Retiring to Florida gulf coast - mobile home confusion (documents, investment, mortgage)

[SteveSneed]

My wife and I are nearing retirement and we know we want to retire to the FL gulf coast. Financially, we're pretty certain we're going for a mobile home in a park - we want certain amenities (pool, primarily, but also things like lawn care) and lifestyle. We've studied a lot, talked to several different realtors, owners and park management folks, and while we now feel like we know far more than when we started, we also recognize that there's a lot more to learn.

What I'm hoping is that someone can recommend is comprehensive - and importantly, *unbiased* - documents or articles, specific to the Florida market (which is apparently pretty different from any other state) that covers the differences between land-lease, co-op, resident-owned, lot-owned, fee-simple, etc. types of land, different property tax/vehicle tax structures, and lending availability and restrictions/limitations on getting money on the different types of land and things like structure type/age/etc. I've found a lot of documents that provide very different, often contradictory, info on these things, biased by their source and what they're selling (trailer manufacturers, parks of different land types, investment counselors, lenders, realtors, etc.)

Tall order, I know. If that info isn't available, I'd very much appreciate input from knowledgeable folks on these issues. Important things to know before answering:

* Florida market, specifically the gulf coast from the south side of the Tampa bay down to the Ft Myers Beach area, though we're also starting to look in the big bend area (we got married on the beach on Anna Maria and love the region, but see that we can get more for the money farther north.)

* This is not an investment, this is our retirement home. My wife will be ready to retire in 5 months, and my job will let me telework for the next few years, so while we may rent the place for a little while as we sell our house here, we intend to move and live there.

* I'm certain we don't want a land-lease park. I'm less clear on the ins and outs of co-op versus resident-owned vs land-owned and fee-simple arrangements. A concise breakdown on each would be great. Also, when/how money is available for each as well as age limits on the structure - for example, we've read that we can't get money on dbl-wides older than 1977 and sgl-wides older than 1987, but we've also read that money is not available on anything more than 15 years old. I know each lender has their own underwriting rules and the like, but are there any general rules of thumb that most follow?

Any responses are very much appreciated!

Steve

[chiluvr1228]

I live in Florida's Gulf Coast in Lee County. There is only one mobile home park that I know of in the better section of Fort Myers and the lot rent was over $700 five years ago. There are some nice retirement parks in North Ft. Myers but some people don't like that area. I know I don't care for it. Did you want to buy the land or rent? I ask because there has been a case or two where the owners of the land decided they wanted to do something different with the property and they didn't renew leases leaving the people living there scrambling to find a new place to put their mobile/manufactured home and then paying to have it moved.


Something to consider: if we have a hurricane you will be expected to evacuate. Are you not interested in a condo or townhome?

[MrRational]

Originally Posted by chiluvr1228

I live in Florida's Gulf Coast in Lee County.
There is only one mobile home park that I know of in the better section of Fort Myers
and the lot rent was over $700 five years ago.

The MH/manufactured community at the south end of Pine Island is pretty nice.
Homes.com

But I agree that there are very few MH parks anywhere that I'd consider owning in.

[SteveSneed]

We've looked at a couple trailers on Pine Island. The park mid-island is a co-op, which from what we understand makes it impossible to get financing other than owner-financed. The MH area on the south end of the island is a subdivision, not a park, and each lot is fee-simple so financing is available, but because it's not an organized park there are no amenities like a community pool.

We absolutely won't lease the lot, for exactly the reason chiluvr noted (owners selling the land out from underneath you) and because financing isn't available. As we learn more we're finding that fee-simple land is the only kind of arrangement on which you can borrow money, because it's the land that's the real collateral for the loan. Apparently you can sometimes find financing on trailers in true "resident-owned" parks, depending on how the park is organized; co-ops (where you own a share of the whole park rather than the specific lot your MH sits on) generally can't be financed. We're told the same is true for condo co-ops.

We would consider a condo/villa only if it is a one-level detached structure. We've seen a few villas that fit our requirements, but they were all well out of what we consider an acceptable price range. There are a lot of nice parks in the area from Anna Maria down to Ft Myers, but the vast majority are either leased-land or co-op which means we can't get money on them.

Steve

[willow wind]

You can get a mortgage on a mobile home on leased land. This is called a chattel mortgage and you have to find a lender that does this type of loan. Look up chattel mortgage lenders on Google.

You can also get a mortgage on a condo co-op. Done all the time in the NYC area. You just have to find a lender that does co-op loans. They may be few and far between in FL but research enough and you may be able to find a few.

[SteveSneed]

Originally Posted by willow wind

You can get a mortgage on a mobile home on leased land. This is called a chattel mortgage and you have to find a lender that does this type of loan. Look up chattel mortgage lenders on Google.

You can also get a mortgage on a condo co-op. Done all the time in the NYC area. You just have to find a lender that does co-op loans. They may be few and far between in FL but research enough and you may be able to find a few.

Thanks. I was informed that chattel mortgages were not available in FL on mobile homes because the lenders had been burned too many times by the "landowner selling out from under you" scenario, but that was from one source, so I'll do more research on it. We wouldn't do a leased-land situation in any case because of the above scenario, but if a chattel mortgage that included the co-op share price in the transaction could be had on a trailer in a co-op park, we'd certainly consider it if the rate is reasonable.

[jack & diane]

Hi Steve: My wife and I are also looking to relocate to Florida. Wife is retired now I will be in 20 months but I'm not counting. We went down in Jan 2017 looked at 5 co-ops like 2 one in North Port Fl Harbor Cove. In N ft Myers Old Bridge. We will be going back maybe Dec 2017 and Jan 2017. We are also going to look at condo's next time down. We are looking at nothing above 1100 sq ft . Did get a ball park number on a MH 1008 sq ft from 75 to 85 thousand but that's before upgrades and negating price ( MH up chg 20% pulse dealer hold back) Have notice may thu mid sept look like best time to buy prices drop a little. Wife and I plan to sell our home 1st before I retire move into apartment the pay cash for new home. We are more inclined to buy new or just a few years old.