A Mobile Home Park Closes — What Happens?

MHR profiled problems facing 160 residents in the Homestead Village Mobile Home Park on Friday. This park is threatened with closure. There are good reasons behind the news. The park owner is 70 and he wants to get out of the business. He could sell the park to another person who would keep the park in operation.

A buyer, presumably willing to pay a higher price, has emerged who will buy the park on the condition that it gets rezoning for mixed use commercial. The 38.5 acres that make up the park are in a prime corridor along Capital Boulevard in Northern Raleigh. This is one of the most expensive areas in the city for land.

The costs to residents will be enormous. While everyone rents their lot, most of the residents own their mobile homes.

It is possible that they will be able to find lots in other parks. Fewer own homes that can withstand transportation on a road. Think about it, not every home can. Could yours? Would your windows shatter if the structural framing twisted 5 percent? My 56 year old house probably would not make it. So, the percentages continue to get smaller and smaller. Then there is the cost of moving your home — maybe as much as $5,000, along with the cost of getting new hookups.

In such a situation, many residents will just walk away from their homes. This is the biggest asset that they have. One resident bought her home just a month ago. Others may have paid off notes and hold about 10,000 in equity. This is real money and genuine tragic, especially for low and moderate income households.

Finding another park to rent a lot is not easy. Some communities, most recently Fayetteville, have put minimum housing codes in place that seek to block the siting of pre-Hud Code homes within their city limits.

Many residents will now move into apartments. Although they may have owned what is often derided as a “depreciating asset,” they still had an asset.

~ by samsondoggie on May 3, 2008.