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KTVU FOX 2: Marin's senior trailer park community feeling housing insecure and anxious

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NOVATO, Calif. - The Marin Valley Mobile Country Club is a town within a town nestled in the hills above Novato, a haven for low-income seniors who are worried their haven is in real jeopardy. 

California's mostly merciless housing situation is especially hard on folks who worked their entire lives and want housing security as much as health.

As sunny it was on Wednesday, the Marin Valley Mobile Country Club’s 400 low-income senior citizens living in 315 permanent mobile homes, have been under a cloud of anxiety and fear for two years. 

"This is a retirement and this is an end of life story for many people. They come here to live out...

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Now THIS is an interesting story. The city owns the mobile home park and the tenants want to buy it (sound familiar?). Yet the city is trying to stick it to them on the price:

The residents are offering $20 million. "The city flatly rejected that and came back with an ultimatum of $26 million, no negotiating.," said Hansen.

Looks like cities only enjoy the concept of “tenant-owned” communities when it’s not their pocketbook that’s being impacted. Kind of hypocritical, huh?

Yahoo! Finance: 40 Colorado families bought their whole mobile-home park for $4M before developers could grab it — here's how

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For 28 years, Kelly Jensen has lived in Paradise Village, a mobile home park at the end of the main road in Johnstown, Colorado. It’s where she raised her daughter, but she avoided talking about it.

“It used to be, you hated to tell anyone where you live,” she said in a recent interview with Moneywise. “People move into Johnstown and they think they’re above you. We’re not trailer trash.”

Now she’s proud to talk about her community.

That’s because three years ago, she and her neighbors took ownership not only of the name Paradise Village, but the land itself, buying both from the former landlord for $4 million.

How did they manage it?...

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Our thoughts on this story:

No, 40 families did NOT buy a mobile home park for $4 million. A non-profit bought the park. Those 40 families have no ownership of that property whatsoever and have no vested interest in the land at all. They will never see a penny of profit from it and, when they move out, they get paid zero for their supposed “ownership interest”. Let’s at least get the facts straight.

The Gazette: Johnson County leaders, residents, push for halt to rent increases in mobile home parks

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IOWA CITY — The Johnson County Board of Supervisors is reiterating its request that the owner of three mobile home parks in the county implement a two-year moratorium on lot rent increases.

In 2019, Utah-based Havenpark Communities began buying mobile home parks in Johnson County. Since then, residents of the Havenpark-owned parks have expressed concerns over sudden rent increases, questionable water quality and poor park maintenance.

The Board is in the process of penning a new letter to Havenpark Communities, after the most recent one was sent in May. The letter, which still must be formally approved by the board, will look to...

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“It's the residents’ demands, which I don't have an issue of them making demands … I think we need to clarify the fact that … we are not in the government's name saying here are our codes and you have not complied, ” Supervisor Rod Sullivan said at a work session this week.

So let me get this straight. A county board in Iowa – a state with no rent control of any type – sends a letter to a mobile home park owner asking them to please stop increasing their rents because it makes a few vocal and crazy tenants come to their county office and yell at them when they do? What business would take such a request seriously?

The Center Square: Manufactured homeowners brace for land rent spikes amid legislative stall

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(The Center Square) – Pennsylvania’s manufactured home owners need a miracle from the state Senate.

And quickly.

Legislation meant to soften the blow of land rent increases remains stalled in the upper chamber amid a particularly tense session gridlock. This leaves some owners facing rent hikes of up to 50% and creates a financial crisis for them.

Impacted residents are anxious and have reached out to their representatives, who are trying to help, though lay the blame on Senate inaction.

House Bill 1250, sponsored by Rep. Liz Hanbidge, D-Blue Bell, passed the lower chamber in June, with a 144-59 vote, including support from 42...

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Our thoughts on this story:

OK, it looks like a review of the American political process is needed for those who apparently lack basic common sense. So here goes. Pennsylvania has a Democratic Governor and House but a Republican Senate. A VERY Republican Senate (28 red to 22 blue). There should be ZERO chance that a Republican Senate would pass a radical leftist bill for rent control that is simply designed to give Josh Shapiro a talking point for his run for President in 2028. And falsely claiming that park owners are raising lot rents 50% per year (the real number is closer to 5% statewide) is NOT going to convince Republican folks to give Shapiro what he wants. While Democrats seemingly defied gravity in the 2020 election cycle, now that Covid is over and elections are based on real ballots again, the general rule that Republicans don’t vote for socialist agendas is back in force.

