Mobile Home Park News Briefing

This quote shows how stupid this story is:

"Alondra Ruiz has lived at Periwinkle mobile home park for nine years and has been a central voice at protests and City Council meetings about the park’s closure. She said attorneys for the university asked her to sign a contract with a “non-disparagement” clause that would prohibit her from saying anything negative about GCU or Trellis, the housing nonprofit GCU hired to help residents relocate.If Ruiz doesn’t sign the contract, she said she will not receive the compensation package GCU is offering her, including $10,000."

It's standard business in the U.S. to get release clauses signed when you get paid. Either stop blasting GCU and take the money or get nothing. The resident has no power here and the journalist is giving her false hope. This park closed in May – by the book – and Ruiz and others have no apparent legal basis to still be living there. Grand Canyon University is trying to stop this PR nightmare and have bent over backwards. Their patience is at an end, and I don’t blame them.

Let me get this straight: somebody is buying 2.78 acres for $16.25 million and nobody knows if it’s going to stay a park or not? Not to offend those without math skills, but that’s over $5 million per acre. There’s no mobile home park in the U.S. that can support $5 million per acre outside of Malibu (and even that is sketchy). So clearly, yes, this site will be redeveloped. When the city official says “to change anything over from what it is now, would require a comprehensive plan map change. It would require rezoning. It would require major development application review hearings. You would probably be looking at a two- to three-year process to get it done” he is just trying to confuse the journalist since that timetable is true of all development, not just conversion of a mobile home park to another use. And do you think even one neighbor will speak against tearing down the trailer park to make way for the fancy new hotel? I mean, this thing is next to a boat marina. Give me a break here.

I’m all for these type of programs – we have sold several parks to the residents so far – but can we all admit how few properties this benefits in the end? Residents in the entire U.S. only buy about 20 or 30 parks a year. Wouldn’t this money be better served if every mobile home park got a grant to build a pavilion, charcoal grills, playground, and nicer entrance? That would benefit ten times more people for the same money. I’m not sure what this obsession is with the residents buying the land underneath their mobile homes, but it does nothing to stop rents from increasing, if that’s the myth that people are counting on. I don’t have any stats, but I know of parks that have significantly higher rents under resident-owned scenarios as they then have to contend with covering the rising costs of everything from insurance to property tax, as well as try to pay a crushing monthly mortgage.

Not to sound like the Grinch but the non-profit spent $2.4 million on a dirt-road 20 space park, and are looking at spending maybe $600,000 more in infrastructure repair. That’s $150,000 per household spent so that they can continue to live in a dirt-road trailer park. Would it not make more sense to buy each household a debt-free stick-built house in another state? Would that not be infinitely better than what they ended up with? I’m all for programs that benefit those in need, but I’m afraid that the virtue-signaling this non-profit was after exceeded common sense.

There is no rent control in Ohio and this story is based on the false narrative that somehow a few mobile home park tenants can magically change state law. And if that happened, parks like this one would simply be torn down and made into more profitable uses. However, there is definitely a problem when senior residents can’t afford to allocate more money for lot rent, which is always going up (along with every other thing in America today). So the real issue is how you subsidize the seniors if that’s what society wants to do. If the city/county/state wants to start paying a portion of the lot rent to the property owner, then I’m sure they’d be fine with that. But we all know that’s not going to happen and what’s really going on is that society is trying to make mobile home park owners subsidize tenants and effectively become their own personal Section 8. That’s all these stories basically amount to. And it’s extremely annoying that mobile home park owners should be placed in that position when apartment owners simply receive subsidies through Section 8. If the government doesn’t want to do its job with subsidies, then that should be the end of it. Either put up or shut up. 

This woke journalist contends that private equity groups buying mobile home parks are “vulture capitalists” ... “an investor who buys up distressed companies and makes a profit by aggressively cutting costs or selling the business for parts”. Let’s try and put some common sense to this statement:

1. Yes, private equity groups raise rents because they’re ridiculously low and not supported by market forces. If the apartments are $1,200 per month, then lot rents don’t need to be $350 per month but rather $1,000+ per month to align with supply and demand. These groups are being nice simply raising rents in more moderate amounts, even when it’s 100% legal to go up in larger increments.
2. No, private equities make zero money cutting costs. What’s there to cut? Can’t shut off utilities, stop paying property taxes or drop the insurance. Can the writer please elaborate and give a single example?
3. How do you sell a mobile home park for parts? Sell off the power poles to a logging company? Again, this is a stupid comment that is not based on fact and the writer gives no examples at all.

