As I’m working out the details of a contract for a park in Massachusetts, I’m learning a lot about the local and state laws.
According to the Attorney General’s Guide to Manufactured Housing Community Law (I didn’t even read the whole guide yet!),
All owners names/addresses need to be given to all tenants of the park, even if you’re a corporation.
Owners must provide a 5 year lease option to all tenants, whether new or existing (upon renewal).
Owners must submit changes to Rules in the Park to the AGO and Dept. of Housing and Comm. Development.
Owners can ONLY bill back for individually sub-metered utilities.
The town I’m looking into buying in also has RENT CONTROL!
Looking into the laws specific to this town, I found these strange things:
Owners need to request any rent raises to the AGO and the local rent control board for approval.
Approval is based on several factors, one being CPI in some fashion (unclear about actual application or which portion of CPI they look at).
GET THIS - Tenants can also petition to lower the rents by going through the same process. The local rent control team will look at the income/expenses of the park and determine whether or not you need to lower the rents based on the NOI of the park. During this process they will scrutinize the spending of the owners as well.
Is anyone operating a park successfully in Massachusetts?
As you sure you are not talking about China or Russia?? When business are over regulated guess what happens or maybe you like to be a book keeper owner for the government. I had a transporter indicate yesterday our state regulatory office was looking into regulations for extra storm water from mobile homes covering up permeable soil. The state would have new licensed people check the location for the MH and asses fees and restrictions to protect the watershed before a home could be replaced or for a new site. When we operate our properties but the government controls it–it is called fascism. We need as citizens be aware of how we are losing our once great country to big government and also big business. Mr. Buffett with his lobbyist are pushing more and more mandates for park owners as he sits back and changes outrageous interest rates for Clayton homes… Like I have said he smiles when he see park owners–remember he controls 75% ?? of the new MH’s being built along with numerous other companies he has bought out and brags his secretaries pay a higher tax rate than he does. Mr. Buffett did not get into the MH business to help it–just another way to be greedy. When he offers 4% or less interest rates I will reconsider the word greed.
I consider myself to be a greedy investor as my goal is to achieve the highest
possible return for my business. I think Mr. Buffett and I have similar business attitudes
in that I don’t do favours for others that would come out of my profits or invest where my
profits would be unduly restricted. In that respect Massachusetts sounds like a State I
would avoid voluntarily invest in although reality is often different than perception.
I do invest in a government restricted area, due to my desire to self manage, and accept that
it is in conflict with my personal desire to be a greedy investor.
One can not have it both ways, you can not be opposed to greedy business and oppose government restrictions as they tend to balance each other.
Vermont requires rent increases to be approved. It has backfired. They have the highest lot rental rates in the region. This is because approvals are always granted if they are in line with the consumer price index or such. In other states, many park owners don’t increase rent annually and rents rates fall behind. In Vermont rates go up whether the park needs it or not… There is also less competition. One park owner said they like automatic increases they can blame on the government.
Massachusetts sounds scary. I would talk to some park owners. May be ways to work within the system.
