The rapper 50-Cent said it all earlier this week when he said that California is going down for the count. If I owned this park I would sell the land and bulldoze it rather than to comply with these idiotic rent control ordinances and tenants that have a “victim” mentality and can’t do anything for themselves with a pandering state government that eggs them on. You watch, this park will be an apartment complex in three years.

When an article starts off with “activists claim the alleged issues there are an example of a problematic trend happening to mobile home parks across the country. They say large private equity companies are buying up mobile home parks, raising rent prices, and implementing costly policies, which they say take advantage of the people who live there” you know it’s yet another woke article by a biased journalist and based on commentary from one or two residents that are usually behind on their rent or in trouble for rules violations.

The truth is that private equity groups are the good guys that are bringing old parks back to life. Without them a number would be closing. As part of resuscitating old parks, they are, of course, raising rents and being more rigid on rules (such as parking in this case) and that makes 10% of the residents mad – the very residents that ruin the quality of life for every else in the community. 90% of the residents share none of these complaints but are too good natured to say that those complaining neighbors are nuts.

It reminds me of when Steve Jobs moved Apple out of his parents’ garage and into real office space. Some of the workers said “I want to go back to the garage – it was way better”. But 99% of the workers at Apple did not agree, including Steve Jobs. Those that could not handle reality land were free to quit and go sit in their own garages.

This paragraph sums up the perspective this journalist has on how to fix affordable housing:

For policymakers who want to preserve low-cost home ownership, “there’s a lot of opportunities for policy innovation that will really improve the lives of a lot of vulnerable homeowners,” she said. The Philadelphia Fed is planning further research about manufactured-housing communities, including their vulnerability to climate-related risks such as flooding and excessive heat, and residents’ access to infrastructure.

The bad news is that absolutely none of these issues is of any importance except to academics trying to sell a research paper. In fact, all of these concepts will simply resort in higher priced mobile homes and more parks closing down to escape this woke nonsense.

And here’s another story of a park being torn down for redevelopment. One of the residents in the article admonishes “we don’t have a place to go” – which means they can’t find anything as affordable. The moral is that residents should embrace higher rents because without them they are homeless. Would an extra $150 per month in lot rent have saved the day? We’ll never know. Nobody ever wants to accept this reality until the eviction notices go out.

More parks being torn down to make way for better uses. Parks are starting to resemble the 1870s buffalo population.

More parks being torn down to make way for better uses. Do you see a trend here?

And here’s something really rare: another story of a park being torn down to make way for new development. Yet the residents are trying to intervene claiming that the $650 per month they are currently paying is profit enough for the owner. Unfortunately, that’s not how the free market works. The owner of the mobile home park will weigh the numbers on owning the park vs. selling the land. If the residents wanted to improve their odds, they should go to the property owner right now and say “how much would we have to pay in lot rent to keep this as a park” and maybe they would have a shot at negotiating a solution. Having some woke journalist try to publicly shame the property owner only tilts the scales in favor of redevelopment.

What a crazy country we live in. A developer pays a fortune for an old mobile home park to tear down and build a new expensive project and now they are not allowed to dig on it because native American items were found on the site. So the developer now appears to own Florida’s most expensive grassy field. I guess the moral is that there are few things riskier than building from scratch – much safer to simply buy existing properties and fix them up. 

OK, look at the photos in this article. You can see exactly why the landlord is evicting these tenants. It’s not about a battle between tenants and landlords. It’s not because of the evils of capitalism. It has nothing to do with the fact that mobile homes are hard to move. The simple reason – as evidenced by each and every photo – is that these homes look atrocious and the new owners of the park are trying to clean up its aesthetics. Nothing more.

Yet another article about a mobile home park being torn down to be redeveloped into a new use. This time it’s going to be 19 stick-built dwellings. Once again, you have to ask yourself what the lot rent would have had to be raised to in order for this property to remain a mobile home park. Pretty tragic if it was only $200 more per month. Another reminder that without higher lot rents all parks end up being built into a more profitable use: you can’t mix the narratives of low rents and status quo usage.

While broadband is not the most important utility to work on, these type of grants and projects are a great way to help residents and keep mobile home parks from being redeveloped. There have been other articles recently in which water and sewer were also upgraded under these types of arrangements and I am obviously all for it.

Regarding limiting a landlord’s ability to set rents using a free-market system, this Republican offers the reality check that needs to be said:

“It’s just simply not workable, because who is  going to invest in the state of Connecticut, to build more housing or make housing available when there is going to be a limit to the amount of money they’re going to make?,” said Housing Committee ranking member Rep. Tony Scott, R-Monroe.

Fortunately, the bill failed because others agreed that it was a really, really stupid idea.

At least the Republicans in Delaware got it right: “House Republicans objected to the proposal, 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." However the rent control bill passed since Delaware is majority democratic in political construction. So goodbye Delaware mobile home parks – as the first five articles this week illustrate, without higher lot rents parks get torn down for more profitable uses. A 5% cap on increases – which is less than the current rate of inflation – is like signing a death warrant for Delaware affordable housing.

