Posted on 03/27/2022 4:04:15 PM PDT by Theoria
Across the country, corporate landlords are expanding manufactured housing portfolios and driving up rents, pushing longtime residents out.
GOLDEN, Colo. — When Sarah Clement moved to the Golden Hills mobile home park two years ago, she felt like she had won the lottery. After years of squeezing into one-bedroom apartments with her, her 7-year-old son finally settled into his own bedroom, his toys splayed out in the yard and his school just at the edge of the park.
Ms. Clement loved the friendliness of her neighbors and getting to watch the sun rise over the scrubby mesa to her east and set behind the foothills of the Rocky Mountains to the west. And living there was affordable on her salary as an athletic trainer: After purchasing the manufactured home, the rent for the plot it sits on was just $625 a month.
But just six months after she moved in, the plot of land and all of the stability and comfort that came with it seemed suddenly ripped out from under her.
The Colorado couple that owned the park for years had put it up for sale. Ms. Clement and her neighbors knew that if the park was taken over by one of the big manufactured-housing operators who were buying up parks all over the state, the rents would dramatically increase.
“It was like this deflated feeling of, oh my god, I thought we had it — I thought this was where our roots were going to be,” Ms. Clement said.
Across the country, manufactured-housing park residents like Ms. Clement are finding their homes at the center of a bull’s-eye, as a deluge of investment companies expand their mobile-home park portfolios at a breakneck pace, threatening the stability of one of the nation’s few remaining sources of affordable housing.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“I thought this was where our roots were going to be,” Ms. Clement said.”
On rented property? Ms. Clement is stupid.
L
But, but, but, just last week they were trailer trash and deplorable(s)
As usual it’s the Precariat class that takes the hit.
There’s nothing new about this, MH parks have long been seen as desirable cashflow investments under the right conditions (of which there are several, even many).
“Investors”
At that development, rents for 1-bedroom mobile home start at $2400/month.
I wish someone would buy the one near us on East Baseline in Phoenix South Mountain and jack up the rents, it seems to be a source of crime and troublemakers.
Roger Miller comes to mind 🎶
😂
Poorer people gotta live too. She was trying to have a life for herself and her child.
Knew a guy who owned a mobile home park and eventually sold it out of frustration. He told me, “Never buy an asset where you have to collect rent weekly”.
“They wanted a uniform-looking, appearing, park,” said Cynthia Ceelen a 23-year resident. “That was their end goal, so that in three to five years they could resell.”
Tenants want the cheap rent and not pay for improvements?
Agreed. The article is moronic.
This woman’s troubles started with her choice of fathers.
Mobile Home Parks tend to get a bad rap but many of them are actually decent places for older folks to live or younger folks just starting out. There are some bad ones and you can tell just by driving through the place. The better ones will have clean and uncluttered yards with lots of gardens and people will have chairs and benches set up outside.
“Poorer people gotta live too.”
I’m not disputing that.
“She was trying to have a life for herself and her child.”
Agreed. She just went about it in the wrong way given her stated goal. Then she stands there all surprised when it didn’t work.
L
NEVER go to a park where you have to pay lot rent but own the MH. Unless the park already owns it.
The problem is that for hundreds of years real estate was a local business.
Now it is New York money buying up rental property across the USA. That rent will flow to New York and not stay in the local economy.
The red states are becoming colonies of the coastal cities with every industry based in blue states being funded by the heartland.
Engine Engine #9
coming down the railroad line....
When I read these stories I have to ask, where’s the dad? And if she had gone to a decent church in her younger days, she probably wouldn’t be where she is today. Im probably 99% accurate in the why.
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