California MHP News

Fri, May 24, 2024 – This table of Mobile Home Parks, RV Parks, and Manufactured Home Communities for Sale in California is a work in progress as of Friday, May 24, 2024. Data is being updated regularly.

This is a partial listing and covers the period 2021-01-01 to 2024-05-24. This is NOT a complete list of mobile home parks for sale in California. Many sales of mobile home parks are usually done via Pocket Listings (aka Off-Market Listings, Exclusive Listings), they are not marketed via public channels.

Alert! Mobile Home Park for Sale – 40 Mobile Home Owners on Borrowed Time

Existing Use is a 40-Space Mobile Home Park on a Ground Lease Expiring in 2030

Mon, May 6, 2024 – Marcus & Millichap, as the exclusive listing agent, is pleased to offer for sale the fee simple interest in the ±4.29 acre infill residential development site located at 10770 Katella Avenue in the city of Garden Grove. Located only one mile to the west of Disneyland and the Anaheim Convention Center, this site benefits from an extremely desirable location that provides great access to the impressive range of amenities this area provides.

The site is currently operating as the Gold Crest Mobile Home Club, a 40-space all-age mobile home park that was developed in 1975. This park is a land-lease community which means that the owner of a home leases the land under which the home sits from a third party. Garden Grove is a non-rent controlled market and all mobile home tenants are on short-term leases.

This property is encumbered by a 55-year ground lease that was initiated in March of 1975 and which terminates in February of 2030. Upon the expiration of the term of this lease, the Lessee shall surrender possession of the leased land and all improvements constructed and installed thereon. Ground lease payments are currently $9,212.39 monthly with one final CPI increase scheduled for March 1, 2028. This is a true triple-net (NNN) ground lease with the Lessee paying all taxes, insurance, and utilities along with handling all property maintenance.

This property is zoned Neighborhood Mixed-Use (NMU) which allows for up to 24 residential dwelling units per acre. The General Plan Land Use designation for this site is Residential/Commercial Mixed Use 2 (RC-2) which also allows for residential densities of up to 24 dwelling units per acre with a height limit of 50’. Additionally, this site is located in the City of Garden Grove Focus Area “J” as spelled out in the Housing Element of the General Plan. Assuming a residential density of 24 du/acre, this site would support a development of 102 new residential units.

Gold Crest Mobile Home Club

• Address: 10770 Katella Avenue, Garden Grove, California 92840
• County: Orange
• Spaces: 40
• Type: All Ages
• Listing Date: 2024-05-06
• Asking Price: $10,000,000

Wed, May 22, 2024 – The city of Fresno wants to partner with a Visalia-based affordable housing developer to keep a mobile home park and its remaining residents in place ^[1]. But the park owner’s bankruptcy may throw a wrench in the city’s plans.

On Thursday, the city council will vote on whether to grant Self-Help Enterprises $3.5 million to purchase La Hacienda Mobile Estates.

On May 9, La Hacienda Mobile Estates, LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. La Hacienda owns the mobile home park of the same name at 104 East Sierra Avenue, east of Blackstone Avenue, where more than half of the residents have either left or been evicted, according to tenant attorney Mariah Thompson with California Rural Legal Assistance.

Bankruptcy documents show that the biggest creditors to the company are various entities all sharing the business address of La Hacienda’s parent company, Harmony Communities. Matt Davies, the 100% stakeholder of La Hacienda, is CEO of Harmony. La Hacienda owes nearly $877,000 to businesses with the parent company’s address.

La Hacienda’s majority stakeholder, Matt Davies, said in the company’s rent review request last year that the park would close by August at the rate the company was losing money.

‘Every business in California has the right to close and it is currently our intent to close if we cannot obtain a fair return,’ Davies said before the Fresno rent review committee last year.

1. Fresno City Council Approves Millions of Dollars in Funding for Mobile Home Park with Troubled Past

Fri, May 17, 2024 – The Novato City Council is moving forward with a plan to revise its rent-control ordinance governing mobile home parks.

The changes under consideration would cap annual rent increases on mobile home spaces at the consumer price index (CPI) or 4%, whichever is lower. Other revisions of the law would make it easier for park owners to recoup expenditures on beneficial capital improvements.

The council introduced a version of the ordinance for a first reading at its May 7 meeting. The reading was postponed until the council’s June meeting, however, after the sponsor, the Los Robles Mobile Home Park, requested minor changes.

Paul Goldstone, who owns the park, approves of the proposed changes, according to Timothy Hansen, a project manager for Goldstone Management.

