Mobile Home Park News Briefing

CLINTON, Tenn. (WATE) — Yet another mom-and-pop mobile home park has been purchased by corporate owners who immediately raised the rent. For many of the residents, their monthly rent will more than double, taking a big chunk out of their fixed incomes.

What’s happening across Tennessee, and in other states, is that corporations and private equity firms are buying “mom-and-pop” mobile home parks. Renters affected by the recent ownership change in Anderson County are worried.

Nearly 30 families live in the newly named Smoky Palms North mobile home park in Clinton. The former long-time owner of the park sold the property less than a month...

This story is part of How We Get By, a KQED series exploring how people are coping with rising costs in the Bay Area and California. Find the full series here.

When Clara Faria read her rent statement, her heart stopped. Her monthly payment would more than triple, rising from $297 per month to $995. She had four days to make the payment or be charged a $50 late fee.

She sank into the brown leather chair next to her formica-coated kitchen table, where she’d opened her mail for decades. She had heard neighbors were getting rent increases, but said she hadn’t received a notice herself. She had hoped she would be spared, but the reality was...

The Camarillo City Council will consider adopting the city’s first permanent rent stabilization ordinance for the city's three mobile home parks April 22.

The proposed ordinance aims to maintain affordable housing for residents while allowing owners to earn a reasonable profit.

If adopted, the regulations would prevent the gap between rent at mobile home parks in the city and rent at other Ventura County mobile home parks from growing wider.

The council voted 3-2 last month to reject a previous version of the ordinance to allow for further revision.

“I think the draft ordinance as it’s currently presented goes overboard in its protection...

ALBANY, NY — Assembly Member Paula Elaine Kay announced that she has signed on and is advocating for legislation that requires manufactured home park owners to provide a written justification for any rent increase exceeding three percent of the current rent. Additionally, property owners must make supporting documentation available to residents upon request, ensuring that increases are clearly explained and tied to legitimate costs. This bill passed the Senate this year and is currently in the Assembly Standing Committee on Housing.

“I’m a proud co-sponsor of bill A340A, a measure aimed at strengthening protections for residents of...

One of Pacifica's most unassuming ocean neighbors just sold for a decidedly not-so-modest price. Saunders Property Company has snapped up Viewpointe at Seaside, a 93-unit manufactured-housing community on the city's coast, for $39.5 million. The ocean-adjacent property at 1300 Palmetto Avenue features a mix of one- and two-bedroom homes on leased pads. The deal shifts the park from former owner The Carlyle Group to an institutional investor that has been quietly racking up mobile-home acquisitions across California, a type of transaction that local watchers say can have outsized impacts on lot rents and long-term affordability in the Bay...

When: Warwick Township Board of Supervisors meeting, April 15.

What happened: Warwick Township supervisors gave unanimous approval to a conditional use application from United Zion Retirement Community to build a medical residential campus adjacent to the existing 157-unit retirement community. The township attached 15 conditions.

Details: United Zion is proposing to construct 78 independent living duplex and townhouse units, with an associated community building and a maintenance building on property it owns at 70 Sherry Drive, Lititz. That land is located at Plateau Village, a mobile home community of 70 mostly older residents. Those...

Lisa Helphinstine never thought she'd face homelessness, but then again she never imagined tech companies would be interested in buying a mobile home park in rural Kentucky.

Helphinstine is just one of 28 residents of Meadowland Village Mobile Home Park in Mason County who received notice that the property is under contract for sale to an unnamed “Fortune 500” company, which has yet to be identified, planning to build a 2,000-acre data center.

“They just up and said you have 90 days to move,” Helphinstine, 50, tells PEOPLE. “I have no idea what I'm going to do. I bought the mobile home so I could have somewhere to live. Now, I'm going to...

Residents of a Cary mobile home park were in downtown Raleigh on Tuesday demanding support and compensation from a potential developer as they're being forced to leave their homes.

"Where we live now, it doesn’t look like much to many people, but for us it’s home," said Abigael Dawah. Some of the144 families who live at Chatham Estates pay $400 a month to rent their lots.

They got a letter in January from the current owner, who is selling the land, citing his age and health.

The potential new owner is expected to redevelop the area with more than 300 multi-family units and nearly 100 townhouses.

"We’re asking the Town of Cary for a...