CBS NEWS: Sweetwater mobile home park residents push back on evictions in court

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Hundreds of Li’l Abner Mobile Home Park residents packed a Miami-Dade County Courthouse in downtown Miami on Thursday morning to push back on evictions.

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Our thoughts on this story:

Will this story ever go away? Every week there’s something new and crazy from Lil’ Abner, the mobile home park that’s being shut down for redevelopment. Now the residents want to fight their evictions due to the property being torn down and their notices to leave having expired. Look, I know this is America 2025 – a country where a Marxist is favored to be elected mayor of NYC – but the landlord appears to have followed all the laws and it’s his right to redevelop the land if he wants to. But instead of shutting all this never-ending idiocy down, the legal system appears to be simply delaying the inevitable and no judge has the guts to say “OK, I’ve had enough with this, so everyone needs to get out NOW”.

And with that, of course, another park bites the dust.

The Bellingham Herald: As rent climbs at Bellingham manufactured home park, many there feeling trapped

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In March of 2024, when the Lakeway Estates manufactured home community in Bellingham was purchased by HavenPark Communities, a subsidiary of a private equity firm, a resident told The Bellingham Herald that nobody there planned to complain until there was “good reason.”

Now, more than a year after the $41 million sale, the senior residents say many of them are being priced out of the park due to hefty increases in lot rent.

“We live here. This is our home. They don’t care that we are people, that we live in this park. To them, we are an investment,” said one resident. The Herald spoke with five longtime residents of the park who requested...

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Our thoughts on this story:

I hate to spoil this woke sermon, but the fact is that the average single-family home in Bellingham costs $606,000. As a result, the prices at this mobile home park are ridiculously cheap. End of story.

New York Post: Hamptons trailer park, long home to billionaires and million-dollar sales, now has listings asking far less

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Two different homes in the famed Montauk Shores — a trailer park that has long been a warm-weather escape for billionaires — can be yours for less than $500,000.

Mobile homes at the Montauk Shores skyrocketed in both popularity and prices over the past several years, with some trailers fetching multimillion-dollar prices.

As the summer of 2025 winds down, however, the in-demand community is offering some serious discounts.

A freshly listed two-bedroom is on offer for $450,000, according to an Out East listing update.

At 636 square feet, this seaside trailer offers a better price and arguably better views than a similarly sized Midtown...

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Our thoughts on this story:

The fact that 1980s mobile homes that sold for $3 million are now crashing in value should come as no surprise to anyone with the intelligence of a ballpoint pen. 

Yahoo! News: Mobile home park closure is a quiet disaster fueling Miami’s rent crisis | Opinion

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Miami is now the most rent-burdened metropolitan area in the United States. Over three-quarters of people living in South Florida reported having difficulty affording basic household expenses, according to the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey.

With affordable housing options ever more elusive, one Miami-Dade suburb is experiencing another Florida trend that’s making the issue even worse: the disappearance of mobile home parks. A staple of housing throughout the state, they have long provided working-class families and those living on a fixed income an affordable solution to homeownership.

Li’l Abner Mobile Home Park in Sweetwater is...

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Our thoughts on this story:

The end of Lil’ Abner is part of a troubling pattern emerging in Miami-Dade County and beyond. Since 2011, approximately 183 mobile home parks have closed in Florida, according to Florida Mobile Home Relocation Corporation and the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. From a development perspective, these parks represent ideal investments. They are relatively cheap to buy and prime locations for multifamily units or commercial projects. For residents, however, it’s their worst nightmare come true when their community gets sold.