Did you notice this week that there’s a plethora of similar articles about “evil private equity groups”. I’ve seen this before. A few years ago a single associate professor in Colorado bragged that they had been able to cause 40 different media groups to publish their personal grudge that mobile home park owners are evil. Lurking in the background is some new person or group that is trying to do the same.

Spending money putting more people on the dole is not going to do anything but delay the inevitable until those funds run out. Apartment Section 8 programs are not sustainable and never were. If you really want to solve affordable housing the key is to come up with a single-family home that can be built incredibly cheaply (think 3-D printing) and then the state/county/city provides the land and infrastructure for free. It’s a one-time cost and the tenant can last forever with a debt-free cheap house that requires no further subsidy. Why is this not already occurring? Because the single-family and multi-family housing lobbies will never let it happen and they have every bureaucrat in the nation on their payroll in some manner.

At least one bureaucrat got it right : “only Councilman Scott Myers voted no, citing the broad nature of the provisions and the potential of government overreach”. Once again the city is passing a law that they acknowledge does not align with state law, and will then be tossed out in litigation. Does this seem like a trend to you?

Sure, who wouldn’t want to have a mobile home manufacturing plant built next to their single-family home on land zoned residential? Who could possibly be mad at having their property value fall by 50%+, have constant noise, and have zero liquidity on re-sale? I guarantee that if the mayor was that property owner this would never have made it to a vote.

The person who did this remodel actually did a pretty good job. But anyone who would pay $145,000 for a tiny RV that formerly served as Desi Arnaz’ makeup trailer is nuts. If you’re looking for a cool home in California, you could have taken that $145,000 and bought a 100’ wooden yacht that the engines are missing on and moor it in a nice harbor or marina and wear a yachting hat and ascot. I know someone who did that – in Catalina harbor no less – and that’s way smarter than this trailer concept.

There’s clearly a disconnect here. The mobile home park owner says he wants to bring in tiny homes to replace run-down trailers, and the city says it’s going to start sending out citations and fines for run-down trailers. I see absolutely nothing in this article even remotely suggesting that the city is actually going to give this guy a variance to bring in tiny homes on HUD-licensed lots. All that’s going on, in my opinion, is the city is declaring war on the old trailers and after they get them removed is going to deny the tiny home dream and, as a result, reduce the occupancy at the park.

This story is so ridiculous. Let’s break it down into each dumb piece:

1. The tenants say that $635 per month for lot rent is ridiculously high. I’m sorry but a quick search on Bestplaces.net shows the median home price to be over $300,000. STUPID.
2. The city of Aberdeen wants to increase the notice period for rent increases to 180 days, in complete contradiction to state law and certain to be overturned in court without ever taking effect. STUPID.

So what’s really going on here? A few of the tenants obviously are going down and yelling at city officials who want them to get out of their hair so they are proposing a law that they know has no chance of sticking just so those few tenants will stop coming to their offices and wasting their time. Classic move.
I think I’ve seen this movie before – wasn’t it called Joe Biden and the evictions moratorium that the Supreme Court threw out the window but placated AOC and “the squad” for a brief while?

Now Primrose Estates of Mesa, Arizona joins the growing list of parks being torn down to make way for more profitable uses. How could this have been avoided. HIGHER LOT RENTS. This is not rocket science.

There’s little description of what the “Dover” program is, but if it replaces aging sewer lines in parks at no cost to the owner then I’m all for it. These are the types of initiatives that would save many mom & pop parks from the wrecking ball.

You’ve got to love these bureaucrats. They are tearing down a mobile home park and turning it into apartments and then disguising this as being OK because the apartments will be “affordable”. Of course, the apartments will only be “affordable” with government subsidies like Section 8. And they were able to escape the wrath of the media by saying “there’s really no difference between non-subsidized mobile home parks and subsidized apartments – it’s all just one big affordable housing family” which is clearly not true. 

