Mobile Home Park News Briefing

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.

OK so let me get this straight. The non-profits paid $7.6 million for 60 lots, which equates to around $130,000 per lot. And the lot rent is being raised, as a result, to $500 per month from around $400 per month. So now let’s go where the journalist that wrote this never went: the actual financial impact. Current interest rates on a mobile home park like this is around 6%, so the interest alone on this deal is around $456,000 per year. At a $500 per month lot rent, using a more than generous expense ratio of 30%, and with 60 lots total the projected NOI is 60 x $500 x 12 x .7 = $252,000. That’s right, the total projected net income s only enough to cover 50% of the interest on the loan. This deal was probably structured on a short-term loan that the non-profit cobbled together. It will ultimately come due and, with these numbers, this deal will never clear the trees. There’s no way this deal could have been put together at $7.6 million in the private sector, which is probably exactly why the seller was probably more than happy to unload it on the residents. And it also means the rent will have to be around $1,000 per month for this park to continue in operation once the subsidies end. 

Ouch, that’s probably not what the writer wanted to include in a woke “residents need to own their own parks” article:

Off Lakeway Drive, however, a deal simply couldn’t get done, O’Banion said. In a Feb. 13 letter to Lakeway residents, O’Banion gave ROC Northwest’s “professional estimate” of the value of the park property as “a minimum $35 million.” Even with the benefit of a grant and a very low-interest loan for part of the sale, the total loan package “would be unaffordable for many people in the community and would create an unacceptable risk of nonpayment for lenders,” the letter said. ROC Northwest estimated that the loan repayments, coupled with the cost of day-to-day maintenance and operation of the park, would result in a rent increase of “well over 100 percent,” O’Banion said.

So what they’re saying is the rents would have to double for the park to continue in operation at the current value. What an admission. I hope the residents remember this lesson learned when the next private-industry buyer takes over and doubles the rent to make the numbers work. They can’t complain as they have already scientifically proven the necessity for that increase.

Represented by attorney Jeffrey T. Scrimo, the owners of Lake Onota Village have laid out a plan to hike monthly lot rents by $210 over the next three years. This adjustment would catapult rents from their current range of $330-$380 to $540-$590, marking a significant financial strain on the community's residents. The justification behind this steep increase is attributed to a significant rise in operational expenses since the last rate adjustment in 2012, with the owners aiming to achieve a 'fair rate of return'. The proposed hikes are not just numbers on a page; they represent a looming affordability crisis for the residents of these communities. Manufactured homes, often praised for their affordability and accessibility, are becoming less so as rental costs for the land they occupy skyrockets. Common Sense Translation: The rents have not been increased in twelve years. Going from $330 per month to $590 per month over twelve years equates to around a $22 increase annually. That’s ridiculously low. Stop whining about this more-than-reasonable increase and be thankful that you have found the lowest cost housing in the city.

Pam has lived at the Dakota Valley Mobile Home Park for three years. She said, "I don't want to go to the homeless shelter. I've been there before." When she moved in, the lot rent cost $395. On March 1st, it will increase to $675 a month. "The first time he raised it, I had to change my life. I was doing senior companions, and I had to quit that job because it didn't pay enough to accommodate his raise," Kifer said. Common Sense Translation: $675 per month is not excessive lot rent at all, in most markets. But if you were in a homeless shelter three years ago it makes sense that you should probably not be in the mainstream housing market and need to get on Section 8 or a similar government program because you really can’t afford to live in the modern world without assistance. It’s also a pretty safe bet that you don’t actually reflect the opinions or financial status of the rest of the mobile home park residents.

Several residents of a Hazel Dell senior mobile home park gambled that rent stabilization legislation would pass — and lost. Their landlord at Meadow Verde had asked them to sign a lease agreement that included a discounted rent increase if they signed by Sunday. Some of the residents weren’t due to sign a new lease for almost a year. The discount tempted many of the residents who live on fixed incomes. But they believed the early rental agreement was an effort to lock them in at rent increases higher than the 7 percent cap in a rent stabilization bill before the Legislature. So they didn’t sign, putting their future in the hands of lawmakers.Then, on Monday, that legislation — House Bill 2114 — effectively died when the Senate Ways and Means Committee refused to vote on it. “We really had a lot of faith in our elected officials on both sides to do what’s right. They failed the people that needed them most,” Bart said. Common Sense Translation: Ronald Reagan summed it up when he said that the nine most dangerous words are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”. Rent control is such a bad idea – with plenty of economic stats to prove it – that even crazy, woke Washington couldn’t bring itself to pass it and the residents bet on the wrong horse when they believed the hollow promises of today’s bureaucrats.