Yeah, I know it’s another story about Lil’ Abner but just wanted to point out that this reporter has finally figured out what I’ve been talking about for years now: mobile home parks make for ideal redevelopment parcels. That’s why rent control simply leads to parks being built into better uses. If 183 parks have been torn down in Florida alone since 2011 – and Florida does NOT have rent control – you can imagine the future of New York, Washington and Oregon mobile home parks since those states have recently passed idiotic rent control laws. There will probably be over 1,000 parks torn down in those states collectively in the years ahead.

Santa Monica Mirror: State Bill Aims to Protect Palisades Bowl Mobile Home Park Residents

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The Pacific Palisades Community Council has announced its support for Senate Bill 749, a measure designed to protect residents of the Palisades Bowl Mobile Home Park, which was destroyed in the devastating Palisades Fire, as the bill heads to a hearing in the Assembly Appropriations Committee on August 20.

Authored by State Senator Ben Allen, SB 749 amends California’s Civil Code to ensure housing stability for mobile home park residents affected by wildfires or other natural disasters. The bill mandates that if a mobilehome park is rebuilt at the same location, management must offer renewed tenancy to previous homeowners on terms similar...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Pacific Palisades has only issued 161 new building permits since the devastating fire burned down around 5,500 homes. Maybe they should focus on issuing permits instead of issuing new red tape?

Business Observer: $30M redevelopment heads to former Wimauma mobile home park

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Construction of a self-storage facility at Winchester Center is planned to begin this month. The three-story, 934-unit center is being built by Barron Collier Cos. and Metro Commercial at the retail development on Immokalee Road and Orange Tree Boulevard in Naples. The facility, on 2.8 acres, will be operated by StorQuest. It is scheduled to open late next year. The 21-acre Winchester Center, when complete, will have 41,836 square feet of commercial space and a tenant line up that includes anchor Sunshine Ace Hardware, with a 22,650-square-foot store, as well as a two-story NCH Immediate Care and Physician Offices. The other tenants to...

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And another park bites the dust.

Business Journal: Junction CRE to build industrial park on former mobile home site in northwest Harris County

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The sale of the former mobile home park property made news months ago as residents were evicted. The new owner has now revealed what's coming in its place.

 

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And another park bites the dust.

WBUR: Montana tries to protect residents from rising mobile home park rents

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Manufactured homes are sometimes the last option for affordable housing. As private investors buy up parks, some states aim to protect residents from rapid rent increases.

Montana Public Radio’s Shaylee Ragar reports.

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Our thoughts on this story:

This must be a friend of the woke journalist from last week’s “we need rent control in Montana” story. Here are the facts. Montana is a trifecta Republican state. In all of America history, rent control has only been adopted in trifecta Democrat states. As a result, there is ZERO chance of rent control in Montana. 

Adirondack Daily Enterprise: Lake Placid approves loan for Cascade Acres

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LAKE PLACID — Residents of the Cascade Acres mobile home park have secured funding from the state and village in a last-minute attempt to stop the sale of the land that their 124 manufactured homes sit on by matching an offer from a private equity firm, allowing the residents to exercise their right of first refusal.

The residents’ purchase offer had not been accepted by deadline on Thursday evening and was still being debated by lawyers. But Cascade Acres resident and homeowners association co-founder Ryan Preston was hopeful it will work.

The village board held a special meeting on Tuesday to unanimously approve a loan of up to $420,000...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Yes, this is the same story as last week, in which the residents are trying to convince non-profits to buy them a park for over $1 million more than it is appraised for. This transaction has zero percent chance of ever closing and the tenants need to give up and move on and stop wasting everyone’s time.

Times Union: Malta mobile home park residents say they are being wrongly cited for code violations

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MALTA — A group of residents in Saratoga County’s largest mobile home park, Malta Gardens, has claimed that a part-time code enforcement officer for the town is harassing them by recently issuing numerous code violations at several homes. As they struggle to contest the validity of violations or remedy the issues, they fear they could lose their homes.

In March, park resident Patrick Allen received a letter from the town alleging he was violating state and town codes by having an unregistered camper in his driveway, having certain items on his porch, including plywood he was using to repair a floor, a grill and a garbage bag.

“There was no...

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Our thoughts on this story:

I guarantee you that if we drove around that town, we would find many worse violations in every single-family home neighborhood. This is not the first time a rogue inspector has decided to make it his life’s mission to harass good-natured mobile home park residents. The only way to cure it would be for each and every resident to demand a jury trial. That would clog up the courthouse docket so bad they would cry for mercy. 

