The City of Blaine is working overtime to come up with a politically correct way to tell mobile home park developers to go jump in the lake. Here’s the classic quote from this article “The people I know who came to the meeting aren’t antidevelopment,” Leeland said. “They’re, ‘Let’s make sure the development aligns with things that are good for Blaine.”

Obviously, the city would like to say “no” but in today’s politically correct America they can’t be honest, so instead they are working on a response that talks about the benefits of affordable housing yet still says “no”.

If you own a home in Volusia County, Florida, you better sell it as fast as you can for whatever you can get. Can you imagine the decline in property values when you suddenly make mobile homes legal on thousands of acres in your county? Although this is not a “mobile home park” story – as none of this land is legal for mobile home parks but only individual mobile homes on land – it goes to show how stupid bureaucrats can be. Not sure that city employee started this concept, but I imagine that every single-family home in Volusia will be listed on Realtor.com shortly.

Let’s first address the concept that rents are high at this park. Here’s the stats for Killingworth, CT: SF homes average $411,000 and apartment rents are over $2,000 per month. Although the article refuses to state what the rents are now or what they were in the past, unless they’re $1,000 per month then they’re too cheap (based on the old rule of lot rents needing to be around 50% of apartment rents – which has no scientific basis at all).

As for the complaints about the property’s maintenance, let’s look at those complaints again:

“One disabled resident complained of a large beehive in front of her porch. The management company said they did not have money in their budget to remove it. The tenant paid herself to get it removed. Another tenant complained that her stairs lacked rails and were loose. She reported that maintenance agreed they were dangerous, but management has yet to fix them.”

Are you serious? That got the attention of the Attorney General of Connecticut? He must be really, really bored. The article does not even state if the homes belong to the tenants or the park (I’m betting the tenants) in which case those issues are not even a part of the park’s responsibility.

SUN is one of the best operators of mobile home parks in the U.S. They are a REIT. There are two sides to every story and I would personally bet that SUN’s story is the correct one – which this journalist chose not to share it at all.

“The main reason Mobile Home Parks are hot investments is that Mobile Homes are not mobile. It can cost as much to relocate a manufactured home as it would to move a stick-built home. The terms “Mobile Homes” and “Mobile Home Parks” falsely portray these homes and homeowners as portable.” DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE? The writer obviously has zero investing skills. What they are alluding to is that mobile homes can’t move and therefore the residents are extremely stable and tolerant of rent increases. People live in mobile home parks because they are cheaper than all other forms of housing, and they stay put because of that simple theorem. It’s not solely because the homes are difficult and costly to move.

No affordable housing concept works unless it is 100% subsidy-free. This one was not. Mobile home parks are. They operate without subsidies of any type. Yet they get no public acclaim for doing what bureaucrats have failed to do for the past century.

What neighborhood would not want to have the land next door filled with homeless people and a sign that says “A Kzoo Pod Community – A Place of Dignity”? I bet you $1,000 that not a single person on the Kalamazoo committee that is promoting this concept lives anywhere near this proposed disaster.

Better get ready for a ton more articles that start with this mantra:

“Dozens of people living at the North Cheney Mobile Home Park are now fighting to save their homes, as a plan to develop the property could force those living there to find someplace new to live.”

If the media and those who live in mobile home parks don’t get with the program and realize that low rents equate to “development land for sale” signs going up then they are in for a big shock.

And it’s also worth noting – since this journalist has zero real-life experience – that the residents cannot block the park owner’s right to develop the land into any use they want. The city makes that pretty clear when they state “"He talked about standard multi-family housing, he talked about a commercial space for some mixed use, concept, his representatives at the committee meeting, they were non-committal what the final site will actually look like," said Mark Schuller, city administrator for the City of Cheney.

City fathers celebrate when mobile home parks get torn down, so if the residents are looking for some help in that regard they are completely out of luck – which is one more reason that people need to stop trying to block higher mobile home park lot rents.

It seems the utmost of hypocrisy when the same media outlets that publicly shame park owners for raising rents and bringing old properties back to life suddenly make out like mobile home parks are a valuable resource. Here’s the key quote from this article:

“Even so, the uncertainty — the specter of receiving notice at any moment that she may have to leave, like those who lived in the 15 now-unoccupied spaces before her — gnaws at her. The future of Cedarwood, located at 189 Main St. in Layton, has been the focus of public debate since the summer of 2021, when news emerged that Provo-based owner Boulder Ranch wanted to vacate the park, which contains around 70 trailer spaces in all, and redevelop the site.”

