Washington. If you want to retire to an area that is affordable, Arizona is pretty much your worst choice. I know the U.S. has decided to eradicate all personal accountability, but maybe the first order of business if you can’t afford to live in Arizona is to move to a cheaper state?

“We’ve increased lot rent only once in the last four years,” said Gilsrud. “And that was by $6.” 

Common Sense Perspective: Inflation under Biden has gone up a cumulative 20%. Rents in this park are around $500 per month. They should have gone up $100 per month just to cover the increase in the park’s operating costs but instead the residents have voted to increase them only $6. Clearly the residents are on a financial suicide mission as they refuse to raise rents in keeping with inflation and will soon not be able to handle the capital needs of keeping the park running, leading to a special assessment that few in the park will be able to afford. That “$6 rent increase” quote is asinine, not something to be proud of.

Some residents in Old Orchard Beach recently learned their mobile home park, Old Orchard Village, was sold. This has prompted some to put together a last minute effort to buy the park themselves.”That’s why I’m out collecting petitions," Melissa Hilliard, who's lived in Old Orchard Village for 22 years, said. “So that we can form a co-op and buy it ourselves. It might be a longshot, but that’s what I’m working for today.”

Common Sense Perspective: At 371 lots and a value of around $70,000 per lot this would be a $26 million transaction. On top of that, it’s already sold. The residents’ chance of success on this project is lower than Joe Biden’s chances of making the Chiefs’ starting lineup.

Pinellas County has ordered dozens of residents in a frequently flooded mobile home park to elevate their homes to nearly 11 feet or leave by the start of hurricane season in June. Residents of Twin City park, which is in the Gandy area, say it makes no sense to spend as much as $50,000 to elevate homes that are valued at half that amount — or less.

Common Sense Perspective: Pinellas County finally found a way to shut down the trailer park which had probably been on their to-do list since the time of Jimmy Carter.

This is what many mobile home parks will look like in 50 years. But you better get ready for $1,000+ per month lot rents to make it happen and justify the capital cost to make this conversion.

Let’s cut through the B.S. and admit that nobody wants a mobile home to be placed next to their stick-built home. Even my small town of 4,500 people bans mobile homes on residential lots. However, my town recently passed an ordinance allowing tiny homes on those same lots. So the problem is not people living in smaller dwellings. The real problem is simply the “looks” of a mobile home and the stigma that goes with it. It’s 99% an aesthetics issue, and we all know that mobile homes exteriors are not as attractive as they could be. You are never going to be able to get cities and towns to allow mobile homes on residential lots until you get them off those stilts and down on the ground. Skirts are only a plus if you own a clothing store or are located in Scotland.

Let’s be honest, there is a huge delay between when something is talked about and when it actually happens. An enormous lag time. We’ve been hearing about these “affordable housing initiatives” from the Biden administration for three years now and have seen nothing come of it. With only eight months left until Biden’s era is over (according to the polls) does this narrative have any value at all? Not much. It reminds me of what Teddy Roosevelt told the native American leaders when they complained about their treatment by the U.S. government: “we shall endeavor to persevere” which means, actually, absolutely nothing.

Well, this is a description I have never seen before:

We ironically find in many trailer parks a kind of traditional urban design more common in European and Japanese cities.

I think what they are driving at is that mobile home parks are so high in density for detached structures.

So residents are paying $241 per month lot rent – unchanged since 2013 – in a market where apartments cost $1,900 per month. And they are up in arms about the owner increasing the rents to around $790 per month, which is 50% less than the apartments down the street. Maybe they don’t understand the position that they’re in. Here, I’ll help them out: if the rents don’t go up by at least that amount or more the owners are going to tear the park down and build apartments. How can these people be this blind?

Can there be any other mobile home park story with more hypocrisy than Palo Alto and their lone trailer park. Having gone to Stanford and having driven by this eyesore myself while heading to Taco Bell to stay up all night to cram for exams the fake commitment of the city to “save” the property from redevelopment is finally exposed with the announcement that they are going to tear it down and redevelop the land into nice, new, upscale things:

With the city and the county each kicking in $14.5 million for the purchase and Santa Clara County Housing Authority contributing another $24 million through federal funding to pay for necessary repairs, residents who had been bracing for eviction since 2012 could now breathe a sigh of relief. The council, for its part, could take solace for having preserved 117 units of affordable housing and having prevented displacement of more than 300 residents. Now, Buena Vista is preparing for its next phase. Its new operator, Housing Authority, submitted last month a formal application for redeveloping the park at 3980 El Camino Real. The plan calls for splitting the park into two sections and constructing a three-story, 61-unit apartment building in one section. The other would remain a mobile home park, with 44 spots for new coaches, which could be either mobile homes or recreational vehicles.

What makes this story even more ridiculous is that the non-profits cobbled together around $40 million to outbid the group that initially wanted to buy and redevelop the land. And now they are doing exactly the same thing that the developer proposed back in 2012.

So what was the actual point of all this? Clearly the politicians behind the purchase, at that time, were trying to win votes from lower-income Palo Alto residents (which are few in number) and wealthy residents who want to virtue-signal (which are large in number) and now the politicians and their supporters have moved on to new things and could care less what happens to the residents.

Thank heaven for America’s dysfunctional legal system in which citizens sue each other more than any other country in the world. Apparently, it even has the Chico city hall spooked:

The city's Internal Affairs Commission decided not to move forward with a recommendation to the city council on an ordinance. Councilmember Addison Winslow was the only city official on the three-person council who backed some form of a rent stabilization ordinance, but he couldn't garner the support of his other two colleagues. Vice Mayor Kasey Reynolds cited concerns with legal liability from a potential ordinance.

But then again, maybe the residents used a bit too much gaslighting in their crazy narratives such as this one and scared the sane adults in the room:

"When rent goes up and when PG&E goes up, we’re gonna have more homeless people. I just felt a lack of compassion," said resident Jean Marquardt.

It’s possible that the two other folks on the Internal Affairs Commission were more focused on the damage that rent control does to the supply of affordable housing (causing rents to actually increase) rather than the DEI-focus on “compassion”.

I don’t know how anyone does business in California, but I know I won’t be one of them.

A shockingly intelligent article:

Controlling prices is the wrong way to get affordable housing. Supporters of rent control want to make it easier for low-income families to afford rent. The best way to achieve that goal is through competitive markets. Markets, not state rules, are what allow people get better products at lower prices.

Just as the caterpillar turns into the butterfly, the trailer park turns into the apartment complex. The only thing holding that metamorphosis back is higher lot rents.