California Mobile Home Parks

Resident Owned Communities – Buying Your Mobile Home Park

Wednesday, November 20, 2024 – The MHPHOA have been continually researching and developing a database of Resident Owned Communities (ROC) aka Resident Owned Parks (ROP) in the State of California. We have 174 communities listed to date. We welcome input from our audience regarding additions and/or corrections to the data currently available. If you'd like to contribute information to the database, please contact the MHPHOA.

Resident Ownership of Manufactured Home Parks

Resident ownership of MH parks is a very positive goal, for many reasons. Properly done, converting the park where you live to resident ownership:
GSMOL – Buying Your Park

• Stabilizes your monthly housing expenses over the long term.
• Secures the value of your homes.
• Avoids the consequences if local rent control is ever lost or compromised.
• Makes your homes easier to sell.
• Builds your park into a real community and improves its quality of life.
• Protects your park from ever being closed or changed to another use.

What is a Resident Owned Community (ROC)?

In a resident-owned community (ROC), homeowners form a non-profit business called a cooperative. Each household is a Member of the cooperative, which owns the land and manages the business that is the community. Members continue to own their own homes individually and an equal share of the land beneath the entire neighborhood. There are many benefits to living in a ROC.

Everyone has a say in the way the ROC is run, and major decisions are made by democratic vote. Members elect a board of directors, which appoints committees to carry out various tasks and manage the day-to-day operations of the organization.
ROC USA®

• What is a ROC? How Is It Different?
• ROC USA® Network Affiliates
  • Network Affiliates
    1. CaliROC
    2. CASA of Oregon
    3. Cooperative Development Institute
    4. LEAP ROC
    5. NeighborWorks® Montana
    6. Northcountry Cooperative Foundation
    7. PathStone Corporation
    8. ROC-NH
    9. ROC Northwest
    10. Thistle
• Meet the ROC USA® Communities

Mobilehome Park Rehabilitation and Resident Ownership Program MPRROP

Purpose: Finance the preservation of affordable mobilehome parks by conversion to ownership or control by resident organizations, nonprofit housing sponsors, or local public agencies.

Eligible Activities: Purchase (conversion) of a mobilehome park by a resident organization, nonprofit entity or local public agency; rehabilitation or relocation of a purchased park; purchase by a low income resident of a share or space in a converted park or to pay for the cost to repair low income resident’s mobilehomes.

Eligible Applicants: Mobilehome park resident organizations, nonprofit entities, and local public agencies. Low income residents of converted parks apply for individual loans to the entity that has purchased the park.
California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD)

PMC Financial Services
Helping Mobilehome Park Residents Become Park Owners

Do you live in a mobile or manufactured home park? Do you want to buy it? PMC Financial Services has been helping resident groups and mobile home park cooperatives to finance their own parks for over 20 years. PMC Financial Services provides creative solutions to buy your mobilehome park and have completed projects in California, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Minnesota and New Hampshire.

PMC Financial Services Resources

• PMC Financial Services
• Mobile Home Park Purchase Checklist
• Mobile Home Park Status Questionnaire
• Park Self Evaluation Form

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Industry Rule of Thumb: For every $10 per month space rent increase you lose approximately $1,000 in mobile home equity.

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2024 ROC Statistics

Statistical research performed/updated in July 2024.

174 ROCs, 33,919 Lots

The MHPHOA have researched and confirmed 174 Resident Owned Communities representing a total of 33,919 lots in the State of California.

33,119 MH Spaces, 800 RV Lots

Of those 33,119 lots, 33,119 are mobile home spaces, 402 are RV Lots With Drains (RV1) and 398 are RV Lots Without Drains (RV2).

55+ (Senior) vs. All Ages (Family)

Of the 174 ROCs, 112 are 55+ communities and 62 are all age (family).

HOA Fees, $304 Average

Of the 167 ROCs that we were able to confirm current (2023/2024) homeowners association (HOA) fees, the average HOA fee for 55+ communities is $299 per month. The average HOA fee for all age communities is $305 per month. The overall average is $304 per month.

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FAQs – Resident Ownership of Parks
PMC Financial Services

Q: What are the risks if residents don’t buy their park?

A: The owner could sell the park to another “private” investor. This might be an individual or a corporation. If this happens, the park might not be offered for sale for at least another 5 years – perhaps longer. At that point, appreciation in the park’s value could put it economically out of reach of the residents.

There is also the risk that a new owner might not be as satisfactory as your current one. The worst case would be a large corporate buyer, interested only in maximizing profits and not in maintaining the park.

Q: What is the most common form of “resident park” ownership?

A: There are various forms of resident ownership found in mobilehome parks. The most common is ownership by a nonprofit corporation (“homeowner association”), made up entirely of the homeowners in the park.
David Loop, Attorney