Investors are pouring billions into US mobile home communities — but residents are feeling trapped by rising rents

The people who are buying up mobile home parks and raising the rents more than inflation, are shameless parasites. They didn't plan or organize the building of the communities.

https://news.yahoo.com/investors-pouring-billions-us-mobile-140400254.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/mobile-home-community-owners-private-equity-investment-2020-2?utm_source=yahoo.com&utm_medium=referral

Sara Silverstein
,Business Insider•February 15, 2020

Private equity firms have invested billions of dollars in US mobile home communities in recent years.

In these communities, residents own their homes but rent the land beneath it, leaving them little power to fight rent increases and poor maintenance.

In one Florida community, residents are considering legal action as conditions deteriorate and evictions increase.

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That's because although she owns the broken floor and torn-up bathroom, the land beneath her house belongs to the owners of her mobile home park, Colony Cove, on Florida's Gulf Coast.

"They'll sue me for the rent until it's demolished," Dahlquist told Business Insider, adding that demolition costs "between $3,000 and $6,000."

Over the past decade, private equity investors have been buying up communities like Colony Cove and turning huge profits, thanks in part to government-backed loans originally meant to help people like Dahlquist.

But while investors have seen profits expand, many of the 22 million Americans living in mobile homes feel they've been left behind.

"The landlords take the benefits of the cheaper financing, put it in their pocket, make more investments, give it to their investors," Patrick Rucker, a correspondent for the research firm The Capitol Forum, told Business Insider.

"But for people on the ground in these aging mobile homes, things have gotten worse."

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if the parking garage you are in starts to fall apart or the fee goes up, you can simply drive to a different garage and find a better spot.

That's not the case for mobile home owners, however. Despite their names, mobile homes are actually difficult to move for most people. Most homes are built in a factory and wheeled to the home site, and after the initial placement, moving the home can be costly.

So if the land rent rises, owners are faced with paying the higher rent or potentially abandoning their homes.
[Most mobile home parks will not accept homes older homes.]

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