If there was an apartment complex that had code violations, the city would no doubt go to them and say “here’s what we need to get done to bring this up to code and here are some grants and programs to help pay for it and take all the time you need” and they would work together. But when it’s a mobile home park, the city says “fix this up or we’re shutting you down and you have zero time to get it done” and approach it from a confrontational perspective.

Galveston clearly wanted this park gone. Period. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

Not to be a party-pooper but there are two glaring problems with this story:

1. The residents paid over $130,000 per lot to own the land. Including the value of the mobile homes on those lots they are in this deal at maybe $160,000 per lot. Based on my memory of real estate in Texas, you can buy a nice brick house for that amount in many markets. Wouldn’t they have been better off simply giving these folks $160,000 cash to go buy a brick house free and clear? I’m confused.
2. The article admits that this is the third resident-owned community in the entire state of Texas. Since Texas has the largest number of mobile home parks in the entire U.S. that’s a stunning admission. When woke media discusses how residents buying communities is the solution to all the world’s problems they never include the actual statistics of how many of these deals actually close. It’s a really, really, really, really, tiny number – and then half that again.

When you spend $11.5 million to save 76 mobile homes crammed into a tiny parcel of land you just spent $151,315 per household to live in a tiny trailer. I’m sure the park owner is delighted to have scored this much for the land but how do rationalize these numbers from a non-profit perspective? If you said to these folks “here, I’m going to give you $151,315 cash OR you can stay in your trailer” NOBODY would have taken them up on the offer to stay. They’d take the cash, drive another 30 minutes out, and buy a brick house. I think there’s some type of disconnect going on between non-profits, reality, and the true wishes of the people who live in these properties.

NEWS BULLETIN:

The earlier article said that the residents bought their mobile home park for $6 million with 46 lots but this one says 26 lots. If that’s true, then they paid $260,000 per household so they could have the honor of living in a high-density trailer park. I hope this article is wrong on that lot count because – if not – this is a total scandal. There’s no way you can spin that as being in the best interests of anyone.

Same false narrative as the above article. A simple Bestplaces.net review of Puyallup, WA shows the median home price of $499,500 and a three-bedroom apartment rent of $2,470 per month. The new mobile home park lot rent is $805 per month. That’s right, it’s 66% less than the apartment rent. Yet somehow the article claims the rent is exorbitant. It’s not. Not even close, In fact, it’s ridiculously cheap based on actual math with no optics attached.

Instead, like the above article, the truth is that the residents who are living on $1,000 per month of social security should not be living in an area this expensive. If you are retired you have the ability to live anywhere free from any need for employment, right? So why would you live in an area with prices this crazy high? You could move to Missouri and live on $1,000 per month all day long – but NOT in Washington or California.

The other part of this story should maybe be that social security is not nearly enough to live on at $1,000 per month, right? But the social security program is essentially insolvent so it can’t give any increases.

The bottom line to this is that nobody likes the rents going up, but people have to be realistic in their expectations of housing in retirement. That’s the true narrative in this story.

Yet another false narrative. Orlando is fining this park owner $1,000 per day because they don’t like the condition of the property. So anyone would simply shut down, right? The city must have known that when they started fining him. So the correct analysis of this story is that the City of Orlando is apparently wanting to force this park out of business and have succeeded in doing so. Shame on this reporter for making it look like the shutdown was the park owner’s fault. He simply gave in to the city’s apparent agenda.

A resident moves into a rental mobile home and immediately claims that her health is being compromised by carbon monoxide, black mold – even tiny particles of dust in vents.

The management fixes each and every item she complains about, but every day there’s something new.

“At this point, everyone has mutually agreed that this isn’t working out and that we’re happy to pay her move-in cost and she can find somewhere else to live and we can have an amicable resolution to this,” Property Management Vice President, Michelle Oppelt tells 6 News in a phone call.Esham says she doesn’t feel the payment is enough when weighed against what she, her son and her cousin had to go through.

If you don’t know what is really going on here then you have obviously never rented a mobile home to a tenant.

The moral: sell off every park-owned rental you have as fast as you can. Stick with the parking lot part of the mobile home park business only.

This is a reminder that 99% of city governments just want the mobile home parks in their boundaries to follow the rules and don’t want to shut them down. It’s a shame that  Orlando – in the above story – had not shared this attitude and was then complicit in the residents becoming homeless. Cities and park owners can either work as a team and everyone wins or at odds and nobody wins.

This article has nothing to do with mobile home parks, but it’s so stupid that it warranted inclusion in this week’s news list.

Universal (yes, the theme park) is building “affordable” apartments in Orlando. They’re spending $350 million to build 1,000 units. That works out to $350,000 per unit.

Now you might ask how that is affordable? It’s not. Only a complete idiot would think that’s affordable. That’s higher than the median home price in probably 70% of all U.S. metro areas, including such places as Dallas, Tulsa and Omaha.

Has America really lost grasp of the concept of “affordable”? Is next up an article on the new “affordable” Rolls Royce? How did we all get this stupid?

Looks like Vermont makes really good maple syrup but really bad bureaucrats. Can you believe anyone could make such a monumental mess out of something as simple as buying a bunch of mobile homes and delivering them to the spots where the wiped-out homes used to stand? Read this article if you need a refresher on Reagan’s quote that the scariest words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”.

OK, reality check time. Resident-Owned Communities has done 300 deals since inception. There are around 44,000 mobile home parks in the U.S. If you take 300 and divide by 44,000 you get .0068 which equates to .68 of 1%. That’s nothing, right? So can we PLEASE stop hearing this same narrative about how this concept can save park residents from “evil” park buyers and bring forth unicorns and rainbows and the end of world hunger because it’s such a tiny impact that it’s not worth this much discussion.

I one time found a robin that fell out of a nest and took it to a veterinarian. It may have survived to adulthood, I don’t know. But you could hardly write an article claiming that I was the potential solution to all lost robins. That’s what this reminds me of.

First of all, the rent is going to $975 per month at this park in Castro Valley. If you simply look up Castro Valley on Bestplaces.net you’ll see that the median home price is $1,047,800 and the two-bedroom apartment rent is $2,320 per month and the three bedroom is $3,300 per month. So much for the reporter’s angle that “this new mobile home park lot rent is ridiculous” because it’s not. Not at all. In fact, it’s less than 50% of the apartment rents.

The more interesting part of this story revolves around the new owner’s argument that these are not mobile homes but RVs. Very strategically interesting and could present some really bad case law for the rent control advocates. Technically – looking at the video of the story – most of these are NOT mobile homes, but instead either park models (which are designated as RVs) or pre-HUD homes (which are not then defined as mobile homes which would have a HUD seal). So I think the park owner has a shot. And it will be a cliffhanger for California if this case proceeds to trial as a huge amount of California mobile home parks look just like this one and technically these aren’t necessarily mobile homes based on definition. If that should occur – and this park owner wins -- then it might be possible for all California park owners to use that new case law to upend rent control across the state. For that reason, Castro Valley may want to think twice about litigating this.

The park owner says that they “do not want to displace residents, but the company needs to increase revenues to meet the costs of improving the parks. That’s the gospel truth. You cannot bring old parks back to life without increasing rents significantly.

So what will it be: 1) acknowledge that new owners are doing great things by bringing old parks back to life and embrace the reality that rents must go up or 2) fight them tooth and nail and make nobody want to do this important task anymore?

The bottom line is, has been, and always will be: LOW RENTS = REDEVELOPMENT. That’s never going to change.