Placing Moratorium on changing a parks use

Looks like with all the talk about park rent raises, here is an area that has wised up, see the value of what parks do ( around seattle). Says avg house cost 600k

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/eastside/in-kenmore-city-officials-take-rare-action-to-save-mobile-home-parks/?amp=1

Senior Planner of the city quotes:

“It’s a unique housing situation,” Anderson said. “It’s unsubsidized, single-family housing. If you’re addressing affordable housing, that’s a good place to start.”

With all the muck that has been getting thrown on lately… an area like Seattle will see the true harm of displacing of residents like the parks that HAVE been getting shut down.

Its happening all the time,

Mobile home park in The Woodlands to share space with Wal-Mart, luxury apartments Thats from a few years ago but part of a park got eaten up from a walmart.

This seems to be part of the counter argument of preserving affordable housing. You can calculate, if the land was 600 rents- 700 rents. Would the deal still have made sense.

Yes there is the issue of rent raises, the human component as well. But we have affordable housing in theory , where it exists, but then you have in practicality, some spots are too low and thus the value is a riper target , or more probable for re development.

If someone combed through the news articles , there are lots of these stories , but then what, you put together and article and its maybe not news worthy due to lack of sensationalism.

And there are good things that happen, operators have taken crap properties and made them nice to keep cities happy. But these seldom make mainstream news. I know at least i feel as i have a favorable relationship with with cities im in , they have been happy to see improvements etc. So there is def a disconnect with public perception and what is happening. Many people get that.

So what is the way to counteract this?

Is it worthwhile to enlist a journalist like the one who stayed in Franks park who might be open to documenting the flip side of the equation?

Or put together a package of what things look like before, what they look like after? resident testimonials?.

Some type of collective lobby so people know there is good here as well…

I agree. I’ve been trying to get more journalists at least educated on the industry – but the problem is that their audience wants the narrative that it’s all about “evil landlords beating up on the poor” and they’re not going to stray from what their customers want. Case in point was my experience with National Geographic. We were supposed to tour a selection of parks we own around St. Louis that range from $5,000 homes to $40,000 homes. After going to all the properties, they cut out everything but the $5,000 homes park from the 1950s with tiny lots. They weren’t interested in the actual industry or the nice properties out there, all they were looking for was a backdrop for their pre-written story on the fact that mobile home parks are all about taking advantage of the poor. Even then, they cut out anything that showed how happy the residents are. During filming a guy walked in on us in the home we were filming in and asked if it was for sale. I said “sure, you can have it for $500”. They guy was elated and told everyone how hard it was to find anything affordable and that this was going to change his family’s life. Of course, they cut that segment out. I could have added my own segment to the show since one of the producers called me after filming and wanted to find out how to buy a mobile home park of their own. Hypocritical enough?

The bottom line is that you’re not going to able to get journalists to tell the honest truth about what a great product we have until the American public is willing to accept the fact that it’s not about the “rich vs. poor” narrative. And I have no idea when that will ever occur in our highly polarized society at the moment.

HUD’s Ben Carson must be driving the media nuts since he tells everyone how great the mobile home industry is at every speech. Have you seen even one mainstream journalist mention any of his enthusiasm for the mobile home product? This whole situation is pathetic.

So how did Gary Rivlin have the guts to write the New York Times article about how great mobile home parks were? Or the reporter from Time magazine that did the same a couple years ago? Because there are still a few journalists out there that believe their role is to tell the truth, and not just cater to what the audience wants to hear.

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I might take this down but in the mean time here is a PDF ( i think you can download) i cant link it since its a paid for article but wanted to share when the news reached out to me last year (locally). But they were interested in when i subdivided the SFH from the park, i kept trying to tell him the real story was in the park getting getting fixed up, turning a corner, and becoming a great place to live adding affordable housing units to a city with 1155 dollar 2 bed apartment rents. Where people would be on a path to homeownership with the mobile homes. But that wasn’t really mentioned. Ironically after this , we even had a customer who saw this and brought in a new home because they said it looked like it was a place they wanted to live. Day 1 on this park , the lot rent went from 200 to 325. The existing tenants did told me how terrible it was there (along with the police…) , theft , runaway kids being harbored, stabbings. Its a very nice place to live now, there was a lot of meaning in doing something like this ( and heartache,) . The city even allowed us to add a couple spaces, everyone at the council meeting had seen the park being transformed and always received positive feedback. And when members of the city now say, you should buy this park , or that park… Its very nice to hear that.

