Esther Sullivan, the author of Manufactured Insecurity, calls tenants of mobile home parks ‘halfway homeowners’ and unfortunately she’s not wrong. Mobile homeowners living in their own home but renting the land under it are the least protected housing group in America. They can be precariously close to losing their homes, even with it being paid off, at any time.
We need to change that. We need to do something about these mobile home park injustices.
Parks can be a great place to live but park owners can also increase rent on you without much notice and even close with little notice, forcing you to have to move your home in just a few days.
The state of Louisiana only requires park owners to give tenants on a month-to-month lease a 10-day notice of park closure. Can you come up with $10,000 and a place to put your home in 10 days? Most can’t which means they either sell their home at a loss or they legally abandon it, giving the home to the park to sell at a profit.
Park closures are even more of a fiasco if your mobile home is older. For example, let’s say your mobile home has been in the same park for 30 years. You receive a letter from the park that they will close in 60 days (the average time frame most states give park owners).
You start calling around and find another park that will take your home half an hour away. If you max out all your credit cards and get a small personal loan from your bank you may have just enough to get your home transported and set up in the new park. You start calling movers and one finally comes out to inspect the home but they tell you the home is too old and non-transportable. The 30-year-old mobile home could lose structural integrity or worse, collapse if you try to move it. You call another mover and hear the exact same thing.
What do you do next?
At this point, since you can’t move your home of 30 years you can’t sell it to anyone. That means your only choice is to abandon the home to the park and hope the little money you have saved and whatever the park may offer for relocation will be enough to find another home somewhere.
One park in Florida….
A Florida mobile home park proves just how low park owners are willing to go to make a dollar during park closures. The manager knew long before the elderly tenants that the park was closing and secretly paid off the movers and transporters in the area to tell the tenants that their homes were too old to move. With no other options, several tenants surrendered their homes to the park. Of course, the manager acted like it was a huge inconvenience and was going to be expensive to demolish the homes and haul them away.
But there was no demolition. The manager sold the vintage mobile homes for a couple thousand each to a used mobile home dealer. The dealer placed the homes in a park an hour away and sold them on a rent-to-own contract to families desperate for housing and willing to pay extremely high interest for a chance to be halfway homeowners themselves. One of the guys that surrendered his home to the park has been homeless and sleeping on the streets.
Mobile Homes provide the largest source of unsubsidized affordable housing in the United States (CFED 2016). The ubiquity of the mobile home park in American landscape and the insecurity of life for residents living there begs a fundamental questions: How have we allowed one of the country’s largest sources for affordable housing to also be one of the most risky? – Esther Sullivan, Manufactured Insecurity
Our article about lot rents across America (read the comments below the article too) taught us that our readers are experiencing substantial lot rent increases year after year while losing amenities.
In the last 3 months alone two of our readers have been forced out of their parks. One because the rent increased 40% as soon as new owners bought it and the other because the park was sold for redevelopment.
40% Rent Increase: Steven’s Story
Rumors that the park owners were selling the park started months beforehand.
Steven moved his 1993 model single wide into a large park in the heart of a bustling North Carolina town over 22 years ago. This park has at least 150-foot lots and neatly-kept homes that all face the road. Rent had raised a bit every few years and by January 2018 he was paying $370 a month, a high rate for the area since there were no playgrounds or pools or clubhouses. He kept looking at the bright side: it was a quiet park in a great location.
A few weeks after the rumors first started the current park owners sent out letters. Dated March 4, the letter promised that no rents would be raised until January 1, 2020, and went on to promise that when the rent did increase in January it would just be a few dollars.
54 days later, Steven received another notice from the new park owners. In 30 days, lot rent would be raised to $570 per month. That’s a $200 a month increase in less than 3 months.
Fortunately, Steven has bought another pre-owned single wide and moved it to a new park and will be selling the home in the old park.
There had been no offer for the tenants to pull together and buy the park as many believe should happen before any mobile home park is sold. Only 19 states have laws that incentivize park owners to offer the residents first dibs on parks.
We have a reader in her ’80s that has seen her lot rents go from $450 a month to over $1100 in 7 short years. The park’s pool was closed two summers ago. No new amenities have been added and the park has gotten run down by poor management.
I could go on and on about families that have been victimized by parks. It’s time to stop these stories. We have to do something about these mobile home park injustices.
