Mobile Homes in Colorado (Denver, Boulder: real estate, apartment, leasing)

[Vision67]

https://coloradosun.com/parked/

"The Colorado Sun assembled a coalition of more than a dozen Colorado newsrooms — newspapers, public radio, TV and digital — to produce a collaborative project that would have been unthinkable in the old days of cutthroat competition. Journalists fanned out across the state to look at what for many is the last form of affordable housing: mobile homes."

[otowi]

While they tend to be terrible in the return-on-your-investment sense, they are the only way many people can afford housing, depending on the lot fees going nuts these days.

If you haven't been in a mobile home park lately, consider it. My parents' first home when they married in the late 60s was a mobile home. For many decades, my dad's parents and brother lived in mobile/manufactured housing in New Mexico and Alabama. I used to deliver Avon to a lady who lived in a mobile home park behind the Albertacos. She was elderly and pretty immobile and ordered things just to have someone visit her and chat. On the Christmas bird count, I sometimes cover an area that includes a mobile home park west of highway 115 south of the Cheyenne Mountain State Park - that park is very busy and active with tons of children running around the streets - a mix of migrants/immigrants, young people trying to be independent, and old-timers who always look thoroughly disgruntled at any face they don't recognize. I did home-visits for a student at a park up on the north end of town that was pretty quiet but had a lot of families from our school. Had a friend that lived in a park up in Monument.

Didn't I just read about some part of town being approved for tiny homes, to mixed reviews?

[StealthRabbit]

Glad to see there are (2) recent ROC's (Resident owned communities) in CO.
This 'helps' to retain affordable housing, and keep developers from displacing residents in lieu of making much bigger bucks creating apartment / condo complexes using MHP zoning.

https://rocusa.org/news/affordable-h...longmont-colo/

You too can help in this movement (non-profit), it is nice to see very successful MHP transitions done 40 yrs ago. The owner / residents take much better care of their park, and rents and expenses stabilize, creating a nice place to call home, for thousands who can't afford more.

https://rocusa.org is one of several NGO's working on this.

A community can also do this on their own if assisted with legal, lending, and logistics.

[brown_dog_us]

We need to zone more mobile home parks. It really is the best way to quickly add market rate affordable housing. Plus the newer units are built to last.

[Vision67]

https://www.denverpost.com/2019/09/1...vestors-swoop/

ASPEN — When the time came for her to sell the mobile home park she and her son owned near Aspen, 89-year-old Harriett Noyes had two big offers and an even bigger decision: Take nearly $30 million from a developer who would likely evict her family and friends to build luxury homes, or sell to the county for a fraction of that to preserve affordable housing in one of the most expensive areas in the United States.

She chose family and friends.

“I could see the need for the people to have a place to live, and this was their life and they had homes,” said Noyes, who has lived in the Phillips Mobile Home Park for more than four decades. “I just didn’t have the heart to just jerk it out from under ’em.”

"In recent years, a number of how-to sites have popped up to encourage mobile home investors . One Colorado-based site, Mobile Home University, says “Affordable Housing is the hottest arena in commercial real estate right now,” as apartment rents rise and comparatively cheaper mobile homes remain in demand for many residents.

In an article entitled “Why Invest In Mobile Home Parks,” the site explains: “It costs around $5,000 to move a mobile home, so virtually no tenants can ever afford to move. As a result, the revenues of mobile home parks are unbelievably stable. But what happens when a tenant cannot afford to continue to pay their rent? Then they normally abandon the home, and the park owner ends up with title under abandoned property laws.” A representative of the site didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Advocates say that very arrangement can make residents more vulnerable. Over the past 20 years, mobile home parks that were once owned by local landlords have increasingly been bought by corporations, private-equity firms or other out-of-state investors, according to the California-based advocacy group Manufactured Housing Action. If that owner is driven by profit, the group says, they could raise rents and put residents in a tough spot.

“Residents are stuck, choosing between paying increasing rent, sometimes at the expense of food or medicine, or abandoning their homes,” the site says."

[Vision67]

Watch John Oliver's video about this subject:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCC8fPQOaxU

[Barbarano5]

Mobile homes are definitely an avenue potential for affordable housing in theory. However, the legislation is pro-park owner and park owners are about profit. Lot rents in the Denver and north metro Boulder area are getting close to $1000 with no caps. Many fixed income cannot afford these ongoing increases in rent. Their money goes towards lot rent just to keep a roof over their heads at the expense of maintaining their home for one. Then the park mgr slaps them with a fix it or else demand, ie new roof, painting, etc. If the person can't afford it, their home will eventually get taken away even if they own it, leaving them without any place to live. That's the reality of mobile home parks. The park owner, through the mgr has all the power and there's not a thing the homeowner can do.

This isn't even mentioning the present mobile home dealers that make a living off of other people's loss. They generally charge 5%-10% to sell your home if you need to get out. That's a lot of money on a $50k home when that's the only thing you have. Or if you're needing cash they will offer pennies only to tow out the house for a new one that they charge 50% higher to someone needing 'affordable' housing. They have many people locked out of parks unless you comply.

Mobile home 'real estate agents' ( mobile homes aren't real property, but cars essentially, bought sold through title exchange) also do not have proper regulation. They manipulate beyond measure without anyone or anything keeping them on check.

As well, as these mobile homes increase in price, more people need financing to purchase them and unfortunately, financing is very hard to come by. There's only a few banks in the nation that loan on mobile homes and that's if the mobile home is less than 20 years old. And, if you qualify, most loans are higher than 7%. So where's the affordability in that?

Mostly, legislation needs to change to protect homeowners in these parks as well as financing changed, as well as protection from unscrupulous agents.

Foremost, land leasing is a horrible, one sided idea for affordable housing.

Colorado needs to wake up to what is going on. An unbelievable fundamental overhaul in the mobile home industry needs to happen. Land ownership is the first change.

Btw, post 1976 HUD, mobile homes are technically called manufactured homes.

[jim9251]

There's hundreds if not thousands of mobile homes in Montrose, some of the "communities" are nice, some are absolute ghetto trash.

[ClubMike]

Mobile homes are ok if you own the land they sit on, otherwise forget it, just get an apartment at least you can walk away when you get tired of getting fleeced.

[sholomar]

They have their advantages. Coming from an area where basements are common and precipitation trends are rising, having nothing below grade is nice. They really are a cheap way to live if lot rent doesnt get silly or you put one on your own land. The problem is large LLCs are buying up the parks and jacking up the lot rents.

They are actually called manufactured homes, built to HUD code. Mobile homes pre HUD. I would not buy a pre HUD home but to each their own.

Any home will fare better in a semi arid climate like Colorado versus a climate that is supposed to get 27 inches of precip a year but has gotten 50 the last 2 years. Excess precip has me looking to move by you guys.