The city’s mobile home rent control ordinance, adopted in 1997, limits annual rent increases to the change in the CPI. That ordinance allows park owners to pass on the cost of beneficial capital improvements through temporary rent increases, but the law requires park owners to first either secure the consent of a majority of the park residents or successfully file a rent increase petition.

In addition to capping rents at 4%, the proposed changes would allow park owners to recoup beneficial capital improvement petition expenses through rent increases. They would also allow tenants to initiate improvement requests to be funded through rent increases.

Sun, May 12, 2024 – If you are planning on purchasing a home in one of California’s 5,231 mobile/manufactured home and RV parks, here are your basic options in order of Best to Worst Case Scenarios.

1. Option 1 – Buy the Home, Buy the Land/Lot (HOA Fee), Resident Owned Community (ROC)
2. Option 2 – Buy the Home, Lease the Land/Lot (Space Rent), Rent Stabilization Ordinance (RSO), Private
3. Option 3 – Buy the Home, Lease the Land/Lot (Space Rent), RSO, Corporate
4. Option 4 – Buy the Home, Lease the Land/Lot (Space Rent), No RSO, Private
5. Option 5 – Buy the Home, Lease the Land/Lot (Space Rent), No RSO, Corporate

Note: Labels: Private = Privately Owned, Corporate = Corporate Owned

Fri, May 10, 2024 – Moving to save tenants in some of the county’s least expensive housing from unaffordable rent increases, Cloverdale’s City Council is expected to approve sweeping changes to its rent control rules covering mobile home parks.

The council already gave its initial approval. The new rules will take affect June seventh if they are passed tonight.

The move follows Petaluma, Cotati and other local jurisdictions who revised their own rules. That’s after park owners, citing inflation, sought rent increases some residents said would force them onto the streets.

Fri, May 3, 2024 – Hundreds of residents at a mobile home park near Moreno Valley face the threat of losing all power and water service by mid-June after allegations that the owner of the park hasn’t paid its bills in more than a year.

Fisherman’s Retreat is home to between 100 and 200 full-time residents as well as weekend campers and vacationers. According to a notice delivered to people on the property by Southern California Edison, everyone could lose power on June 18, 2024.

‘Southern California Edison has been working with Halo Resorts, the owners of Oak Glen Retreat and Fisherman’s Retreat, to obtain payment on past due and current electricity charges,’ the notice reads.

These efforts have been unsuccessful. As a result, power to the entire resort will be disconnected on Tuesday, June 18, 2024.

Ridder said one of his neighbors spoke with a customer service representative at SoCal Edison, who said the past due balance is over half a million dollars.

They told us the active debt that’s past due right now is $687,000 that they haven’t paid Edison.

Thu, May 2, 2024 – On an overcast morning in late April, about 30 residents from Petaluma’s Little Woods Mobile Villa filed onto a bus headed for Stockton. The group was going to their mobile home park’s property management offices to picket proposed hike rents of over 300% and threats of park closure. The April 23 demonstration coincided with the first day of arbitration hearings where the fate of their proposed rent hikes would be determined.

Last fall, Little Woods’ management notified residents of the 78-unit all-ages park that their rents would increase by $1,531.22 as of Jan 1, 2024 – an action which automatically triggered an arbitration process. That’s because the proposed increase was well beyond the city of Petaluma’s cap of 4% over park residents’ current rents or 70% of the Bay Area’s Consumer Price Index (cost of change in goods and services), whichever is less. Under those rules the current allowable rent hike is 2.38%, according to the city of Petaluma.

Previously, monthly rent increases were set to 100% of the CPI, but like several other Sonoma County cities and towns, Petaluma tightened rent control and other protections last year in response to resident concerns of being priced out.

In response to the city’s new rules, the owners of local mobile home parks – including Little Woods Mobile Villa LLC, which owns Little Woods – have threatened to shut down the parks, initiated litigation against the city and raised rents above the legal limit, triggering hearings where an arbitrator must determine if the proposed rent hike is warranted given owners’ right to a ‘fair return.’

‘Costs are far outpacing inflation, insurance has become increasingly challenging to obtain as many insurers are leaving the state entirely, and our aging infrastructure is very costly to maintain,’ Nick Ubaldi, whose family owns Little Woods, said in a statement.

Ubaldi also works for Harmony Communities, the Stockton-based park management company, and manages day-to-day operations at the park. Little Woods Mobile Villa LLC counts Ron and Esther Ubaldi as its members and Nick Ubaldi as service agent. As of December 2022, the LLC’s principal address was changed to that of Harmony Communities.