? on Manufactured Home Communites - Buy land or lease (Bonita Springs: sale, real estate)

[kcparrothead]

This is all new to us. We are wondering what are the pluses and minuses of buying your space or leasing the space? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[LifeIsGood01]

If you own the land it's better, If you rent the lot they can keep increasing it, or sell to a developer and you will have to move your home and find somewhere else to put it. Also there is no resale value for most rental lot homes and many are hard of impossible to sell for a loss.

[Who Dat]

Good advice given in the previous post.

[LifeIsGood01]

I just got out of one recently in Broward county, it was older and a fixer upper. The bathroom had been updated from the original 70s one. The floors were wood laminate so it had good bones. The lot rent went up $45 in 2 years, and was going up again $25 this year. I was already paying $70 for lot rent, pass thru taxes and water, and I had to mow my own lawn. 2 large non aggressive breed dogs were allowed and it was still hard to sell, it was a small 2 bedroom. I had to put my own fridge and stove and window ACs. In the end I sold it for a little more than I paid and put into it but it was hard. It's not a regular sale with closing. Plus I needed approval from the HOA to sell and they had to inspect the outside, luckily I just painted the top trim and trimmed some bushes and was cleared to sell. It was a 55+ place but I was in my late 40s so my father had to go on the lease with me, which meant if anything happened he would be responsible to pay the lot rent. So I had to sell to a 55 and older person, good credit, makes 2.5 times the lot rent, etc. They could have also made me repaint the whole outside, and the driveway, and fix some other things, but luckily they didn't.

I had one buyer who wanted it, but he got frustrated with the process when the property manager was in between locations and it took a week to get anything done. He walked away and let me keep the $200 earnest money that would have been refunded if he was declined. He could not find the paperwork to prove 6 weeks of income and got frustrated and did not buy, Also the property manager did not put his application into the system for a whole week. In the end he was happy to be approved for the credit and background check because he had told me his credit was bad in the past.

The buyer was a real estate agent, he had a license but was not selling right now. He lived 4 hours north and wanted a place in Broward county. He would only give me 2 weeks to sell and get out, He wanted only a week but I said I could not get my stuff into storage that fast. I understood because the last two weeks even though I paid lot rent, he was the owner and if it burned down or a hurricane destroyed it, it would be his mess to handle. In the end he was a real nice guy and we went to DMV together to transfer the title. Oh by the way it was a nice place with lawns, and homes spread apart, and everyone background checked, and a pool, tennis courts, clubhouse, no thru streets, and other amenities. Also they can tell you who can live in your home, it had to be someone over 45 in my case and no criminal past which is good, but the over 45 thing made it hard for me to find a roommate when I tried,

New homes start at $60k and I think you get a deal on the lot rent to start out. Some fools think their homes built in the 70s are worth $50k, they had one across from me that they could not sell for $30K and it's only about 10 years old.

So no I don't recommend them. Certainly not on a rented lot unless rents are so expensive in the area that it's half the going rate of rentals. Even on private land I would not buy another, in fact I'm looking for a cheaper home about 2 and a half hours away that will cost me a lot less than the lot rent I was paying. and they make up their rules as they wish, one day I had friends over for a party and one parked on the street, property manager nurse ratchet came by and put a paper on his windshield, but she let the people who had kids that were not supposed to be there park on the street for months as well as another home near me that had 2 families living in it when the limit for that size home is 3 people..

I said my prayers, put out my Saint Anthony statue and got lucky to get rid of it and walk away with some money, but I was just happy to be done with ever increasing lot rents, in 10 years they will be paying close to $1000 just to rent the lot

Another problem is that insurance companies do not want to insure them, you might not even be able to get renters insurance.

Oh and they tell you that if a hurricane is forecast you have to leave, even if it's a category one and you could stay in a regular home. I did go looking at other places where you could buy into a coop mobile home park and I was told that you don't have to leave because it's your home and they can't make you leave, they just won't come to get you if something happens But it is smart to leave and newer ones are made stronger to sustain hurricane winds but I'm sure the community would tell them to leave also

[Restrain]

In the news a new company bought out a facility in the FM area, jumped the rents. The renters brought suit, didn't do any good. Homes are being evicted, renters moved out.

If you own the site as well as the home, you are a part owner many times of the overall facility and a voting member of the HOA. Much better control of your life.

[kcparrothead]

Thank you so much for your advice! Unfortunately (for us )the Bonita Springs community we're really interested in is a rental lot but there are a couple others that aren't too bad that you own the land and one is a co-op, just not the location we'd like. If anyone else has experience in this, please let me know!

[LifeIsGood01]

Originally Posted by kcparrothead

Thank you so much for your advice! Unfortunately (for us )the Bonita Springs community we're really interested in is a rental lot but there are a couple others that aren't too bad that you own the land and one is a co-op, just not the location we'd like. If anyone else has experience in this, please let me know!

With a mobile home co-op you don't own the land you own a share, banks usually won't loan money for those kind of deals. But if you can buy it, it may be a good deal for you if the HOA fees are low.

[kcparrothead]

Originally Posted by so954

With a mobile home co-op you don't own the land you own a share, banks usually won't loan money for those kind of deals. But if you can buy it, it may be a good deal for you if the HOA fees are low.

Oh wow - I did not know that! Thank you! Sounds like these communities are not good for anything, but they sure are popular! We will need a bank loan so not sure what we'll do now. Do banks, in general, not like to loan money for mobile homes?

[LifeIsGood01]

Originally Posted by kcparrothead

Oh wow - I did not know that! Thank you! Sounds like these communities are not good for anything, but they sure are popular! We will need a bank loan so not sure what we'll do now. Do banks, in general, not like to loan money for mobile homes?

No they don't because they depreciate and have bad resale value, so rates might be higher but there are FHA loans for them I think but not on rented lots. They are only popular because they are cheap, and it's not an apartment so you can do whatever you want inside to change them and you don't share walls or floors or ceilings with neighbors like in an apartment.

[Willistonite]

There are many advantages of rental mobile home village if you pick a nice one. You get into a house like 1500-1700 square feet not a trailer also we have a garage. The rent and fees are higher but your get lots for the money and there a lots of activities. Also most places come with furniture and a golf cart.
We got a personal loan for place we bough only because we did not want to dip into our 401K and pay taxes on it. Actually the prices are going up where we bought so you can into a place with lot less investment and much cheaper then renting so don't throw the idea with out checking it out yourself.