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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.