RENO, Nev. (News 4 & Fox 11) — Crews started to demolish three buildings at the old Jones West Ford site on Kietzke Lane in Reno Thursday afternoon to make way for Nevada's first soccer-only stadium.

Seven months after announcing plans to bring a USL soccer team to the Biggest Little City, Reno Pro Soccer officials celebrated the milestone as crews took the soccer-themed wrecking ball to the aging buildings.

Reno Pro Soccer is planning to build a 6,000-seat soccer-only stadium on the site. Officials also plan a $350 million entertainment district known as 'The Boulevard Reno' on the site just south of the stadium.

The 28-acre project...

On what was the coldest day of April so far, residents of two Missoula-area mobile home parks sat down for lease negotiations with their Texas-based landlord — a first in Montana history, according to the Missoula Tenants Union.

Representatives from Oak Wood Ventures visited Missoula last week to meet with residents of Travois Village in Missoula and Harvey’s mobile home park in Bonner, which the company bought in 2023. After rent increases and other issues, residents of the parks formed two tenants unions and demanded Oak Wood meet with them to negotiate a new lease. 

On Thursday, that meeting actually happened — a fact that tenant...

A New Jersey-based company that owns mobile home parks and prefabricated residential communities in a dozen states will be Westmoreland County’s largest taxpayer in 2026.

New totals from the county’s tax assessment office reveal United Mobile Homes Properties Inc. has taken the top spot among local taxpayers, replacing the owners of Westmoreland Mall in Hempfield who for decades topped the list of property owners with the most valued assets.

According to the most recent figures, the company’s holdings in the county are assessed at more than $12.4 million, which translates to a market value of more than $140 million.

The company owns more...

Wendy and Phil Durocher took their seats in a dim conference room in the annals of the Pinellas County courthouse and got ready to plead their case. They came armed with a binder of receipts, itemized spreadsheets and photographs of their storm-damaged mobile home, meticulously highlighted and annotated.

After months of agonizing, a county magistrate would soon decide whether the Durochers would be allowed to keep their Palm Harbor home, deemed “substantially damaged” from flooding during Hurricane Helene.

Unless the Durochers could prove the county’s building department had miscalculated, their home would have to be torn down or...

On March 23, Congressman Maxwell Frost (D-FL) introduced new legislation to promote affordable housing and fight back against profiteering Wall Street investors by helping residents purchase and own their parks.[1]  Titled the Promoting Residential Ownership of (PRO) Manufactured Home Communities Act, the act addresses the urgent need to protect manufactured housing residents from greed-driven skyrocketing costs, hostile eviction, and unlivable conditions.[2]

The legislation aims to help residents build wealth and maintain long-term housing stability in the face of those rising costs.[3]  “Manufactured housing should be an opportunity for...

In 2024, a coalition in Arizona successfully changed state law to keep mobile home park owners from restricting certain air conditioners that were considered ugly or noisy.

Now, one of those stakeholder groups is pushing new legislation to improve these communities.

The Arizona Association of Manufactured Home Owners held eight listening sessions with residents, utility companies and groups like the anti-poverty organizer Wildfire AZ to help draft bills that would not only change state law but also add more enforcement.

One bill would require more education for park managers; two others would prevent park owners from charging residents...

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR) - A fishing pole rests on the ground in Elizabeth Small’s backyard. The owner of a mobile home says it needs a few tweaks before she can cast off again.

Small instead spends her focus on yard work this day off.

“I’m so proud of this place. I really am,” she celebrated.

Inside Riverview Mobile Home Park at 2530 South Main Street, Rockford, the 37-year-old finds a slice of peace on her lot. The property is sandwiched between Illinois Route 2, a gateway into downtown, as well as the Rock River — Small’s backyard.

For decades, Chatham Estates Mobile Home Park has been a quiet pocket of affordability for hundreds of families, seniors and immigrants in Cary.

But fears of displacement have loomed over the 27-acre mobile-home community, and now with a planned sale they are a reality.

According to Town of Cary records, Pennsylvania-based luxury builder Toll Brothers is under contract to buy the land at 607 Cedar St. for the Maple Avenue redevelopment project. The property, owned by Curtis Westbrook Sr. for over 40 years, is expected to sell for about $30 million, according to Triangle Business Journal, which first reported the news.

