“He said one home was offered, but it was unaffordable without financial support.”

It’s a pretty common problem that mom and pop’s lot rents are too low to make needed capital repairs. In this particular case, it resulted in the property being condemned and all the residents told to leave. And then, after they have to go out in the cold, hard, real world, they find out that there is nothing even remotely as cheap as the park.

The moral is that lot rents need to be high enough to allow for capital repairs and still make a reasonable profit, or those parks are doomed to closure. This Riverside park is the perfect example of that.

It’s also worthy of note that mobile home parks are insanely cheap WITHOUT government assistance. Apartments are only cheap when the Section 8 program pays the rent. That program is out of money and the waiting list is years long. Many people don’t realize this. It’s not a fallback option when a park shuts down.

$535 per month lot rent in Taunton, MA is ridiculously cheap. Here are the official housing stats for Taunton direct from Bestplaces.net:

Single Family home price $443,200

Average three-bedroom apartment rent is $2,090 per month

So how in the world is the Attorney General of Massachusetts going to factually support her assertion that a lot rent that is 75% less than apartments, and 95% less than a house, is somehow “unfair and retaliatory”? She’s not. But it doesn’t matter as she’s simply pandering to her audience in a hugely woke state and is getting all the attention that she’s been starving for.

The park owner isn’t crazy. The AG is. How embarrassing. Maybe Letitia James is her mentor?

“I am pretty convinced that the city council, like 107 others, are going to realize that this is actually an opportunity for them, that this is an ordinance that will pay for itself, that they are being intimidated by multibillion dollar out of area corporate attorneys and that they shouldn't bend to that intimidation,” said Mosher.  

$5 bet that, when the lawsuit arrives, the City of Fortuna quickly throws in the towel. Tough talk is a lot of fun until you have to open your wallet. This sentence sums up what the council really thinks:

Initially council members discussed coming to a written agreement with park owners in an effort to avoid litigation that would cost money from Fortuna's ever dwindling general fund. 

So how did the city fathers of Fortuna lose their minds? Probably a bunch of park residents showed up and screamed at them and they thought “OK, let’s pretend that we’re going to freeze the rent just to get these trailer park idiots to shut up”. Wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened behind closed doors. Nor will it be the last.

It was like $450, and that was back in 2010. Well, now here we are, and we are actually paying - I just paid the bill - $840 for the lot rent.

Is there anything in the United States that is not a whole lot more expensive today than 15 years ago?

Let’s do the math together. If the lot rent was $450 in 2010 then, with inflation adjustment, that would be $700 today. If the park is at $840 per month then it went up only slightly higher than inflation. By comparison, apartment rents and single-family home costs have gone up at nearly twice the rate of inflation.

Kind of crazy that the same week there are articles claiming that Florida mobile home park lot rents are unaffordable, there are other articles saying that Florida mobile home parks are a bargain. Someone’s wrong. Who do you think is telling the truth? The tenants that want something for nothing or a realtor that understands the incredible value that mobile home parks offer the general public?

Galey’s fear is that her lot rent, currently $1,322 a month, could increase with a new owner…

Yes, it absolutely will – even if the tenants buy the park. When you load millions of dollars of debt on the property, that new mortgage payment will be a whopper and the lot rent may have to go up 50% or more (based on how ridiculously low mom and pop’s rents are) just to cover that. You may remember last week when the non-profit told the tenants that the rent would go up like 50% or more day one to cover their note payment. And even then, there’ no guarantee that their non-profit deal will last more than a few years. Funny how anyone in Colorado would not be aware of the 4-park foreclosure on ROC in nearby Canon City. I’m sure those tenants thought it was great that the non-profit was buying their park. Wrong.

A non-profit buying the park is hardly the great solution they pretend it is. In fact, the tenants fare better with a regular owner in both lot rent levels and stability.

EINSTEIN STUPIDITY SCORE: 10

$60,000 each for homes built out of metal storage containers? Did nobody realize that you can buy mobile homes that are three times larger for that same price? WTF.