The Bellingham Herald: As rent climbs at Bellingham manufactured home park, many there feeling trapped

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In March of 2024, when the Lakeway Estates manufactured home community in Bellingham was purchased by HavenPark Communities, a subsidiary of a private equity firm, a resident told The Bellingham Herald that nobody there planned to complain until there was “good reason.” Now, more than a year after the $41 million sale, the senior residents say many of them are being priced out of the park due to hefty increases in lot rent. “We live here. This is our home. They don’t care that we are people, that we live in this park. To them, we are an investment,” said one resident. The Herald spoke with five longtime residents of the park who requested...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Maybe the idiot bureaucrats of Washington state should have thought this whole “rent control” thing through a little bit more before they blundered into it. Most mobile home park owners try to keep their annual rent increases to single-digit levels, even though market rents would allow for 50% in some cases. But when a state decides to “stick it” to landlords with rent control, the landlords have no choice but to return the favor to protect their investment. If Washington bureaucrats had simply not adopted what has proven to be the dumbest woke initiative since “defund the police” then the rents would have remained lower. But they chose this idiotic course and now they are guaranteed to have zero housing investment and massive numbers of parks redeveloped into other uses that do not have restricted rents.

In summary, Washington state politicians made a tremendous blunder and they will soon face the consequences. Just watch.

KVOA: Tucson's Redwood Mobile Park hit with cease-and-desist from AG Mayes

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TUCSON, Ariz. (KVOA) - Attorney General Kris Mayes is taking action against Redwood Mobile Park in Tucson due to ongoing issues with electricity and air conditioning outages.

These outages are occurring during life-threatening heat conditions, posing a severe risk to residents, including vulnerable groups like infants, children and seniors.

"Mobile homes heat up incredibly fast. These conditions aren’t just dangerous – they’re deadly," said Mayes.

She emphasized the necessity of electricity and air conditioning as life-saving measures, particularly in the current extreme temperatures.

The Attorney General's Office issued a...

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An official from the Boa Vida Communities made a statement saying, "We have been in touch with Attorney General Heather Hamel on this matter over the past week. On Friday August 8th we inspected each space within the community with a licensed electrician. At that time, it was determined that there were numerous unpermitted alterations made by residents, which cause the power draw to greatly exceed the capacity of the system. These alterations are causing the main fuses to trip, interrupting service for them and their neighbors. Each resident is provided with 50-amp service, by bypassing or altering this without our knowledge or approval they are drawing more energy than the system can provide. This can and has caused outages either localized to their space or street, or even effecting the entire community," said Josh Court of Boa Vida Communities."We will continue to work with licensed electricians to make any repairs or changes needed to ensure the system is being used as designed, and ensure that our residents do not experience interruptions caused by other residents tampering with system," Court said. 

So what you basically have here is a master-metered electrical system with tenants deliberately exceeding the allowable amps by putting in window air-conditioners in excess of what’s allowed, which results in lines melting and fuses blowing. The guilty parties here are clearly the tenants who are cheating and not the park owner.

CBS NEWS: Woman charged with disorderly conduct at Li'l Abner Mobile Home Park management office goes to trial

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Woman charged with disorderly conduct at Li'l Abner Mobile Home Park management office goes to trial.

Ivan Taylor reports Vivian Hernandez faces three misdemeanor charges. Hernandez said she wants to go to trial, insisting she did nothing wrong.

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Our thoughts on this story:

Back in the 1990s, James Carville (who worked for Bill Clnton) famously said "drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, no telling what you're going to find” as his reaction to Paula Jones accusing Bill Clinton of sexual assault. This entire debacle at Lil’ Abner mobile home park just keeps getting weirder and weirder. Every week there seems to be a new lawsuit by tenants who were told to move out for redevelopment months ago. You could probably just mount cameras in this park and produce a #1 rated reality television show.

Calgary Herald: Second generation: Former mobile home parks are growing up

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New life is being breathed into the former Blackfoot Mobile Home Park, a choice 17-acre site on Blackfoot Trail between Southland Drive and Heritage Drive S.E.

