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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Ouch. $160,000 for a one-bedroom mobile home? I think maybe somebody at the non-profit in charge of this project should have maybe gone to the Louisville home show or talked to just about any park owner because … you got screwed.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Let’s do the math. 58 lots x $745 per month lot rent = $518,520 total annual revenue as a mobile home park vs. 400 x $2,000 per month rent = $9,600,000 total annual revenue as an apartment complex. How high would the lot rent have had to be to make the mobile home park option attractive enough not to file an application to demolish it? If you calculate the cost of building the 8-story building for the apartments, maybe $1,500 lot rent per month would have worked. But, of course, the park owner would have been publicly criticized for a rent increase that big so they never even bothered to consider it. So instead of paying $1,500 per month for their existing dwelling, the residents will end up paying $2,000 per month for an apartment smaller than their mobile home. 

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. 

“The report states the park “operates at a substantial deficit, has ongoing deferred maintenance, and presents increasing administrative and financial burdens on the city… The mobile home park’s expenses have exceeded revenues by a total of $3.6 million during the past four years. Without more revenue, the city projects the park’s reserve funds will be depleted within the next five years.”

That $3.6 million loss is simply the revenue less expenses, not including any debt payment on the property.

This is a park owned by the City of Novato itself. Someone offered the city $30 million for this deferred maintenance mess (which any idiot would take) and yet the city is holding out because of concerns that the new owner might raise the rent.

So if the park revenue does not even cover the expenses – and raising the rent is “evil” – then how will this park even exist 5 years from now? Clearly it won’t. In this case, it’s probably just the city finding an easy way out of having a mobile home park in their boundary, but it’s a further demonstration that all mobile home park lot rents need to go up – way up – for old parks to stay in business. 

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.

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. 

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.

The future of new housing in America has many attributes found in this article – which is all about thinking outside the box. However, I have to believe you can build small houses for less than $350,000. I know they do it with 3-D printing in Europe and I wonder why we’re still using old-fashioned carpentry in an article on the housing of the future.

So I’m reading this article about putting 300 new homes on 41 acres of leased land (basically mobile home park density) and the writer is raving about how not owning the land makes the homes more affordable (just like a mobile home park) and then it hits me that when the city of Moab does the exact same thing a mobile home park owner does it suddenly is sheer genius and not “evil” any longer. Pretty hypocritical, right?

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.

“About 60 modular homes in Phoenix that were meant to be prioritized for Almeda Fire victims were recently discovered to be uninhabitable. Replacing the homes could cost $20-25 million.”

Basic math yields that for 60 modular homes to be worth $25 million means that the bureaucrats spent $416,666 per home – that’s right nearly half-a-million dollars per unit.

Do you seriously believe they spent $416,666 per unit on homes that you and I can buy factory direct for maybe $80,000 all day long?

I know that government spending is out of control, but how can taxpayers read this and not freak out?

Hmmm … I think I saw that same concept two stories ago. If the residents don’t want to pay a rent high enough to support keeping the mobile home park a mobile home park, then I can already hear the “land for sale” sign being nailed up on the frontage and the apartment developers starting to make offers. IS EVERYONE IN AMERICA TOO STUPID TO SEE THAT ARTIFICIALLY KEEPING RENTS LOW SIMPLY LEADS TO PARKS BEING TORN DOWN? Apparently so.

This is the most confusing article I’ve ever seen. The residents are deliberately trying to get their own park shut down. At least that’s how it appears. Read this quote:

“Well, the promises that had been made to us residents was that if nothing got done in that trailer park by December, they were gonna close it down. And then lo and behold, it's still operating and still going strong," noted Mary Davenport, Southport resident.” 

I’m sure they’ll get their wish at the rate they’re going. 

This is an EXCELLENT article – fair and unbiased and based on fact. And the problem is best described in one quote from the article on what the residents of the park found when they had to find a new place to live as the park was being redeveloped: the “rent was often double, or even triple, the $850 a month they paid for their lot”.

In ALL of these type of stories – and there are several every week – the reason the park shut down was that you can build apartments on that land, stack them two or three high, and rent them for $1,850 per month per unit (that’s the price that the apartments that just went up on another nearby park are priced at). So what landlord needs a mobile home park for $850 per month in lot rent when you can get nearly $6,000 per month for that same spot of land?

Of course, the only difference is that the park already exists and you have to build the apartment building which costs capital. But the moral needs to be that all these residents and media advocates – and the idiotic politicians that pander to them – need to be chasing after park owners begging them to raise their rents high enough to not be tempted to tear the park down and put up apartments. It’s not rocket science.

“After three court dates, Havens confirmed that Lawrence and Glander were willing to settle the case at $25,000. As of June 5, Warrens confirmed that the settlement was paid and will be split between all 15 plaintiffs. Prior to paying the settlement, Glander told the Appeal that he “categorically (denies) all the charges” and declined further comment.“They’ve all got this judgment on the record which is what we wanted so they couldn’t do this again,” Warrens said. “We succeeded in what we wanted to do. Whether we get a dime or not is not the big thing. It’s just nice to know that we did get the judgment.”

I know nothing about this park or any of the matters involved but when you subtract the legal cost of three separate court trials from $25,000 you end up with something like ($25,000) -- or worse – for the residents to split. So the tenants won basically nothing from all this. But wait, they did succeed with one thing… I bet you $50 the park owner puts this land on the market for redevelopment, and nobody on earth could fault him for that. For greater detail read article #1 above.