Santa Fe council vote allows potential mobile park home sales | News | The Daily News copy.pdf (57.1 KB)

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That’s a great story and I agree it’s unfair that the media never gives park owners any respect. Our whole industry is like Rodney Dangerfield. That’s why park owners need to stick together because 99% of Americans don’t have a clue what we do or the great product we provide.

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Another city Aracta CA places ban on mobile home park closures, conversions

Highlights:

The ordinance will go into effect immediately and last 45 days. If necessary, the ordinance can be extended for an additional 22 months and 15 days with the approval of four city council members.

David Loya, the city’s director of community development, said the urgency ordinance was to prevent any conversions or closures of mobile home parks before a more comprehensive set of ordinances regulating their conversion and closure was developed.

“Mobile home parks represent the most affordable option for people who want to own their home to be able to live in the city of Arcata,” Loya said.“Mobile home parks represent the most affordable option for people who want to own their home to be able to live in the city of Arcata,” Loya said.

Another Oregon park that is potentially going for a zoning change for redevelopment:

https://www.kezi.com/content/news/Springfield-mobile-home-park-residents-share-concerns-about-possible-rezoning-509243181.html

It would be interesting to know what the lot rents of this park are and what they compare to on market rate to see what kind of potential below market value the parcel has … Is anyone familiar with this market and or specific park?

100 lot park Clearwater FL cleaning out.

This one is a bit different, they are siting the reason for shutdown as judge ordered. Either WWTP or water issues. While I don’t know anything more than a few articles , or if this is just the scape goat for operator to get it closed . It would be interesting to know the rents, how they compare to the rest of the surrounding parks. Seems like if it was fixable this market would make sense to re invest into a new WWTP assuming it was that simple.

@CharlesD , are you by chance familiar at all with this park and how the rents compared to the surrounding market?

Market rent in Springfield should be $450 to $550.

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If I understand correctly, in some blue states, they want it so you can’t close the park, you can’t raise the rents, you can’t evict sooner than 6 months. It sounds like they want to keep mobile home park operators as hostages.

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@Deleted_User_ME, it’s great that you keep a list of these stories. We all need a go-to list of the best stories about MHP encouragement and civic leadership and engagement on “affordable” housing.

Competition will arise if and when the politicians come to their senses about the win-win value proposition of MH. Where are more news clips about cities that have said, “YES!” to MHP?

I made an offer today on a vacant parcel of land I hope to develop into a MHP. I hope the City is on board…maybe I can show them some of these news articles to help persuade the new mayor…

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I have no idea. We never spent much time pursuing the Florida parks due to receiving some early incorrect advice and making the mistake of following it. By the time we changed direction on that, the big boys had bought up most of the remaining deals in the Tampa market. What was left was priced just out of reach of our cost of capital.

Market rents around here are $600-$700. The person featured in the article isn’t shopping too hard because I lived in a pretty decent 2BR in Dunedin for $1,000/mo before I got married. I would agree that market is probably $1,500 for a 2BR but to say you can’t find anything cheaper is an indication of laziness. There is plenty of decent 2BR housing stock under that price point in Clearwater. There’s some that is walking distance to that very park along the bus line.

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May I ask what the incorrect advice was out of curiosity?

Answering that is pointless. At least that person was following their own advice so I wouldn’t fault them for it. The sales data shows that it was pretty wrong though and it’s the reason I’m not as familiar with the market in question to the person who asked. Despite living in that market.

Pointless? I’d argue a main reason this forum exists is to help people learn from the mistakes of others…

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The advice was that the hurricane risk in Florida made Florida parks undesirable simply because hurricanes happen frequently and do more damage than tornados. Both true statements but not at all a valid reason to eliminate investment into park in FL.

Sorry if I created confusion. I think Charles was in that general area and by chance knew of this specific property and if it was below mkt rents. It looks like the owner has several parks so maybe there is more to the story, maybe not.

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Not sure if this will show up but it’s about people resorting to anchoring boats just off the coast of San Fracisco as a solution to not having any affordable housing. Some of the people featured are working full time.

Good share, thank you

The link didn’t work with out signing into apple news. Here is the direct link , requires WSJ subscription :

Similar Article if no subscription on this :

https://www.dailywire.com/news/47320/san-franciscos-homeless-are-running-out-room-so-emily-zanotti

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This one is kind of interesting… School looking for land, im not sure if this is a case of Eminent Domain or not. Ashland ( looks like Omaha , NE ) area? Smaller park they said 32 families. But sounds like a possible closure at some point… El Rancho MHC

Article in Huffington Post references Frank / MHU