Mobile Home Owners Get Evicted

A couple of weeks ago, over 700 people woke up to letters in front of their doors stating that they could be evicted from their mobile home park in 2 years. People who own mobile homes in a mobile home park don’t own the land beneath the ground, just the physical structure itself. Many of the residents have been a part of the community for many years and were shocked when they saw the letter.

You DON’T Own The Land!

It makes for a pretty scary situation. As a mobile home owner, you have to buy the physical structure of the building, which can cost around $300,000 here in the Bay Area. Then you have to pay to rent a spot in the mobile home park. Mobile homes are “mobile”, but it’s not cheap to move. Relocating a mobile home can cost upwards of $40,000 and finding a new lot to park it can be challenging, especially since the numbers of mobile home parks are decreasing.

When the owner of a mobile home park decides that it’s time to sell, the people who have their homes on the lot may need to move if the new owner decides to do something different with the land.

Mobile Home Parks Aren’t In Fashion

New developers aren’t interested in creating new mobile home parks or just purchasing an old one for the sake of earning the income from the current tenants. They want to maximize the best use of the land, which often defaults to high-density residential units.

This is bad for the mobile home owners, as they’ll be forced out with no place to go. Some residents have gathered to see if they can force the owners to give them the opportunity to sell it to them first, instead of selling it to a third party without any say. They want a chance to keep their home in the area where they raised their children.

Who’s Right?

It’s a pretty interesting situation.

On the one hand, you have people who have purchased their mobile home and have been living in the mobile home park for many years and don’t want to leave the community. On the other hand, you have the rights of the landlord who should have the right to sell and make the best use of their property.

This issue may create new regulations on the City, County, State, and Federal level. We’ll see what happens in the near future.

What are your thoughts?

Should there be regulation that protects mobile home residents or should we promote the freedom for landlords to do what they want with their property?