When it comes to mobile home community living you can expect to receive benefits you won’t find on private land or in other multi-family housing. Let’s go through some basics of mobile home community living.
The Basics of Mobile Home Community Living
Mobile home communities first and foremost rent lots. The homes on the lots within a community can be owned by the community or owned by the resident. The resident could have either purchased a pre-existing home within the community or they may have purchased a home from a dealership or other 3rd party and brought the home into the community to be placed on a vacant lot.
One advantage of mobile home communities is they often offer promotions to customers. Promotions for renters can include reduced rent for a period of time, lower than usual security deposits, and free applications. For customers interested in bringing their own home into a community, many communities offer to pay for some {or all} of the transportation costs to move the home into the community – that’s a huge savings!
Perks of Renting
If you aren’t quite ready to dive into homeownership, renting in a mobile home community does have its’ advantages. One advantage is the professional on-site management and maintenance teams that are there to address any issues that arise. Leaking sink? Don’t worry about it! Call the community office, they’ll get a work order started and maintenance will be out to fix it for you.
You may be thinking this advantage is something you get when renting an apartment, you’d be right; but, keep in mind when you are renting in a mobile home community you get this advantage, PLUS you are in your own single-family home and you do not have to share you walls with your neighbors!
If renting is something you want to leave in the past and you are ready to own your own home, a mobile home community still has great things to offer. Many mobile home communities offer programs that make homeownership a possibility for everyone, even those with poor credit and little savings for a down payment. A common program offered is Rent-To-Own; essentially, you are just paying rent each month, BUT that rent money is going toward paying off the house. If a community doesn’t offer a standard Rent-to-Own program, they likely offer something similar or maybe something even better!
Related: Advantages and Disadvantages of Mobile Home Parks
Community Amenities
With most mobile home communities you can expect to receive the added value of amenities. Amenities are an extra convenience for residents; you can forget about public pools when your community has a private pool for residents! Basic amenities can include: swimming pools, clubhouses, and playgrounds. Some communities will offer more elaborate amenities such as splash parks, Wi-Fi centers, and Frisbee golf courses.
Resident Relations
In a mobile home community, you can expect to form a relationship with not only the community staff, but also with your fellow community members. An amazing thing happens when a group of people come together with the same goal; the goal to make their community a beautiful place they can all be proud to call home.
Most mobile home communities host several resident events throughout the year to give back to the residents, help build strong relationships with the residents, and of course just to keep things FUN!
Community Guidelines
Mobile home communities differ from private land in that the lot, or land, is leased to resident, but owned by the community. Because the lot is leased, the community will have a set of guidelines that a resident must read and agree to follow for as long as they live within the community. Guidelines can include items such as: maintain the yard so the grass is an appropriate length, pet policies, parking instructions, and things of that nature. The purpose of community guidelines is to protect the property and to ensure that all residents are living in a community they are proud to call home.
Mobile home communities are a unique multi-family housing option. They offer residents an affordable place to call home, while providing residents with their own, single-family home and no shared walls with their neighbors. Mobile home communities also provide residents their own piece of land where they can plant a garden, play a game of catch with their children, or sit on their front porch and watch the sunset.
Mobile home communities won’t be a fit for everyone, but for many they are a great place to get a head start on life.
About YES! Communities
YES! Communities own and operate 178 mobile home communities across 17 states with the mission to manage communities that are customer-driven, innovative and places where the residents are truly hearing YES! to building a community all their own. This mission manifested into a company that provides customers with an affordable place to live and a culture that continues to say YES!
Note: We’re connecting to mobile home communities to help us learn more about park living. This article was written by the Yes! Communities marketing department. We’ve received no money and have no opinion or personal knowledge of this company.
Thanks so much for reading Mobile Home Living!
Hi Nick,
That image is from the US Congressional archives (I’m pretty sure) and I tried to find it again but wasn’t able to find it (there are hundreds, maybe thousands of mobile home park images in the archive).
That curvature park design was a classic Clarence Perry or George Muramoto design. He created some of the most gorgeous and well-functioning parks in the nation. His parks had everything a gated community would have like street signs and lamp posts, (he designed in the early 1950’s so that was unique at the time).
Thanks for reading and commenting!
Hi!
Where is the community in the picture at the head of the article? It is gorgeous!!!
Nick
Hi Bonnie,
Your mobile home’s walls are made out of the exact same materials as a site-built home. Just find your studs, you’ll want to use screws in 2 different studs to distribute that weight properly and then use wire across the screws (you’re studs are probably about 24″ apart). If you knock on your walls you’ll be able to tell the difference between the paneling without a stud behind and a place with the stud behind it.
With that weight, I wouldn’t recommend any of the picture hanging products. They seem to always fail eventually but screws in studs are holding up your cabinets in your kitchen. If it can do that, it can hold a 100 lb mirror.
Best of luck!
I just moved into my Moble home in California. I have always owned a home but when my husband died recently I decided the pros to moving to a MH Community far out weited the commitment to owing a house. Living on my own has been an adjustment. In particular I have to be my own handyman. I have a question. I want to hang a large mirror that weighs about 100lbs I have heard that the walls are not as strong as a conventional house. Do you have any idea how do go about this project. Of course I will not do it myself but I want to know is their any particular hardware to use. Do you have any advice for me.
Bonnie