The good news is that this bill was shot down when the votes were counted. The bad news is that people elect bureaucrats this stupid.

There are two lessons learned from this article:

1. The residents should have paid their rent, not complained about increases, followed the rules, and Trails End might still be an ongoing mobile home park. Instead, the residents refused to pay or follow the rules, fought the owners every step of the way, and the fate of the park was sealed. The new owner made $2.4 million selling the land, but they might have hung in there and simply raised the rents if the residents had accepted the fact that the property owner held all the cards.
2. Once again, the words “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” proved to be the scariest phrase in the English language. Just ask the residents of Trails End.

It’s only a matter of time before more cities revolt against the requirements that keep tiny homes out of mobile home parks. It’s a good thing for everyone involved – kind of like when they allowed Uber to replace taxi cabs.

So you’re thinking it’s another article about a mobile home park being torn down to make way for apartments, right? Well, you’re wrong … it’s a shopping center this time.

The State of New York funded a study on mobile home parks (probably because some bureaucrat’s unemployed literature major kid needed a summer job) and this was the only interesting thing they found:

The report showed that the “number of registered parks has declined from 1,800 to 1,200”

That’s a really, really big drop (30%).

Do you think it might be time to end rent control yet? Because the wrecking ball and apartment construction crews are working overtime to get those rent-controlled mobile home parks made into a better use since lot rents can’t go up.

Us Midwesterners read things like this – a $430,000 mobile home with a lot rent of $1,800 per month – and wonder why anyone who would buy this trailer would not simply move to a place like Kansas in which you can buy a brick home on a golf course for less money and zero lot rent. Is living in California really that much fun?

When you can convert a 22-acre park with 247 lots into 3,990 apartment units, 250,000 sq. ft. of retail and office space and a 312-room luxury hotel all you can say is “wow”. They’re planning 50-story buildings on this property. And it’s interesting that the residents sued the property owner over “evil” lot rent increases not that many years ago. I guess the folks living in the park didn’t have much of a clue regarding the other options available for the land.

It’s rare when a park owner tells it like it is, but this is a classic quote from this story:

"It might not be what some of these tenants want, but I would encourage anyone to take a drive through the property as it sits currently and see the deplorable conditions some of these mobile homes and property are in. I'm sure you have seen in the local news/paper how many tenants here are behind on taxes, but over 80% are also behind on multiple months of rent. This makes the business and property unsustainable going forward as it currently sits."

What are they going to put on this site once the mobile homes are all gone? You’re right … APARTMENTS.

I’m sorry but when the park owner has removed a bunch of abandoned, blighted trailers, rebuilt the roads, water and sewer infrastructure and generally cleaned up the aesthetics, how can you tell me that they have done a poor job? You can’t. The whopping two residents quoted in this article are clearly only complaining because the new owners raised the rent $50. I’m sure the other 99% of the park population (who they didn’t bother to talk to) are delighted to pay $50 more to have all that work done. If the media and a couple manipulative residents keep this false narrative up, they better get ready to find a new place to live because nobody would blame the owner for re-zoning the land for apartments and tearing the place down. 

Put your checkbook away and save the $25 million, Joe Biden. We’ve already studied how to make old mobile homes more energy efficient using a thermal gun and some common sense (kind of like the scene in Ford vs. Ferrari where the old-time car driver fixes the aerodynamics of the GT40 using a ball of yarn and scotch tape). Here’s what you do to improve the energy efficiency of an old mobile home: 1) install new weatherstripping on both front and back doors 2) new caulk around all windows 3) use thermal switch plate covers on all exterior walls and 4) put plastic sheeting or thermal drapes over all windows. Case closed and now you can donate that $25 million to a more important study on how to properly winterize a tortoise or improve the quality of life for crickets.

Yet another article about a mobile home park that is being torn down in the near future to make way for an apartment complex. Are you shocked? With apartments at an average rent of $2,000 per month and mobile home park lot rents at an average rent of $300 per month it’s not rocket science as to why this is the most common article theme you’ll find in the news.

This is a very one-sided story, as the journalist clearly favors the resident over the landlord (big shock). Basically, it’s a story about the Kim family that started a renovation to their mobile home and were still putting around on it four months later, at which point the park owner demanded that they clean up the debris and get the job done. I doubt anyone would look favorably on their neighbor turning their home and yard into a construction site for four months – so how about the 8 months after that in which they STILL had not completed work or removed the debris. Clearly, the park owner could not let this situation continue and enlisted court help to correct the situation (which was granted).

Mobile home park owners try to be tolerant of residents making repairs and upgrades to their homes, but they also have to respect the quality of life of the general community, and this resident’s inability to complete their work in a timely manner can only be blamed on the resident.