Manufactured home parks following housing trends: the prices keep going up

Some manufactured home parks are being bought out by corporations and investors around the country and they are using government backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans to buy them.

LOGAN – Palatial Living, a manufactured home park in Logan, recently sent a memo out to their residents telling them their pad rent was going up. One person in their late 70s living on Social Security in a single-wide mobile home just had their pad rent raised $65 a month. The rent went from $595 to $650 just for the ground the trailer sits on and utilities.

It is going to be struggle to pay my pad rent, buy food and pay the rest of my bills,” the person said, who wishes to remain anonymous. “What am I supposed to do?”

This person said most of the neighbors are in the same boat, but some have medical issues to boot, and they are wondering how to stay afloat with increased pad fees.

The mobile home park was recently sold and residents are reporting the new owners are leaving no contact information and it was reported the site managers are not very receptive to the residents’ concerns.

Apparently, the Palatial Living incident is not an isolated occurrence. More and more corporations and investors around the country are using government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans to buy manufactured home communities then they raise the rates on the homeowners to inflate the value of the property.

Mobile or manufactured homes at one time were a less expensive alternative for individuals and families to live. During the current housing shortage, manufactured homes could be a source to ease the divide between high priced homes and renting. While mobile home park owners need to make a profit, some homeowners don’t have a lot of options to increase their incomes. They are living on fixed incomes like Social Security and retirement.

At the same time, the value of land is increasing and some Ma and Pop owners of mobile home parks are selling out and individuals are looking at more lucrative possibilities for the property. New owners are raising prices on the trailer pads making it hard on some of the more vulnerable part of society who live in them.

Making matters worse, residents of mobile home parks have no one to listen to their concerns. The city and state have no housing commissions to protect manufactured home residents in communities where they lease their pads.

Mike Desimone, the director of Logan City’s community development, said they have no authority to handle manufacture home park complaints.

“We can go have people remove cars on jack stands or remove junk from their property,” he said. “We have no jurisdiction to handle disputes with landlords.”

Braden Asper, an attorney who handles landlord tenant issues for Bearnson and Caldwell, LLC in Logan, said it can be frustrating for tenants, for sure.

“There is an inherent dichotomy between rights a property owner has concerning the use and enjoyment of their own land and the basic need individuals have in finding and maintaining a place to live,” he said. “Utah tends to adhere more closely to property rights principles that require the court to look to the lease the parties choose to enter into when dictating their performance.”

Asper said with a tight housing market, it leaves tenants with not much bargaining power. Utah has enacted additional legislation to protect trailer owners. It is critical to read the lease and determine if the trailer owner is willing to accept the conditions. If not, consider counter-proposing to your landlord.

In Utah, with narrow exceptions, trailer owners must adhere to what your lease dictates,” he said. “Most leases permit the landlord to assign their interest to a new owner of the property.”

The tenant, as well as the new owner, must still follow the terms of the original lease for the term the lease is valid. There is not a lot the trailer owner can do about the lease once it is signed.

“Moving trailers is expensive. Trailerpark landlords often reserve the right to change the cost of utilities or adjust rent during the lease. If the lease provides for it, they can do so as long as they provide 60 days-notice of the change,” Asper said. “The tenant can then either move the trailer, sell it, or absorb the new expenses. It is governed by market forces.”

He said mobile homeowners should consider the protections a longer term may provide them. If they want to avoid the significant cost of moving their trailer and want to lock in a set amount of pad-rent, they should consider committing to a longer term.

Median sales prices for homes in Utah were at $414,000 in 2020 and in 2021 they jumped to $657,500, a nearly 60 percent increase. Even if manufactured homes could be an option, people on fixed income may not be able to afford to buy manufactured homes and afford the pad rent. The housing crisis continues to make it hard on people with limited incomes.

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5 Comments

  • Mandee January 4, 2022 at 12:49 pm Reply

    Yea it’s bad because you pay the lot fee and on top of that you pay water to take care of the land and mow it too. These they only option to try and get a place of your own but with them raising the lot fee year by year it gets scary.

  • Mandee January 4, 2022 at 12:58 pm Reply

    How they have the price of rent is like the trailer park is in salt lake or California area. People move to trailer park to have lower rent so they can still pay bills get food or even a simple place to retire at. I’ve look at other trailer park places that are nice like Palatial Living, and there rent is still between $300-$400

  • Don January 4, 2022 at 4:13 pm Reply

    Hi Rod. A helpful bit of information here would be what the average mobile home prices are. Knowing what regular houses are selling for is fine for context, but what are we looking at on top of the pad fee? $20k? $30k? $50k? $100k? Back when USU had their trailer park going on campus, it was something like $100-150 per month pad fee, and the trailer itself was maybe $17-20k, but that’s been 15-20 years ago.

  • Jon January 4, 2022 at 5:40 pm Reply

    Please correct this.

    The pad rent does not include utilities.

  • Barbara Haynes January 12, 2022 at 3:57 pm Reply

    Is it not interesting how they raised the pad rent about the same as the social security cost of living raise?????

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