Across the US, homeownership is becoming increasingly inaccessible for low- and moderate-income households. While land costs are a driving force in this trend, construction costs carry some of the blame as well. However, “Comparison of the Costs of Manufactured and Site-Built Housing,” a new paper I co-authored with Chris Herbert and James Shen finds that manufactured housing offers a potential solution to rising construction costs, with a significant cost advantage over site-built homes. Given this cost advantage, we suggest that housing advocates and policymakers take steps to promote more widespread adoption of manufactured housing as...

A TINY home dweller has narrowly avoided homelessness after she was evicted from the property where she had lived for nine years.

Back in 2017, Yvonne Perrigo and her retired mother were living at the Skyview Trailer Park in Missoula, Montana, when the landlord left a note saying they needed to leave within six months.

There were plans to raze the park and build a new affordable apartment complex.

That's when Perrigo had to begin the painstaking and financially taxing process of moving her mobile home to another trailer park, the Missoulian reported.

"It was one of the roughest times I’ve ever had," she told the outlet.

"We were seriously...

LONGMONT — The popular tiny home movement is growing bigger in Colorado thanks to a new law aimed at allowing factory-built homes of about 400 square feet or less to become permanent fixtures in neighborhoods and in one case, to be used as an emerging therapy to get homeless military veterans back on their feet.

Advocates say House Bill 1242 , which went into effect July 1, will spur more purchases since it sets building standards for the scaled-down structures. The new rules also allow cities and counties to create legal pathways to let people live in tiny homes for a lifetime as opposed to just 180 days, advocates say. 

“Before this...

The Albemarle County Planning Commission recommended approval of a Special Use Permit request for the new owner of the renamed Crozet Mobile Home Community (MHC) at the commission’s June 27 meeting. The mobile home park on Park Road just east of Crozet Park has existed in that location continuously for over 40 years, predating most of the development around it. The 15-acre community currently hosts 73 manufactured homes, and the parcel’s new owners—who acquired the MHC in 2022 for $4 million—would like to add 14 more units to the site.

County senior planner Kevin McCollum explained that because the mobile home park was established before...

Novato is home to 415 senior citizens who have just learned they’re in danger of losing their homes.

All are residents of Marin Valley Mobile Country Club immediately adjacent to Hamilton. This is affordable housing. Rent for each pad is about $650 per month including utilities. The 315 units are not-very-mobile house trailers, single- or double-wide manufactured homes owned by individual residents.

About 41% of the residents of the well-maintained facility qualify for affordable housing. The reality is that the majority of the remainder chose MVMCC because their retirement savings coupled with Social Security places them in the bottom...

NEWFANE — A new residential development is in the works to replace a longtime mobile home park in Wrights Corners.

The development, Wrights Country Cottages, will consist of 19 stick built homes replacing almost all of the existing mobile homes at 6520 Ridge Road.

The stick built rental homes will be single-story, permanent structures sized between 700 and 800 square feet, according to property owner Bart Adams. He estimated the project cost is about $1.3 million.

The stick built houses are “basically about the same size as the mobile homes that were there,” Adams said.

The development will primarily house tenants over the age of 55.

“I...

A town board denied a developer a permit to dig on the former site of Suni Sands mobile home park after a Native American mound was found on the property

Mobile homes and similar single-family dwellings that are built elsewhere and placed on rented land have long been a low-cost option for aspiring homeowners across Pennsylvania.

Manufactured-housing communities are disproportionately in rural areas, but they’re not exclusive to small rural pockets. In Pennsylvania, a slight majority are in urban areas, particularly in suburbs outside midsize and large cities, according to the first statewide analysis of these communities, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

Trends in lot vacancy suggest that demand for these homes is strongest “on the outskirts of larger urban areas,...

Through her search for a new apartment, one question on rental applications seemed to jump off the page at Debbi Halsted: Have you been evicted?

The answer was no — at least not yet.

But over the past few weeks, she had been worried her answer would change if she couldn’t pay her rent. Her Clinton landlord wanted to raise the payment from $650 a month to $1,250, more than a 90% increase. Halsted is on a fixed income and knew she couldn’t afford that rent. Even if she opted not to pay any other bill, her monthly income is just $1,119, which would leave her $131 short.

“There’s nothing right now that I see that I can afford. So what do you...

House Republicans objected to , arguing that the state shouldn't be setting mandates on manufactured home community owners that could push them out of business, further reducing Delaware’s affordable housing stock.

The First State Manufactured Housing Association, representing mobile home park operators, also expressed concerns about the changes one year after setting the other requirements for the industry. 

But Democrats argued that the changes were needed to offset the "unintended consequences" of the 2022 law indexing rent increases to inflation. 

"The residents of manufactured home communities are some of the most...

A new federal law proposed by three U.S. senators, including Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal, aims to protect mobile home owners. The law would curtail extreme rent increases and other predatory operator tactics.

In recent years, mobile home communities across the country continue the shift from locally owned and operated to hedge fund management.

Dave Delohery, president of the CT Mobile Homeowners Alliance, has lived in mobile homes for about a decade.

Delohery is a resident of the former Jensen mobile home community in Southington. It was purchased in 2019 by Sun Communities, the nation’s second largest manufactured home...

SUPERIOR — Douglas County was willing to give land away and found no takers.

Now officials are going to try it again.

The county's Land and Development Committee on Tuesday, June 27, directed the County Clerk’s Office to advertise parcels that once housed the north and south Country Acres trailer parks for sale again.