Most of us live in mobile homes because we are priced out of the stick-built home market. We could afford a mobile home but not land and I suppose that does make us halfway homeowners.
Related: Read the Manufactured-Housing Consumer Finance in the United States report here.
I would say that we need some kind of help before this situation gets totally out of control but it’s already been out of control for years.
How did we allow parks to have so little oversight and regulations? How did we let others have so much power over our homes?
We’ve let the most affordable and attainable housing options in the country become an unstable wreck for working families and we need to fix it.
Poverty is Big Business
Private equity firms are buying up parks at a rate never seen before and there’s a reason for this: poverty is big business and mobile home parks are big profit.
Mobile home parks are profitable because there are so many families struggling while income inequality and debt ratios are at their highest in history. There will always be a waiting list for tenants in a park because buying a used mobile home is far easier than buying a site-built home.
Families that have owned their parks for decades are retiring and selling. Private equity firms are buying them up and almost instantly increasing rent, some even double the rent and there isn’t a lot the tenants can do.
More than 20% of Americans make less than $20,000 a year which means 20% of Americans do not have significant savings if any at all. Esther Sullivan says it best, “In times of heightened income equality and shrinking social supports, poverty is touted as an ever-growing asset class and entire industries have arisen to capitalize on a growing population of low-income residents.”
So what can a tenant do when a new park owner suddenly doubles the rent? Nothing. Their choices are either to pay the rent or move out and most don’t have the money or the means to do that.
In times of heightened income equality and shrinking social supports, poverty is touted as an ever-growing asset class and entire industries have arisen to capitalize on a growing population of low-income residents.”
-Esther Sullivan
We Must Rise Together
Even with 17 million people living in mobile and manufactured homes in the US, we aren’t organized enough to protect ourselves. We need to change that.
Unfortunately, mobile homeowners are a fringe group and we haven’t effectively organized on a national level. If we can do that, we may be able to salvage what’s left of our parks.
We Need to….
To stop these unfair park practices we need to do three things: change ourselves, get out lawmakers on our side, and get the industry to realize there is a problem and actually help us for a change.
Changing Ourselves
First, we need to change ourselves. We are so used to being treated like trash and second-class citizens that we rarely blink an eye when we hear about these unfair park practices.
There are many state associations for mobile homeowners and even a couple of national associations but perhaps we need to look into organizing on a more national level. We need to stop sitting down. We must stand up and be heard and the only way to do that is to pull together.
Get Lawmakers on Our Side
It’s apparent that our local politicians are failing us and they have been for decades but if we can start rallying together to get our lawmakers to protect us we have a chance to change things.
Mobile homeowners are known for not paying their ‘fair share’ of property taxes which means our lawmakers aren’t paying attention to us. If we pull together and use collected funds to hire lobbyists like the park owners do maybe we can even the playing field a bit.
Related: Read PRIVATE EQUITY GIANTS CONVERGE ON MANUFACTURED HOMES here.
Get the Industry to Help Us
The manufactured housing industry has failed us most of all. MHI is a large lobbying group that represents builders and dealers across the nation. They are supposed to be advocates of everything encompassing manufactured housing and have an annual budget of millions of dollars and direct connections with HUD and other housing agencies. Yet, you’ll rarely hear about them doing anything to help the people that buy their products.
Their current focus is on Dodd-Frank financing restrictions on manufactured homes. Honestly, I’m not knowledgeable enough to have an opinion on that but I think if MHI (or just the builders and dealers) would turn a bit of their attention to the injustices that are happening in the parks they could redeem their poor reputations and that could be a big win for them and us. Let’s be honest, the industry isn’t known to support the people that buy their product.
Whatever It Takes, We Need to Stop These Mobile Home Park Injustices
These mobile home park injustices have to stop and the only way we can do it is by rising up as one and demanding better protections from our lawmakers and get help from the industry.
I don’t have answers to any of this. Heck, I just found out there was a national mobile homeowners association (but perhaps that says more about them than it does me since I’ve been blogging about mobile homes for over 8 years).
Don’t get me wrong, I believe all businesses should be free to make a profit but I also understand that affordable housing is disappearing in this nation and something needs to be done. There has to be a happy medium.
It won’t be easy…..