If you don’t want more Cedarwood stories, the media and residents need to cut out all the complaints about park rents going up and instead embrace those needed changes and be thankful the park is not redeveloped – because if rents don’t go up, then all parks ultimately close for redevelopment.

OK here’s another one:

Less than five months after owners of the trailer park at 1915 Marion Road SE announced plans to develop the site into a senior housing complex, most occupants have either been evicted or removed as trespassers.

So let me get this straight: mobile home parks can be developed into other uses? Gee, maybe that would mean that residents need to applaud higher rent to keep them from being shut down and redeveloped?

Until the residents and media understand that the park owner is not bound by law or duty to be in the “trailer park” business – and that all land has a higher and better use – there will be a constant stream of these articles.

“A pair of Republican-sponsored bills intended to help mobile-home park residents weather Montana’s acute housing shortage drew vehement opposition from park owners, real estate agents and the Montana Landlord Association” not counting every adult with an IQ greater than a lima bean. Come on, people. Residents are NOT going to be able to buy their mobile home park with 60 days notice. Or, in 99.99% of cases, with 600 days advance notice. Or, in 99.98% of all cases, with 600 years advance notice. All this does is slow down and complicate the basic property rights of the owner and the work of the free market.

There’s an old saying that the scariest words are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”. Pretty sure that applies to this article. Thank heavens I don’t own a property in Lacey, WA.

The average price of a mobile home last year was $125,000? Who wrote this article? I’m betting this was generated by AI or somebody who used the search term “modular” instead of “mobile home”. That’s what happens sometimes when you use the search term “manufactured home”. This article was then probably proofed by somebody who lives in Manhattan and thinks that $125,000 is “cheap”. Not sure if any of the data in this article is accurate, but it’s refreshing not to have another article bashing owners for raising rents, so I’ll consider that a win.

When park owners do this same thing, all we get is bashed in the media. And when a city does that same clean-up of a rundown park, you would think they had found the cure for cancer. Hypocrisy anyone?

Let’s focus on just this paragraph to begin with:

“In case readers aren’t yet aware, some out-of-state rich people — through private equity organizations — are buying up manufactured housing communities like mine, Elkview Mobile Home Park, and raising the lot rent to unconscionable amounts. I’ve owned my home for fourteen years and my lot rent never exceeded $225 per month. When one of these groups bought our community in 2022, they gave residents a 60-day notice, right before Christmas, that they were raising our rent from $225 to $525. That’s an 130 percent increase in just two months’ time.”

The average apartment in Princeton,, West Virginia – where this park is located – is $924 per month. So if $535 is “unconscionable” then what adjective applies to $924 per month? “Abhorrent”? “Extremely unconscionable”?

Here’s where all these articles fall flat. We live in the U.S. and our system is called “capitalism” which is completely different than “socialism”. In the U.S., the “free market” is what we rely on, and if people don’t want to pay $525 at Elkview then they should move to a place they feel is a better value for them. But it is not the right of the government to try to tell private property owners what they can charge. That’s a hallmark of “socialism”. Let’s compare this to a hamburger at McDonald’s. If the quarter pounder is $3, and you don’t want to pay $3, then you can go to Burger King and pay $2. But you can’t petition the government to force McDonald’s to reduce their burger to $2. Only mobile home parks face this type of insane criticism – probably because they don’t advertise in the media while McDonald’s does.

Yes, it’s this same property again. The city of Palo Alto spent $40 million to preserve the park as a park for 100 families. That’s $400,000 per family. Now they’re going to rebuild it into apartments and new mobile homes, and all of those folks they claimed they “saved” only have first option to buy their way back in (which they probably can’t afford). Does anyone else find this peculiarly stupid even for California? Why not give them all $400,000 and tell them to move to a cheaper state – wouldn’t that have been the best decision? Another case of a consortium of non-profits and city managers who are lost on how life really works.

What is “sewage overflow” – just an event of a sewer back-up from a clog. Does it only impact two families in a giant park? If this was not a mobile home park, would it even make the news? The answer, of course, is “no”.

AT LAST, AN INTELLIGENT CONCEPT FOR IMPROVING AMERICA’S AFFORDABLE HOUSING STOCK! This is the kind of thinking that helps everyone – have the state help re-build failing infrastructure and re-populate vacant lots. Note that the entire State of Vermont program is 1/10^th what California is paying for just one 100 household community. Will somebody please give Governor Phil Scott an award?

