Mobile Home Park News Briefing

HONESDALE, Pa. — It's been 17 days since the residents of Sunrise Terrace mobile home park in Honesdale last had running water.

In early December, hundreds of gallons of heating oil spilled near one of two water wells located inside the park.

Since then, the water wells are still shut off, and crews have been brought in to contain and clean the area where the spill happened.

While progress has been made, there is still no running water.

"The wells that pump water to the park remain off to prevent drawing contamination from the dirt in the ground that has been contaminated with the fuel oil. So that was the decision done by the...

Carbondale-based social justice nonprofit group this week went under contract to buy a 20-unit mobile-home park outside of Glenwood Springs for $2.4 million in an attempt to buck the trend of displacement and affordable-housing destruction at the hands of private-equity groups buying Colorado parks.

The Roaring Fork Community Development Corp. — the affordable housing arm of the nonprofit Manaus — intends to transfer ownership in coming years to 3-Mile Mobile Home Park’s residents, who own their trailers but pay rent for the land on which they sit.

The sellers are the children of the late Ben Krueger, a longtime Vail Valley resident who...

ROCHESTER — A potential agreement with four residents at Bob’s Trailer Park is in the works more than a month after they lost running water in their trailers.

“Two weeks should be sufficient time to iron out a few details,” Rochester attorney Travis Ohly told Olmsted County District Court referee Erin Felten during an online hearing Tuesday.

Ohly, who represents the property owner, Pennsylvania-based TSJ Parks LLC, said work has started in an agreement, but final terms couldn’t be reached Tuesday.

Court staff said negotiations were the cause of an approximately one-hour delay for Tuesday’s hearing, which was attended by TSJ Parks member...

The hunt for yield has pushed private equity firms and professional investors into new segments of the real estate market.

In recent years, sophisticated investors have snapped up multi-family units and single-family homes. Now, corporate landlords are targeting the most cost-effective segment of the real estate market: mobile home parks.

• Mitt Romney says a billionaire tax will trigger demand for these two physical assets — get in now before the super-rich swarm

• You could be the landlord of Walmart, Whole Foods and Kroger (and collect fat grocery store-anchored income on a quarterly basis)

• What do Ashton Kutcher and a...

John Piazza remembers when he first moved to Lee’s Trailer Park in Revere in 2000, after his rent skyrocketed in Boston.

Piazza fell in love with a 720-square-foot mobile home, finding it more spacious and affordable than his small apartment in the North End.

He said the park owners charge him just $575 a month for the lot under his home — a fraction of what he would pay in rent for an apartment in Greater Boston. He also paid $20,000 for the mobile home itself, far less than the cost of a traditional single-family home or condo.

The 84-year-old planned to spend the rest of his days at Lee's Trailer Park. But last year, the park was sold...

Residents of mobile home parks are losing their places to live as new investors buy up park land for redevelopment. Residents typically own their homes, but not the land they sit on.

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST: Mobile homes have long been an affordable housing option, but big investment firms have been buying up the land they sit on, causing homeowners to worry about whether they'll be able to stay. From member station WBUR in Boston, Simon Rios reports on how corporate ownership is upending the lives of people in one park.

SIMON RIOS, BYLINE: Outside John Piazza's trailer, the 84-year-old former harbor captain and amateur historian is sorting...