Do you know of a good mobile home association or have an idea to help us? I’d love to hear from you!
As always, thank you for reading Mobile Home Living!
New owners in January deleted our original lease agreement. It was for 4 years w/option to purchase. They put us onto their new lease agreement & we never signed it. They harassed us, threatened us, tried to intimidate us, stole our money, stole our home or as the VP of operations called it, HER “asset.” Our original lease is final October 31, 2022 here we are RE-buying our trailer we already paid $12,000 for, for another $8,000 and another 4 year lease! This is not what we signed up for! Raised lot rent in April after trash & insurance lapses for almost 4 months while bags of trash sat in my kitchen for almost 8 weeks of no trash service! I’m a paid caretaker through my husband because he is disabled! I can’t have 8 bags of trash sitting in my kitchen! Nobody will help us fix it We are going to lose our only place to live & we won’t find anything else either. Disabled husband, 2 large old dogs, a cat. We remodeled the bathroom ~ $14,000 put a new new furnace in last October ~ $6,000 redone all the floors ~ $4,000 and the real kicker is we get evicted, or we walk away, we’re still getting sued for damages and everything else they possibly can sue us for ? and we did nothing wrong and complied with everything except sign their stupid new lease agreement! They should honor ours, the one they purchased and hopefully with a letter to the owner or manager it will be fixed. If not I’ll be living in our SUV while the state puts him into a nursing home & I lose my husband. These people cancelled our rent reporting so they even screwed up our chance at getting credit fixed to be able to purchase a home! It’s just unbelievable still in 2022 how they just completely ruins whole families lives without batting an eye. These people are destroying America and the government is behind it all!
“Don’t get me wrong, I believe all businesses should be able to make a profit … ” – Housing is a human right! Why does their profit have to be on the back of the poor!
Just a question .. if you pay your rent and clearly write on payment that funds are for lot rent, can landlord apply your rent funds to such things as unpaid grass maintence or late fee or sewer fee?
Hi BJ,
I think it all depends on the state you live in. However, I think I read that in most states the memo line of a check is not considered to be binding. I’m not sure where I read that though. Google your state and then “check memo line” and see what comes up. There’s bound to be some useful information. Best of luck!
This was a great editorial. My husband and I have been aware of the problem for many years. Back in the 80s, there was a park a few miles from where we lived. The town was going upscale (and ended up very, very upscale) and wanted the park gone. They illegally turned off the electricity to the park and locked the box. The tenants had to move immediately. And as I’ve always said, people don’t live in mobile home parks because they have thousands of dollars in the bank in case of eviction. They live there because it’s the most affordable housing, as it was been with us. That park owner sued the city and won a several million dollar settlement (judgment?) but the damage was done to the tenants. The city felt like the payout was worth it to get the park eliminated and now the whole area is full of houses that are $300,000+. I felt so badly for the tenants.
Thank you, Carla. I’m so tired of reading article after article of parks tenants being victimized. I have noticed that an awful lot of court cases are being sided with the tenants so that tells you there are a lot of injustices happening. Unfortunately, not every park is able to find an attorney to help.
Thank you so much for reading and commenting!
Hey Crystal, I so hear you! I live in a state-owned park in VT and we just love it, but in the back of my mind is always the worry that the state will sell the land out from under us. We put a new home in here 3 years ago, and the state made us pay for a super-built, reinforced pad to the tune of $15000 just for the pad. We are paying down a 15 year mortgage, but still owe $74000 on it. Seriously, we would have to walk away, as the home is large, very heavy (all drywall) and couldn’t be moved easily. And where would we go, anyway, since this is happening all over? One park in Shelburne, VT became a co-op, which is a good idea, if people can jump through all the hoops. What I find worrisome as well is the increasing focus by politicians on policies that would price potential co-op groups out of the market due to increased laws around septic systems and water useage. VT is getting very ridiculous in that area. I wish I had a great idea that would help everyone; it doesn’t even help for me to contact my legislators, as they are all wealthy people who are focused on making people move into the urban areas and ride bicycles everywhere, all the time. They don’t care one bit about struggling rural Vermonters. If you do think of something and need someone to help, I’d like to try. Thanks for bringing this to everyone’s attention.
Hi Devon,
All I can think to do is get some kind of national movement started and get the lawmaker’s attention. Hopefully, the state associations can help too.