Here are the only four paragraphs of this story you need to get to the truth:

Walls and many other Jackpot residents became concerned after the new owner of the park more than quadrupled the monthly lot rent — from $75 to $401. Plus, the owner wants the tenants to purchase the mobile homes, instead of renting, for what many residents say are inflated prices.

“This has gotten blown way out of proportion,” Spence told the Times-News on Thursday. Instead of being the “scumbag” some people have made him out to be, he said wants to help Jackpot grow and clean up the mobile home parks, making them a better place to live.

His plan has not gone over well with many residents who have flooded social media with negative comments, saying the trailers are rundown and overpriced. They say Spence’s plan seems more likely to cause people, including longtime residents, to leave Jackpot rather than stay.

She is interested in purchasing the one-bedroom home, “but not for what he wants.” She worries that because there are few housing options in Jackpot, she might end up living in her vehicle, a Dodge Durango.

So the bottom line is that the park owner is trying to bring the property back to life and salvage one of the last bits of affordable housing in the area. Some of the residents (probably 10%) don’t appreciate this and want him to leave it nasty and cheap. Let the free market decide who is right.

The city is spending about $70,000 per household to keep the rent lower by a few bucks? Read this quote from the artidle: “this amount will help keep the lot rents reasonable,” Harris-Shears said. “Residents will still experience an increase in their lot rent, but this stabilizes and reduces that impact.” So the rent will be no lower after the residents buy the park in all likelihood – possibly higher. Here’s a better idea: give each household $70,000 in cash and that will cover their lot rent – regardless of amount – for the next 15 years (if you include interest at 4% in a CD). What a bunch of idiots!

This article would sober any sane person up to the reality that – instead of publicly shaming higher lot rents – the residents and media need to be pressing owners to actually RAISE rents to fend off re-development. The writer seems shocked that the park is shutting down for redevelopment when there is no current buyer for the land, but then they inadvertently give the reason in the article when they state “lot rent is about $300 a month at Hollywood. The average rent in the county is $1100 according to Rent Cafe.” How much would the rent have had to be for the park to remain open? That’s the important question here.

Yeah, right – they “need this land for the city park system”. That’s the oldest con in the book. I saw the same thing in Springfield, Missouri in the early 2000s when a park suddenly was shut down to make way for a city park. Great excuse for condemnation and all the city has to do is erect a swing set and a picnic table.

“They basically want to try to make it so expensive to live here that it’s pointless,” said a Gardner Estates Mobile Home Park resident who wished to remain anonymous. “That’s why people choose to live in trailers most of the time. It’s lower income families.” OK, that’s not true at all. The owners are raising the rents as part of bringing the parks back to life and getting up to market rent levels, and if a current resident can’t pay the fair price they need to get out of the way for those who can. Mobile home parks are NOT meant to be all about “lower income families” they are simply affordable housing and a ton of middle-class Americans live in them (including some upper class in coastal parks). Don’t define mobile home parks as simply “low income” – that’s the bastion of Section 8 apartments and NOT mobile home parks. Articles like this are insulting to people who live in parks and help to perpetuate the false stigma.

I’ve never seen this property and I’m just guessing, but is anyone fooled by this story? The owner is more than likely going to build the condos on the vacant land so they can break the development into two phases because of the higher interest rate on the debt to build it. Once the condos are full they will tear the park down and build out the rest. The fact that the writer thinks this is a moral victory is affirmation that journalism schools must not have any business course requirements. The land is infinitely more valuable as condos than as a trailer park – and anyone with basic common sense knows this.

OK, let me get this straight. The park owner files to shut the park down because it’s old and falling apart and the rent is too low to justify bringing it back to life. Then, to be nice, he lets people keep living there because they can’t find anywhere else as cheap. And then they sue him to make him let them live there for free for an eternity. Here’s the classic line from this story “several park residents also commenced tenant’s rights proceedings in court seeking to compel the park owner to restore plumbed water service to park units and abate their rent because of the lack of water service”. It reminds me of the time when Brad Pitt built people homes in New Orleans after Katrina to be nice and they then turned around and sued him claiming their free houses were bad quality.

How dare the park owner raise the rent from $250 to $385 per month? The write of this article would make you think this was the biggest news story since FTX. But then there’s the little problem that even in Wilton, Iowa the average home costs $166,600 and the average apartment is $1,246 per month. That kind of ruins the story, right? Good thing the writer didn’t bother to give even the most remote facts about housing costs in the city. Nice job.