Who is Buying Mobile Homes & Evicting Residents?

Photo Credit: Roger Starnes Sr.

With help from the U.S. government, investment firms are buying mobile home parks at an alarming rate. They often raise rents on the home or increase the cost of the land on which the home is located. People who cannot afford the new fees are evicted and may not have other affordable options. Housing advocates are deeply concerned about this trend. How can we spread the word?

This impacts rural communities the most.
In the U.S., about twenty million people live in manufactured housing. These kinds of houses are more widely known as "mobile homes" because the majority of the structure is built off-site and delivered in one piece. This type of housing is the most abundant in rural parts of the country. For those who own manufactured homes, Fannie Mae estimates that their median annual household income is about $35,000, which is half of the median annual income of other types of homeowners. In 2021, Esther Sullivan, a sociologist at the University of Colorado, told The New Yorker that manufactured homes are "unbelievably important" because there is now less federal support for affordable housing options. The National Low Income Housing Coalition found that in every state, people who work full-time and earn the minimum wage are unable to afford a one-bedroom apartment at the market rate.

Why investors are buying mobile home parks.
According to The New Yorker, large-scale investment firms like the Carlyle Group and Blackstone Group view mobile home parks as a reliable source of passive income because the structures require little maintenance. A Blackstone spokesperson told The New Yorker, “We take great pride in operating our communities at the highest standard" and provide “hardship programs to support residents through challenging times.” Through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both U.S. government entities, some investment firms can receive subsidized loans with low-interest rates when making these purchases. While housing advocates find this practice to be dubious at best, it is completely legal.

Lawmakers can help residents.
To combat higher rents and potential evictions, mobile home residents are now trying to work together to own their parks and turn them into co-ops. National Public Radio (NPR) reported on a story from Massachusetts, which has a state law in place to give manufactured home residents the first right of refusal when their park is targeted for sale. With help from the nonprofit ROC USA, which stands for Resident Owned Communities, the Brookside Village mobile home park in Plainville, Massachusetts became a co-op. The process was challenging and expensive. Residents had to match the investor's offer of $4 million, which was a tough ask for senior residents on fixed incomes. They had to agree to increase their rent so that together they could pay back the loan needed to buy the park. Andy Danforth of ROC USA expressed his frustration with the process to NPR, saying, "I've done over 50 [co-op] conversions, over a quarter-billion dollars, and not a cent of it [was backed by] Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac."

Spread the word about residents' options. ROC USA "helps resident groups in for-sale communities come together and purchase their neighborhoods." They manage the "Ownership Matters" podcast and create videos explaining the difference between "ROCs" and investor-owned communities. Learn more about how co-op transformations have helped communities across the country and add this to your list of concerns to raise during local and national elections. The law in Massachusetts helped Brookside Village, and we can advocate for similar laws to be enacted around the country.