So a bunch of tenants at Lake Bradford Mobile Home Park go out and hire an attorney to sue the owner over raising rents which, in fact, is completely legal. Their attorney says, it's a battle worth fighting for. "They (the owners of the park) should have to answer to somebody. They should treat these people with more respect, more dignity, more concern, more compassion." But wait, you can’t sue somebody over those things, right?

Maybe these tenants haven’t been reading these weekly news reviews I write. That’s a shame, as you can clearly see that filing absurd lawsuits and attempting to restrict rents is the normal recipe which results in parks being demolished for better uses. It’s a common theme week after week. Park owners are not going to sit there and be bullied, they will strike back with a “land for sale” sign and the lease termination letters go out shortly thereafter.

This is what the U.S. government uses as a safety valve when there are major storms and homes lost. Mobile home parks are actually beneficiaries of these storms as they are the “go-to” spot for FEMA. This is why most mobile home park owners do not fear major weather events.

While this article title sounds like Wooster is opening the door to new mobile home parks, it only makes it possible to allow for new zoning for mobile home parks (which is probably never going to happen) coupled with the ability to “establish regulations that include minimum density, setbacks, parking, open space and basic health and safety needs.” So basically you might be able to build a mobile home park with a 100’ front and rear setback, a density of one unit per 10 acres, and parking for 100 cars per lot – pretty much whatever the city ultimately decides. This is the oldest trick in the P.R. book. You talk about how much you respect the need for affordable housing and mobile home parks and then set parameters that make it actually impossible to build one. Let’s see what Wooster’s final requirements are and how many tracts they allow to be turned into a mobile home park. I’m not holding my breath.

This is one of the most common themes of these weekly article reviews: the false notion that the residents have the ability to buy their own mobile home park and that it works out well for them. The truth is that only an incredibly tiny fraction of these attempts ever succeed in closing on the property, and even then the rents go up just about the same – or even higher – than they would under corporate ownership. It’s kind of like someone who can’t afford to buy a plane ticket suddenly thinking they can get some mystical non-profit to buy them a Gulfstream jet instead. It’s a false narrative and giving people this bad idea is as crazy as the British thinking that King Arthur was hiding in the woods to save them when the Germans were about to invade England in WWII. Read what happened on the first attempt by the tenants to buy the park:

“The initial nonprofits working on securing investment funding pulled out, after the discovery that fire code regulations and overcrowding could lead to the park losing up to 40 homes in future years, making it a hard sell for investors.”

Do you seriously expect the second attempt to do any better?

I don’t know who is calling these woke journalists and spreading this nonsense (although I have my suspicions) but all they are doing with articles like this is to spread false hope and to disappoint people.

North Liberty, Iowa’s stats are $265,100 on a single-family home and $1,870 per month on a three-bedroom apartment. And this article is trying to publicly shame Havenpark for charging a whopping $506 per month in lot rent. WTF. Every single tenant in this mobile home park should send Havenpark a thank-you note monthly for giving them a nice place to live for 70% to 90% less than all other housing options. And instead a few residents want to whine about the rent going up $100 per month from even more ridiculously low levels and make up some goofy story that the park suddenly now has lesser maintenance than it did under mom and pop (yeah, sure). Articles like this are disgusting in their inaccuracy and lack of journalistic merit. I will be delighted when AI puts all these woke “journalists” out of work who can then learn new skills like driving for Grubhub.

This is the most annoying article of the week. A free legal aid attorney is suing, on behalf of the residents, the owner of a mobile home park because the water was shut off for a few hours due to a billing mistake with the water department, claiming it caused them serious harm and mental anguish. Even the judge in this case is annoyed with the tenants:

“Turk told the attorneys that he’ll return with a ruling in about two weeks. The judge, however, pushed back against some of arguments from Southwest Virginia Legal Aid, saying several times that the issues raised by an attorney with the Christiansburg-based organization didn’t seem to constitute willful acts. “There’s got to be an end to the game,” Turk said near the end of the hearing.”