Toll Brothers and...

A mobile home park closure in Mesa is forcing residents to relocate.

Stephania Melton has been fighting to keep a roof over her head ever since she and her four children moved into their three-bedroom trailer in the Hunter Ridge Mobile Home Park more than two years ago.

The 44-year-old cook and kitchen supervisor from Alabama said the trouble began around March of 2024 after payments for several bills were deducted from her bank account simultaneously, leaving her $2 short on her $1,300 monthly rent.

The Hunter Ridge online payment portal locked her out. 

“I wasn’t able to pay my rent,” Melton told Capital B Atlanta while standing outside her home near Jonesboro. “It’s been two years and they still say,...

The Sonoma City Council will hold a study session at their April 15, 2026, meeting, to review and discuss a draft ordinance related to mobilehome park closures and conversions.

This draft ordinance reflects direction previously provided by the City Council and incorporates updates to align with recent changes in state law, including AB 2782 and SB 610. The proposed updates focus on strengthening requirements related to relocation impact reports, notice timelines, relocation assistance, and protections for residents, particularly for lower-income households and individuals with disabilities.

As part of this study session, the Council will...

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how many heavy hitters are on your side or how many of your ducks are in a row, those in a position of power just won’t budge. That was the case at Monday’s Garfield County Commissioner (BOCC) meeting when a group of said heavy hitters, supporting residents of the 98-lot Cavern Springs Mobile Home Park, who want to purchase the park, showed up bright and early for the public comment period. 

Last year, Aspen-Basalt and Mountain Valley mobile home park residents in the Roaring Fork Valley successfully purchased the parks for $42 million. April Long, executive director of the West Mountain Regional Housing...

Galanis and Vayo, along with Abby Bronson, director of policy and advocacy at the Community Loan Fund, participated in a forum entitled “Home Sweet (Extra) Home: How ADUs and other alternatives can boost housing supply in NH.” The April 2 webinar was hosted by NH Business Review.

Housing supply and its affordability are an important workforce issue in New Hampshire, according to Galanis.

She offered data that shows how New Hampshire is making progress on replenishing its housing supply, but that it needs to happen at a faster pace and it needs to be more affordable.

In a Congress largely marked by gridlock, housing may soon be an exception. Or, if the effort to pass the current housing bill falls short, it could be yet another confirmation of federal dysfunction.

As Kim Johnson, senior director of policy at the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), observes, “Something needs to be done on housing, and a lot of that stems from members of Congress simply hearing from their constituents.” She cautions, though, that “the trickier question has always been, What is that thing or things that need to be done?”

In this year’s Congress, housing legislation has moved quite far, with each house of...

There’s a simple reality getting lost in the conversation around rent control in Pennsylvania: it doesn’t protect affordability. It reduces it over time. This isn’t theoretical. Extensive studies show rent control lowers housing quality, discourages investment, and ultimately reduces the supply of affordable housing.

I own a manufactured home community in Bedford County. I’m a hands-on operator, and over the past year I’ve invested heavily to improve the property.

When I bought the community, it was neglected. Residents dealt with muddy driveways, overgrown trees, junk accumulation, blighted homes, and rampant drug activity.

Since...

We are your neighbors, but maybe not for long if the wealthy owner of the land underneath our manufactured homes has his way.

Some of us have lived in South Park Estates for 30 years, while others arrived more recently — all drawn to one of the last places in Midtown Anchorage where a working family could actually own a home. We speak English, Spanish, Tagalog, Lao, Thai and Arabic. We value our children, our community, our elders and our stability. But we might lose that security, and the equity we’ve patiently built, if Shaun Debenham closes our park and builds commercial space and luxury apartments on our site.

Mr. Debenham does not...

Former residents of the fire-ravaged Tahitian Terrace mobile home park in Pacific Palisades are no longer waiting to see what happens to the land where their homes once stood.

Instead, they’re organizing—reviving a residents’ association, working with a statewide advocacy group and exploring a plan to collectively buy the property, which was home to about 150 units before the fire, so they can rebuild and return.

For some, the loss was immediate. Chris Russo, who had just closed escrow on a  670-square-foot home near the beach that she had saved up to buy and grow old in, said the fire destroyed the community the very next day.

“This...