EINSTEIN STUPIDITY SCORE: 10

Although his rent has increased 20% during his time at the park, he considers himself one of the lucky homeowners. Since 2020, he said, rents for residents newly moved in have risen from $1,250 to $2,050 per month—a nearly 65% increase.

This is the latest craze – mobile home park residents complaining to the media how the rents are too high for new people who have not even moved in yet. This absurd virtue signaling is as dumb as some guy at the hotel front desk complaining that the person in the next room is paying too much because they didn’t use Hotels.com. In the “free market” the whole point is that you have the freedom to do what you want. If someone wants to pay $2,050 per month lot rent to live in this park, then how is it any of this guy’s business? And if the rent is too high, the owner won’t be able to attract tenants and will have to lower it. It’s called the “free market” system and that’s the foundation of capitalism.

What a bunch of lunacy.

EINSTEIN STUPIDITY SCORE: 10

And another park bites the dust.

EINSTEIN STUPIDITY SCORE: 5

And another park bites the dust.

EINSTEIN STUPIDITY SCORE: 5

When will this saga end, and the wrecking ball do its work?

Another park bites the dust … even if it takes years thanks to a very weak judge.

EINSTEIN STUPIDITY SCORE: 10

The rent bump, according to city officials, will go right back to the community.“This would mean lot maintenance, stormwater, water, sewage, everything that you know this mobile home park essentially has to keep up with. That $25 rent increase would be able to provide extra revenue of about $12,000. That is essentially what that will cover,” said Destiny Wiggins, public safety spokesperson for the city of DeLand. 

Hmm. That’s the narrative all park owners use when the rent goes up, but when the “evil landlord” says it the media says it’s a bunch of crap but when a government agency says it it’s suddenly utter genius and there’s zero pushback.

What a bunch of hypocritical nonsense.

EINSTEIN STUPIDITY SCORE: 8

The County gave Sisco four options to become compliant:1) Elevate and repair her home 2) Replace her home with an elevated one 3) Move her home to a location outside of the flood hazard area 4) Move to a new home and remove her damaged home from the property.

When you give someone who has zero money these four options, you are basically telling them to get the heck out of there. This is just another case of a city or county trying to remove all the mobile homes out of their boundary. This is why no new mobile home parks will ever be built in the U.S. : no city or county will ever issue such a permit. They basically just hate all mobile homes and mobile home parks.

If this had been a stick-built home they would have not said a word and let them do whatever they wanted.

EINSTEIN STUPIDITY SCORE: 10

Look, if you pay $300,000 to live in a trailer park in a land where there’s no sunshine for 60 days in the winter and temperatures can get as low as 50 degrees below zero, then maybe your first priority should just be to move?

EINSTEIN STUPIDITY SCORE: 9

Energy Trust, an Oregon-based nonprofit, runs a manufactured home replacement program that provides funding to replace homes built prior to 1995 with new builds. The program provides eligible applicants up to $16,000 to help pay for a new single or double-wide mobile home, and connects them with other agencies that can provide funding to pay for the replacement. Energy Trust also provides a program navigator to help applicants throughout the process.

Yeah, this is the same concept from last week, in which they want to encourage Oregonians to spend $80,000 on a new mobile home, get a $16,000 rebate, and end up with a $64,000 debt load simply to do what you could accomplish by adding a single $500 window air conditioner.

What a bunch of idiots.

EINSTEIN STUPIDITY SCORE: 10

Earlier this year, Friendly Village residents received notice that the park was being sold to Wyoming-based investor Crown Communities, LLC, as part of a $87.5 million portfolio sale that included seven other parks in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York. In May, the park's residents submitted an offer to purchase Friendly Village for $22.25 million, just above the price included for the Gorham property in the proposed portfolio sale agreement with Crown. Dawn Beaulieu, board president of the Friendly Village Cooperative, said the residents learned five weeks later that their initial offer had been rejected.

Oh my gosh this is stupid. Look, the seller got an offer of $87.5 million for 8 parks. To match that you obviously have to pay $87.5 million for 8 parks. There is zero chance the residents are going to be able to match that offer or buy that park by itself.

Who is giving these tenants advice, because it’s obviously not very good?

