Mobile Home Park News Briefing

As I recall, last week a different group of residents were trying to raise $16 million to buy a different property but had only raised $4,000 by the time the first option ran out. This article is about as stupid as giving newspaper space to a high-school basketball team wanting to raise $10 million to buy a Lear jet to take them to their games. Actually that would have better odds of occurring.

When will the media accept that residents buying their own park has about a .000001% chance of success?

It’s the same old story. You get the one resident that fancies themselves an “activist” and then browbeats city administrators to do things that they know are wrong but are easier than having to listen to them scream. Here’s a quote from the article:

A Landmark Estates resident, who is an activist for improving mobile home park conditions, acknowledges some upgrades have been made to the Warren park but that conditions for many residents are still far less than ideal. “They worked on the water and they are still tearing out homes, but about half the park is still having issues with water pressure”.

The article says that the park owners have spent $500,000 in upgrades to infrastructure and homes so far but apparently it’s still not enough to satisfy this resident. If the park spent $500 million, it would still not be enough, in all likelihood.

It’s a problem in this nation that a few screaming people – that do not share the thoughts of 99.9% of the population – are able to bully good-natured people into making bad decisions just to shut them up. I don’t know the facts in this case at all, but it seems odd that the city gives so much weight – and journalistic focus -- to one resident.

It kind of reminds me of the assistant professor in Boulder that was able to get roughly 40 media outlets, including John Oliver, to do slam pieces on park owners – an accomplishment she raved about in an interview later. And it goes to show how the media is completely unhinged at this point.

The park owners, in this case, have the residents move out every six months so they can keep the option of developing the property at any time without having a huge legal battle with the tenants. Now that California has passed this new law, I would look for all of these properties to shut down immediately as soon as the current lease expires. In essence, in their attempt to circumvent traditional property rights, the bureaucrats have actually accelerated the homelessness of these residents. Pretty much proves out that the scariest soundbyte in America is “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”. That is always the path to doom.

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.

And the winner of Dumbest Quote of the Week goes to this MHAction member:

“The general trend is for owners to increase rent and decrease maintenance to maximize profits,” Patrick McHugh with MHAction said. “Many residents are evicted or self-evict, allowing owners to rent out the property at a higher value.”

Why is this dumb? Two reasons: 

1. I do not know of a single park owner who has a goal of increasing rent and decreasing maintenance. When you buy a park, you have loan covenants requiring the property to be kept at a high standard. Most park buyers inject large amounts of capital to bring failing infrastructure back to life. The current playbook is also to add and/or improve amenities to make higher rents equal higher value in lifestyle. None of this is consistent with “decreasing maintenance”. Increasing rent is a given when you buy and improve a park – nobody would argue with that.

2. If the argument is that the lot rent is too high (which is what this article is all about) then how can the “owners rent the property out at a higher value”. I know that some would like America to be socialist by economic system, but in a capitalist system of competition, if the rent was too high there would be no takers. You can’t have it both ways. So MHAction is admitting that the new lot rent is, in fact, not too high. And that defeats the entire theme of the article.

It’s absolute fact that a single-family home next to a mobile home park sells for about a third less than one that is not next to a mobile home park. Just look at Zillow. As a result, nobody wants a mobile home park built next to their residence. They’re not idiots. This is one of those situations where if the mayor or city council owned a home next to the proposed mobile home park, they would shoot it down in two seconds. I absolutely hate hypocrisy (“rules for thee but not for me”) and the bureaucrats in East Blaine should be ashamed of themselves for even floating this hypocritical idea and terrorizing these single-family homeowners with their nonsense.

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.

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.

I’m sorry but you can’t add the word “luxurious” to tiny home living. That’s like adding “whip cream” to a bologna sandwich – they just don’t go together.

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.

If you live in coastal Florida you know that you have a good shot of having your property destroyed in a hurricane. It happens nearly every year. Yet people think that somehow the government and insurance companies should subsidize their desire to live in that risky environment. It’s all coming to an end now that insurance companies are refusing to write policies in Florida or are doubling and tripling rates on those lucky enough to find a carrier. You can either stay in Florida and pay higher rates (if you can even find insurance) or leave, but it’s a choice you make. If you bet wrong and your home gets destroyed and you either have no insurance or are underinsured, that’s the gamble that you took and you need to accept that and stop trying to blame others.

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.

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.”

Before you even think about buying a mobile home park in California I urge you to check out all the laws the state has passed to take away property owners’ rights https://mhphoa.com/mrl/html#CC-798-80. You better be buying a deal with amazing economics to warrant getting involved in this bureaucratic mess of a state.

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

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.

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.

Wow. This makes commercial air travel look good.

Carson OKs overlay district to protect mobile home parks, residents

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.

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.

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?