The water department apparently shut the water off because of a bill that the former owner didn’t pay – not the new owner who had just closed on the property. When the new owner was told the water was off, they ran down and paid the bill they were not even responsible to pay to get it restored. The new owner bent over backwards to help the tenants and this is the thanks they received.

It’s stories like these that explain why many old moms and pops simply shut their parks down (like the second article above) rather than let them remain open and have to deal with unreasonable residents like those that filed the suit.

You better bring a shovel when you read this article, as I’ve never seen so much B.S.  The bottom line is that nobody wants a mobile home park built in 1895 for carnival workers (no joke) to hold back progress. It’s not about any deep theories on housing equity but simply the city’s lack of desire to have a “trailer park” with failing infrastructure taking up valuable lake frontage that can now be redeveloped into something nice and new and attractive. You can sugar coat this narrative in 1,000 words (as this article does) but it doesn’t change anything.

Here’s the most essential quote from this article:

“Homeowners formed a cooperative after the park partnership announced its intent to sell the land leased by residents. Although Gorman and the HOA worked to negotiate the purchase of the park, their efforts proved unsuccessful. “I think everything had to do with the fact that the community itself is an incredible location and the owner could demand a higher price than the worth of a normal mobile home park and the lenders were reluctant to make a loan on that basis,” Gorman said in an April 27 interview with The Islander.”

The truth that nobody wants to hear is that you could easily make the park worth the $16.5 million if you simply raised the lot rents significantly. By having the owner keep rents low it signed the death warrant for this property in all likelihood. As I’ve been saying for over a decade, if you don’t push rents to market levels the land always gets redeveloped for a more profitable use. It’s called basic economics.

This quote from the article explains why the best thing that can happen to any mobile home park is to be purchased by a new buyer with the capital to bring it back to life, the professional management to collect the money and keep it as a running business, and higher rents to make it all worthwhile and keep it from the wrecking ball:

“In a letter dated April 10, the trailer park’s owner and manager, Michael Baker, told residents that he’s closing the park in August due to financial difficulties. Some tenants have consistently paid their rent over the years, but others have fallen behind. Baker can no longer meet operating expenses, the letter says. Baker has covered shortfalls out of his own pocket, he said, but can no longer do so. In addition, the sewer system is over 60 years old and requires frequent, expensive repairs.”

Do you ever wonder why only landlords have rent control in California, and not everybody else? Fuel prices double, food triples, but only landlords get criticized and punished for the impact of inflation. In a capitalist country, it seems odd that price controls would only be applied to one finite portion of the economy.

Carson OKs overlay district to protect mobile home parks, residents

These people are idiots.

This is not a new idea. The late Tony Hseih of Zappos.com fame also had this idea. It failed miserably. His personal assistant gave us a tour of his development called “Containerland” in Las Vegas years ago, and told us that he abandoned using storage containers because they heat up so bad in the summer that it’s like living in an oven.

Wow. This makes commercial air travel look good.

Why do they call this property “Paradise Cove Mobile Home Park”? It seems odd that the owners use the old vernacular on a property where the mobile homes sell in the millions of dollars. Why not adopt a classier new name like “Paradise Cove Cottages” or just “Paradise Cove” and leave the “mobile home park” off? If you look at some of the ads by local realtors selling mobile homes in this park, they almost deliberately use the “trailer park” label as though it’s a draw. Weird.

Even tiny home developments strive to erase the “trailer park” association. Maybe they’re wrong?

Good thing there are very few mobile home parks in Vermont so there are fewer nice people to torture with idiotic ideas like this.  State leaders are clearly insane if they think it’s fair to stuff reputable mobile home parks with homeless people. Has nobody followed the California success in this arena?

OK, let’s be honest, Sarah Paulson is not a celebrity. I’ve never heard of her. Most of the “celebrities” in Paradise Cove – like Stevie Nicks and Pam Anderson – are no longer box office draws. I know that media groups like to sensationalize this park as the home of Hollywood royalty (maybe 20 articles so far) but Betsy Johnson is not exactly Elton John.