EINSTEIN STUPIDITY SCORE: 10

Yes, this is the same story as last week in which Maine is now trying to stop rent increases until its rent control law takes effect, since park owners shockingly tried to raise rents before the window is closed forever.

Of course, the next set of articles will be that Maine mobile home parks are all being redeveloped into apartment complexes, which have no rent control.

What a bunch of morons. I’m never buying from L.L. Bean again in protest.

EINSTEIN STUPIDITY SCORE: 10

In doing so they joined a growing movement of mobile home park residents who have formed cooperatives to collectively purchase their parks. In effect, it’s a national effort by working-class families to wrest their fate away from the hyper-commodification of real estate markets, but its tenor runs pragmatic, stoic and understated. Residents talk more about securing low interest rates and stable rents than breaking the shackles of financialized capitalism. Nonetheless, these mobile home residents are organizing a collective exit from the caprices of the speculative real estate economy.

What else would you expect from an on-line news group that have Zohran Mamdani (the socialist candidate for New York Mayor) as their cover photo with a glowing article about how great he is?

“Because rents are rising, and there’s nothing justifying them. And that’s what I’m hearing from folks in other parks too. If landlords want to keep their residents happy, then keep it affordable. Get rid of corporate greed.”

These folks in Maine need to move over to New York City where Mamdani will give them the socialist dream they’ve always craved apparently.

These are the two parks that a non-profit is buying for $42 million, MAYBE. They have promises of contributions from various non-profit groups (yet to be collected). They have a due diligence period which will take 45 days and the non-profit is already floating the concept that the deal could die if anything pops up with the infrastructure or other large cap-x project. Then they have to get the bank to sign off on it all. So really all that’s happened is they got PLEDGES of $20 million. Let’s see if this deal really closes. I’m not holding my breath.

Of course, the park owner is going to tear down the park and put something more profitable on the land if they declare rent control for his park. What idiot would imagine differently? These bureaucrats just don’t understand the concept of private property rights and economics.

“We can’t really, really breathe until that final ‘t’ is crossed and ‘i’ is dotted,” Fitzgerald said, “but we’re in the right direction.”

OK, the tenants have the park under contract. That’s meaningless. There’s nothing to brag about until the deal is closed. The tenants still have to raise the down payment money and find a loan (and a guarantor non-profit for that loan). Let’s see how it all turns out before anyone buys the screw-top champaign at the convenience store.

“If me and my children or my grandchildren are in my house, that tree falls and it kills us. What’s my house insurance got to do with you killing us because you don’t want to do your job because it’s taking money out of your pocket?” Mosley said.

In the photo for this article, it clearly shows a very green and healthy tree above this mobile home. The owner of the park has zero reason to cut it down. Using the old “well, it might fall some day and kill me” argument is as goofy as the park owner using the “a meteor might fall and hit your home some day so you need to move out now” argument. 

I know nothing about this park or town, but I do know there’s this website called Bestplaces.net and it tells me that Taunton, MA has the following housing stats (see for yourself):

• Single-family home average of $443,200
• Average 3-bedroom apartment rent of $2.090 per month

That presents a bit of a logic problem when the AG is furious because lot rents went from $302 to $535 per month. That’s absurdly low. That’s 75% less than apartments. But the AG is focused only on one stat: a 56% jump. Well, here’s a thought: the McChicken sandwich at McDonalds went up 300% -- from $1 to $3 – over the past couple of years. Those capitalist bastards!

Energy Trust, an Oregon-based nonprofit, runs a manufactured home replacement program that provides funding to replace homes built prior to 1995 with new builds. 

The program provides eligible applicants up to $16,000 to help pay for a new single or double-wide mobile home, and connects them with other agencies that can provide funding to pay for the replacement. Energy Trust also provides a program navigator to help applicants throughout the process. 

So let me get this straight. If you have a mobile home built before 1995 this non-profit may give you up to $16,000 towards buying a new mobile home (retail cost $80,000 or so) so you can save $100 a month on your utility bills. Makes sense, right? You spend $64,000 to save $1,200 per year. Brrilliant.

Is that maybe the dumbest concept of 2025? Nah, there’s still 4½ months to go this year.