Purchased by real estate developer Bud Mintoft in 1967, the treed site on an escarpment west of the Bow River was once home to a closely knit neighbourhood of 400 people. Years after Mintoft’s death in 1988, his company, Wentworth Development Inc., acquired 33 acres next door. When the last home on wheels was rolled out of the park in 2022, the whole package was sold to multi-family builder Cedarglen Living. In homage to the original orchestrator of the community, this...

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And another park bites the dust.

Petaluma Argus-Courier: Petaluma tweaks mobile home rules despite threats of legal action from park owners

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Last Monday’s Petaluma City Council meeting went late into the night, and at least 50 mobile home residents – some wearily holding signs reading “Support Petaluma Mobile Homes” – stayed in anticipation.

Mobile home residents from Youngstown, Little Woods Mobile Villa and Capri Mobile Villa remained in the council chambers to watch city leaders close what they consider to be loopholes in the law allowing mobile home park owners to bleed them dry with nonstop arbitration hearings.

Every time mobile home park owners propose a rent increase above a certain threshold, an arbitration hearing is triggered, costing park residents tens of...

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Both council members asked questions others didn’t, such as whether owners were consulted and what could happen if parks closed. They also underscored the threat of legal retaliation. That threat was all but assured. In an email to the Argus-Courier on Wednesday, Davies said that Harmony “should have multiple suits on file” in the coming weeks, with more expected after.

I hope Petaluma has a big line item in their city budget for legal fees, or otherwise they have really screwed themselves. Common sense tells you they are going to lose this case and, if they do, the parks will also be able to get judgements against the city for their legal fees and damages.

Is this really the best way for Petaluma to spend their tax dollars – to squander millions to appease maybe fifty vocal mobile home park residents? Looks pretty stupid to me.

I also like the obvious fact that this whole bit of idiocy is being orchestrated by some “Soros-inspired” political action group – just look at how professional those protest signs are! I couldn’t get stuff that nice printed at Fastsigns. Are the folks holding these up even actual residents or just being paid to be there? Doesn’t look very authentic to me.

Post Independent: Two mobile home parks accept offer for resident ownership following initial rejection

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The current owners of Mountain Valley Mobile Home Park and Aspen-Basalt Mobile Home Park on Monday, July 28, accepted an offer from the residents of those parks to purchase the communities for $42 million. 

The two communities have been working towards converting their respective mobile home parks into “Resident-Owned Communities,” or ROCs. An ROC functions similarly to a mortgage on a standard house; however, instead of one person paying their mortgage monthly, the entire community pays it down as rent. 

The communities have been working with Thistle, a Boulder-based non-profit that manages various affordable housing schemes in Boulder,...

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Our thoughts on this story:

We’ve sold a few mobile home parks to the residents over the years. There’s nothing wrong with that. When the non-profits offer you $42 million for two “trailer parks” any smart person would say “yes., yes, yes”. It’s not rocket science. But will they actually close on the deal? That’s the big question.

Adirondack Daily Enterprise: Residents resist purchase of Cascade Acres

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LAKE PLACID — Residents of the Cascade Acres mobile home park are attempting a last-ditch effort to keep a private equity firm from buying the park land that their 124 manufactured homes sit on, over concerns that a new owner could lead to lot rent increases.

A rumor has sprung up that the buyer plans to replace the mobile homes with condos. This is not substantiated, though, and owners of the company say they have no such plans.

Cascade Acres is currently owned by M.H. Communities Ltd., a mobile home park owner based in Nashua, New Hampshire. In March, residents learned of plans to sell the park to the private equity firm Crown...

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But, one week ago, they learned the state cannot buy the property. The appraisal for the 52-acre property came back $1.1 million below the $6.5 million offer from Crown, Preston said. By law, the state cannot pay more than the appraised value.

Yeah, that’s kind of a deal killer. Clearly, the only way to buy the park is to factor in raising the lot rent to market levels and filling vacant lots.  And that pretty much sums up why these “tenant-owned” deals never happen, because they’re not professional deal makers and have zero common sense on the requirements of how to put big mortgages on properties and actually pay the bills.