Mobile homes and RVs were one and the same until about 1976 with the establishment of the HUD seal. About 90% of all mobile home parks were built prior to 1976 and are grandfathered. So I seriously doubt that cities really have the right to restrict putting an RV on a lot. Most park owners are good-natured and don’t press this potentially false policy, but the demand for long-term RV spaces is growing and this is going to be a much bigger issue going forward. Probably time for some case law to bring this issue to an end.

This quote says it all:

The partnership’s asking price then became $16.25 million. Meanwhile, a GoFundMe page and a Give Send Go page were created to raise money for the HOA’s efforts, according to their organizers. The GoFundMe page, Save Our Old Florida Home, was created March 29. Gay Gavde-Forte of Cincinnati is identified as the page organizer. Suzanne Hynes is identified as the creator of the Givesendgo page. As of April 21, the GoFundMe campaign had raised $2,015 of a $1 million goal and the Givesendgo page had raised $1,227.

Somebody should bring this quote to every case in which the residents claim they are going to buy the property under the first option. All these first options do is waste everyone’s time.

Even more evidence that California mobile home park owners are thrill seekers.

Even after the increase fo $600 per month, this mobile home park is nowhere near at market rent levels for D/FW. I understand that the residents hate this increase, but what do they want the owners to do? The residents have two paths ahead. They can either pay the higher rent (and other increases surely to follow) or move to something they think is more affordable. If they can’t find something that fits better, they need to stay put. But it’s their choice. The owner probably has 100 calls a week from customers more than happy to pay that higher rent.

This same tough choice is happening across all industries right now, from food to fuel, and from single-family homes to apartments. Prices are going up – way up – and only likely to move higher. You can’t hold that back, you can only adapt to it.

In all fairness, the average social security check in the U.S. is $1,200 per month. At $600 per month, the new rent is only about 50% of their social security income. The writer’s proportionality is way off.

Wow, this quote says it all regarding the closure of Trails End Mobile Home Park in Fresno:

“Action News reached out to Harmony Communities, the company that owns the mobile home park, to ask about the decision. In a statement, Chief Operating Officer Sherrie Johnson said: "After two years of lawlessness, no rents paid and people moving in and out without any registration or applications, we are attempting to restore order within the scope of state law and according to our agreement with the City of Fresno and the courts. Legal Aid's attempt to circumvent state law leaves this community and the surrounding community less safe. We will continue to honor our obligations and comply with state law at every turn."

So much for the one-sided narrative that the residents were all sweet angels and the park owner was the evil one.

And then there’s this classic quote by one of the residents :” "I don't think there's a place in this town I can afford to rent on my income - on my social security," Leslie Wright said”.

And that pretty much sums it up. The owner was the good-guy, providing the tenants with an incredible deal and they basically blew it by refusing to appreciate what they had. And now it’s gone.

This article illustrates everything that’s wrong in America today! I’ll let you decide the moral.

A Democrat wants to regulate not only the safety of Colorado drinking water but also the “smell, taste and color”. I guess that’s fine, but whoever votes for this proposal needs to be reminded that the science required to alter the “smell, taste and color” will probably be really expensive, and lot rents will go up as a result. I’m not sure how many people want to pay to correct the “color” of their water – or if they will have that option. Since most Colorado mobile home parks are on city utilities, the only way to fix the “smell, taste and color” will be for the municipal water district to do so, which will probably cost tens of millions of dollars to accommodate on their part. Colorado is not exactly brimming with excess cash as a state, with the 20^th largest debt load and nearly $20 billion owed to creditors. Spending money chasing the goal of Fiji water coming out of facets is not going to come cheap.

Not to offend anyone, but you kind of have to be insane to pay $4 million plus $2,500 per month in lot rent to live in a mobile home park – even if it’s in Malibu. You could spend $4 million without lot rent to get a tremendous oceanside brick house in just about every other beach town in the U.S. I get a call about once a year from somebody looking at buying one of these mobile homes in Paradise Cove, and they want to know what happens if they lose their lease for the lot. I explain to them that the mobile home they just bought for $4 million would be worth about $4,000 as a 1970s trailer on a sales lot along the freeway. On the Sam Zell “risk vs. reward” index I can’t understand any of this. But then again, I’m not a Californian.