No bids were received after the property was advertised in June.

County Board Chairman Mark Liebaert said he anticipated receiving three bids on the property, which was valued at $33,600 during the last assessment in Parkland in 2013. Tuesday, he was worried the lack of bids would leave Douglas County to bear the cleanup...

It looks like the mobile home park at Dotsero will have broadband internet service in the near future.

During a Monday presentation to the Eagle County Board of Commissioners, Scott Lingle, the county’s director of innovation and technology, briefed the board about efforts to bring better service to the county’s rural areas.

A recent request for proposals was sent to internet service providers. Three bids came back. The least expensive bid came from Vero Broadband. The total project is expected to cost about $380,000, which includes both the mobile home park and the Two Rivers neighborhood. Eagle County will pay 75% of that amount, but...

Two years ago, residents of a north Fresno trailer park placed their hopes in local leaders to help them out of a bad situation.

Local leaders, namely the Fresno City Council and a Fresno Superior Court judge, only made things worse.

Today, roughly half as many people live in the former Trails End Mobile Home Park compared to before government “help” arrived. More than a dozen were evicted by new predatory landlords scheming to turn a quick profit off their plight. Those who remain also face eviction in less than a year, but not before being threatened with rent hikes and all sorts of unpleasantries in the meantime.

How did this happen?...

This story is part of The Salt Lake Tribune’s ongoing commitment to identify solutions to Utah’s biggest challenges through the work of the Innovation Lab.

Kari Taylor Schreck’s home, which she shares with her husband Jay, is filled with various shades of blues — from a deep navy to a bright turquoise. Paintings of desert landscapes with endless horizons line the walls. It is bright and cool and outside each window there’s a view of the red rock that millions of tourists travel to the town each year to see.

The Moab home is not only a quiet and lovely refuge from the desert heat, but part of a growing archipelago of affordable dwellings...

As Novato grapples with budget deficits, a resident has offered to pay $30 million to purchase a city-owned mobile home park that city staff say could pose future financial problems.

The City Council is set to meet in closed session on Tuesday to discuss the proposal by Dean Moser to purchase the Marin Valley Mobile Country Club at 100 Marin Valley Drive. Moser is the founder of HCA Property Management Inc. in Novato and said the company owns 17 mobile home parks on the West Coast.

Moser made his pitch at the City Council’s budget hearing on June 13, when city officials discussed how to cover a projected $1.3 million budget deficit and...

Ram Realty Advisors wants to develop a 400-unit multifamily mixed-use project on the site of a mobile home park near North Miami.

Palm Beach Gardens-based Ram Realty, through an affiliate, has the Biscayne Breeze Mobile Home Park site at 11380 Biscayne Boulevard, and adjacent properties at 11320 and 11340 Biscayne Boulevard, under contract for an undisclosed price, according to an application filed to Miami-Dade County last week. The 7-acre property also is home to Blue Runner Seafood restaurant, Summer Day Garden Nursery and The Body strip club. 

The proposal is for an eight-story residential project, with 50 units of the 400 designated...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—As part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced that applications are open for the $25 million Enhancement & Innovation (E&I) competitive grant program that aims to accelerate the clean energy transition through demonstration projects. These projects will not only support low-income homes by making them more comfortable and safer, but they are also an opportunity to explore new weatherization techniques and technology and showcase best practices that could possibly be emulated and adopted more widely among other weatherization projects. 

The E&I grant program...

The City of Portsmouth and New Hampshire Community Loan Fund held a ribbon cutting Tuesday, June 20 on a project including five new affordable homes and significant site and infrastructure improvements at Woodbury Cooperative, a resident-owned manufactured-home park near downtown Portsmouth.  

The initiative to finance and support infrastructure improvements including water, sewer and paving upgrades was undertaken by the City’s Community Development Block Grant Program staff in conjunction with the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund. The ribbon-cutting marked the completion of five years of effort to ensure that residents of Woodbury...

NORWOOD — Just after Thanksgiving, Pedro and Maria Jorge were ready to move. 

The Telluride workers from Guatemala were living in a relative’s tiny apartment, crammed into a single bedroom with their 10-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter and an infant. They quietly came home to the third-floor unit when it was dark and left early, hoping to avoid scrutiny that might land their uncle in trouble. The kids could not play outside. 

Jorge had recently lost his restaurant job and the house that came with it. He landed another restaurant job quickly. As did Maria. But housing was elusive. 

After several months wedged into a single bedroom, the...

The Planning Commission is slated to consider changes to zoning in Boulder City that would allow for “tiny homes” (typically less than 400 square feet in size) to co-exist with mobile homes.

From the beginning of its history, Boulder City has been a place where home sizes were mostly on the smaller end of the scale compared to housing in other places. A typical home built for a dam worker in the 1930s was based on the “shotgun shacks” common in the South and could reportedly be put up by two carpenters in just 12 hours. As more permanent housing began to take shape in the 1940s, typical home sizes were between 800 and 1,000 square feet....

DOZENS of residents of a mobile home park designed for seniors in Nevada have been evicted from their village, leaving many scrambling to find a new home. 

The Pair-A-Dice Mobile Home Park in North Las Vegas officially closed down earlier this month. 

Approximately 88 units were occupied in the park, according to Clark County data obtained by local Fox affiliate KVVU.

Following the notice that the village would be shutting down, the county contacted approximately 60 of the tenants and assisted them with relocation. 

However, many were left to find a new home on their own. 

“I was baffled. I mean, and then they don’t help people,” resident...