Yes, I believe this is the same park that the tenants had first option to buy for $16,250,000 with $1 million non-refundable and they were only able to raise only around $4,000 by the date to exercise their option. Now these same tenants are miffed that the owner is not giving them updates on the REAL buyer and the date of closing. Why should they? The tenants had their shot and blew it. Why would anyone think the seller owes them any further courtesies which, no doubt, they will only use to try and derail the legitimate and lawful sale further? 

Let’s break this article down into components:

1. The residents claim that a $390 per month lot rent in Hastings, Michigan is “insanely high”. A quick trip to Bestplaces.net proves out that the median home price in Hastings is $281,400 and the average three-bedroom apartment rent is $1,530 per month. Therefore, clearly, the tenants’ claim is BOGUS.
2. The tenants claim that the rent has gone up since the private equity group bought the property. TRUE. And that the quality of the maintenance has declined. BOGUS. They have no examples of this supposed “decline” in maintenance of the property, but I know from experience that a private equity group ALWAYS runs the park they buy better than mom and pop did. 
3. The writer claims that private equity groups are destroying the wonderful quality of Michigan mobile home parks. BOGUS. These groups are, in fact, the only pioneers bringing these old parks back to life.
4. As with what we see every week, new owners raise rents and fix up parks and marginal tenants (maybe 1%) are willing to live in total squalor rather than pay $100 per month more. Nobody agrees with this philosophy except this strange tiny slice of the tenant pie. BOGUS.

Can AI PLEASE hurry up and put all these woke journalists out of their jobs? Any computer would instinctively know that there are two sides to every story – not just the one expressed by a few hoarder tenants.

In a Colorado world in which bureaucrats are worried about “the ecological impact on a variety of riparian species” it’s easy to see why not a single one of these projects has been approved since 2018. I’m betting that it will be 2118 before all parties can agree to a plan that has no “riparian” impact. Until then this concept will be used for endless virtue signaling that they care deeply about affordable housing but that newts and darter snails take higher priority.

If you haven’t been following this story, the U.S. Government is trying to cram down crazy environmentalist rules on mobile home manufacturing that will make the cost of mobile homes go up and the energy savings to customers go down an incredibly tiny percent that in no way justifies that extra home cost. We all know that the mobile home manufacturers will lose this battle (as all industries have in the Biden era) and then the rules will be reversed by the next administration before they even come into effect. So it’s just hard to get too worked up over it. 

The big problem with modular homes is found right in the article: they only cost 25% less than traditional stick-built homes.That’s just not a big enough discount to outweigh the stigma. I think you’d have to be at around 50% off to make the average American consider it.

This is actually not a bad idea. The U.S. government built mobile home parks (then RV parks by definition) at colleges across America to house the G.I. Bill folks. But then the article says the college plan is to build only three tiny homes a year. That’s a pretty small number – hardly worth the article to begin with.

I’m sorry but there’s no form of real estate that can survive 150 mph winds – which is the benchmark in this article. Mobile homes do just about as well as most things, but a windowless concrete bunker is the only way you’re going to survive a 150 mph sustained wind without ending up being thrown a couple miles.

Ok, give me a break. Corpus Christi is NOT trying to scuttle the proposed mobile home park zoning because of concerns over a plane crashing into it. That’s just the best excuse they could come up right now.

I love it when bureaucrats waste time and money on studies like this. Here’s the answer for free: the people of Tucson want 7,000 sq. ft. mansions on a budget of $30 a month. What a bunch of idiots. That’s like asking 4th graders what they want for lunch at school. 

I’m hoping that this was written by AI as it contains more inaccuracies than a mere mortal could assemble. Here are just a sampling of the facts that are incorrect:

• Berkshire Hathaway does not own any mobile home parks – they only own manufacturing and financing.
• There are not 22 million Americans living in mobile home parks. With only 44,000 mobile home parks in the U.S. that would be an average of 500 lots per park. The actual stat is around 22 million people living in mobile homes which includes those living in parks and (as an even larger group) those who live in mobile homes on their own land.
• The majority of mobile home parks are not built on floodplain – those that are represent a minority.
• And on, and on, and on

Then, after all this incorrect nonsense that is portrayed as fact, the purpose of the article is apparently to complain that mobile home parks are environmentally goofy … and you just lose interest and go to the next article. It’s kind of like a movie that is advertised as an action flick but turns out to be a documentary on AOC.