AXIOS: Rising lot rents squeeze Florida mobile home park residents, report says

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Rising lot rents are pricing Floridians out of manufactured home parks, according to a new report from WUSF.

Why it matters: Manufactured home parks are "a crucial source of unsubsidized affordable housing for vulnerable individuals," the report says.

  • Residents are often older, retired adults on fixed incomes.

How it works: Manufactured homes, also known as mobile homes, are generally much cheaper than single-family homes built on site.

  • Residents typically buy their own homes and pay rent for the land underneath.

State of play: From 2015 to 2023, Florida's median lot rent has almost doubled, per WUSF, citing Census Bureau... Read More

Our thoughts on this story:

EVERYTHING squeezes Florida mobile home park residents. Gasoline, food, medicine, insurance, property tax, cable TV, cell phone, water, sewer, trash – you name it. How can you single out lot rent as the only culprit? Look, we live in a country which has the highest inflation and interest rates in 40 years. That’s not the fault of mobile home park owners. I seriously doubt that anyone – including the residents quoted in the story – really believe that. They’re just hoping they’ll get lucky and some bureaucrat will propose rent control. Here’s a news bulletin: there’s 0% probability of rent control in Florida. But if you want to propose it in Vermont, you might have a shot.

JOLT: Olympia City Council seeks creative solution to protect manufactured home communities

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The Olympia City Council is exploring ways to preserve manufactured home communities by addressing land use concerns not covered by the state of Washington's rent stabilization law.  

At a study session held on Tuesday, July 29, Olympia Housing Program Senior Specialist Christa Lenssen discussed the state's newly enacted House Bill 1217, which introduces measures for rent stability and tenant rights, as well as protections for manufactured home communities.  

Under the legislation, landlords are restricted from increasing rent by more than 5% annually and are prohibited from raising rents during the first 12 months of tenancy.  

While the...

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Our thoughts on this story:

While the bill focuses on rent-related protections, it does not address land use concerns or prevent the redevelopment of manufactured home parks.  But the underlying issue is that property owners can redevelop their land according to zoning allowances, potentially replacing manufactured home communities with apartments, townhouses or commercial developments.  

Well, they finally figured it out. When you enact rent control, mobile home park owners simply tear their parks down and build back better uses. Maybe they should have thought of that first?

News Gazette: Local developers plan to redevelop Rantoul trailer park into apartments

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RANTOUL — In 2018, Todd Modglin and his father, Kevin, bought a small parcel hosting about a dozen trailer homes in west Rantoul through their property management company, KTRM LLC.

Now, seven years later, the pair — who are also the CFO and president at Mid Illinois Concrete and Excavation Inc., respectively — are looking to redevelop the 0.68-acre site.

Todd Modglin told The News-Gazette he and his father feel the trailers have begun to “age out a little bit and were going to need some updating.”

“We own other rental properties in Rantoul,” he said. “And the last couple of years, we’ve gotten a lot of requests for higher-end rentals,...

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Our thoughts on this story:

And another park bites the dust.

WUSF: When even manufactured housing becomes unaffordable

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Homeowners in Florida are being quietly priced out of their communities. People often own their manufactured homes but rent the lot underneath them.

Census data shows lot rent in the state has nearly doubled over the last decade. That means manufactured housing parks, which are considered the largest source of unsubsidized affordable housing, are now growing unaffordable.

Under Florida law, management can pass along fees, like utility charges and property tax increases, as long as they are considered “reasonable” and are mentioned in a park’s original governing document, which is called a .

WUSF spoke with various homeowners who...

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Our thoughts on this story:

I’m not sure what they mean by “unaffordable” but it’s an absolute fact that lot rent, insurance, property tax, utilities – pretty much everything related to owning a single-family home, condo, or mobile home – is going up at a rapid pace. Who’s to blame? Not park owners. We’re the folks that have delivered the least expensive form of detached housing America has ever seen. The actual culprit is inflation, which has been the direct result of government over-spending (we’ve got $36 trillion in debt) and other failed policies. If you want to hate someone, hate the government. But blaming mobile home park owners for all the ills of America is ridiculous.