Investors are buying mobile home parks, Residents are paying the price.

[Tomconroy]

The New York Times
By Sophie Kasakove
March 27, 2022, 3:00 a.m. ET
GOLDEN, Colo. — When Sarah Clement moved to the Golden Hills mobile home park two years ago, she felt like she had won the lottery. After years of squeezing into one-bedroom apartments with her, her 7-year-old son finally settled into his own bedroom, his toys splayed out in the yard and his school just at the edge of the park.

Ms. Clement loved the friendliness of her neighbors and getting to watch the sun rise over the scrubby mesa to her east and set behind the foothills of the Rocky Mountains to the west. And living there was affordable on her salary as an athletic trainer: After purchasing the manufactured home, the rent for the plot it sits on was just $625 a month.

But just six months after she moved in, the plot of land and all of the stability and comfort that came with it seemed suddenly ripped out from under her.

The Colorado couple that owned the park for years had put it up for sale. Ms. Clement and her neighbors knew that if the park was taken over by one of the big manufactured-housing operators who were buying up parks all over the state, the rents would dramatically increase.

Investors Are Buying Mobile Home Parks. Residents Are Paying a Price. https://nyti.ms/3utg69O

[AntivaxHunters]

1. If anyone has a non-paywall version let me know plz

[wackadoo wabbit]

5. If you use Firefox with the NoScript add-on, there's no paywall

NoScript blocks most paywalls (and ads, too) unless you allow them.

https://noscript.net/

I just went to the NoScript site, and apparently there's a NoScript extension for Chromium-based browsers also.

[AntivaxHunters]

7. Thanks I'll try it!

[SWBTATTReg]

2. Yes, they been doing this for decades. First of all, most parks are on plots of land that ...

formerly were ignored by most cities (they were plots of land further out from the boundaries of most cities (a lot of cities ban mobile homes outright, so MH parks had to be located quite a bit outside of city boundaries)).

Now that urban sprawl has reached the boundaries of most of these parks, their land has skyrocketed in value, hence the demand to sell off the parks and pocket the proceeds. Only makes sense in this capitalistic society of ours, eh? Of course, the unfortunate victims (the tenants) are left holding the bag in multiple ways.

1) they have to find another place to park their MHs;
2) they have to find someone to move their MHs if someone even wants to mess w/ the moving and insurance;
3) they of course have to properly disconnect all of the utilities from the MHs prior to moving;
4) skirting, outside sheds if any, etc. all need to come down/dismantled, etc., in general, just a mess to deal with.

We shut down a MH park (my folks didn't want to mess w/ no longer), and from our viewpoint, we are stuck with one mobile home that they couldn't afford to move, so my sister (my folks are deceased now) is offering them a little money to help out, otherwise, we're going to be stuck w/ the old mobile home to dispose of, etc. In all fairness, we had 10 units and one only being left, is not bad, but still, we're left w/ dealing with their mess.

One's best bet is to jointly own the mobile home park, that way, all of the mobile home lot owners have a say in what goes on, in the park itself. Kind of like a home owners' association, with the same headaches of course, that a homeowners ass. usually entails. I have heard of situations where ALL of the tenants made a killing when their mobile home park sold off, and each of them got a nice paycheck then.

[Chuuku Davis]

3. Paywall

[wackadoo wabbit]

6. See my post #5 above

If you use Firefox with the NoScript extension, there's no paywall.

[Celerity]

28. Subscribe or use an archive site to read it.

https://archive.ph/zzuEJ

[JanMichael]

4. Private Equity will be the end of this country. It wants the housing, water, electricity...

...and the sunlight from the sky once that has be commodified.

I know of so called affordable properties (LIHTC) that have been allowed to take all their 40% AMFI units (really affordable) in a single property and convert them to 60% units. That makes Section 8 tenants pay more of the monthly rent which is based on 50% AMFI. The state agency that controls the long term loans says go ahead do it.

It is a full on assault on affordability nationwide.

[niyad]

13. Perhaps you could enlighten us on the acronyms?

[Lucid Dreamer]

20. Acronym Enlightenment

LIHTC -- Low Income Housing Tax Credit
AMFI -- Area Median Family Income

[niyad]

21. Thank you.

[empedocles]

16. Private equity, you mean 'vulture capitalists'?

[JanMichael]

18. Yes

[JanMichael]

19. Low income tax credit properties or LITHC. Reply to post #13

Adjusted median family income - amfi.

Low income tax credit properties came about when Congress decided to stop funding housing authorities from building any new units.

Edit- looks like I responded to myself you asked for the meanings of acronyms.

[niyad]

22. Thank you.

[LiberatedUSA]

8. John Oliver did a segment on this a few years ago.

[niyad]

14. Spot on, as always.

[getagrip_already]

9. And once again, qop'rs are paying the price for supporting the reds....

I'm not saying that everyone who lives in a trailer is a magat, but many are, and they are bringing this on themselves by supporting clowns paid for by oligarchs (home grown).

[EarthFirst]

10. I saw a listing in a park locally for $112,000

Then; as mentioned are the lot fees.

Housing should be a basic human right; not a private equity commodity!

[MichMan]

11. Too bad some progressive run private equity groups couldn't buy these up instead

and only charge residents $100-200 max lot rent.

[raccoon]

12. Fuck! They're determined to create hordes of homeless, aren't they? Nt

[XanaDUer2]

15. This worries me nt

[David__77]

17. That's capitalism.

…

[XanaDUer2]

26. Yup

If average people get screwed, oh well

[WarGamer]

23. I'd like to see cities and States utilize some of their land...

to build mobile home and tiny home parks and rent the spaces out at "cost".

I haven't stepped in a mobile home in 30 years... I've watched a few YT videos of new models and they are NICE.

Nothing to be ashamed of.

https://cdn.shortpixel.ai/spai/w_898+q_+ret_img+to_webp/

[Chuuku Davis]

24. RollerBall is coming

There will be 3-5 corporations that control everything in the world.
Food, lodging, water, energy, transport,and healthcare.

[Celerity]

29. Maybe in the US, not here in the EU. It is not going to happen here, as we have far more robust

anti-monopoly protections, as well as a vox populi far less enamoured of rapacious capitalism.

healthcare

We do not have the US for-profit healthcare scam model here to any truly significant degree, not remotely to the American wealth extraction level.

[Mr.Bill]

25. I live in a Mobile Home park.

It is within the city limits of a small town in Northern California. While many cities regulate the rent on senior parks, when it was tried here it didn't get enough signatures to get on the ballot. To fight it off, my park started offering leases on the spaces. The lease runs ten years and allows for an annual 3% raise in the rent. I moved here in 2016 at the rate of $440 and am now paying $502. This is an affordable increase for me.

If I want to sell my home, the lease is cancelled when I do so. When the ten years is over, they have always just offered another lease for another ten years. Of course, that could change in the future. The fact is, given the age of the tenants, very few of them live here for more than ten years. They either pass away, move in with their kids or go to assisted living or a convalescent home. I doubt I will live here ten years. We are now planning a granny unit on my grandson's property near here. This will be better and safer for us as we age and perhaps quit driving.

[Deminpenn]

27. New Yorker story from a few months ago,

same subject: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/15/what-happens-when-investment-firms-acquire-trailer-parks