California MHP News

Sun, Sep 29, 2024 – There are five (5) Assembly Bills and two (2) Senate Bills relating to mobilehomes that have been signed into law by the Governor to become effective January 1, 2025. The MHPHOA have updated our online California MRL in HTML to reflect these updates.

Updated Civil Codes Relating to Mobilehomes

Fri, Sep 27, 2024 – A first-of-its-kind homeless project celebrated its grand opening in rural Tulare County on Thursday. The Neighborhood Village, located in the community of Goshen, contains more than 50 mobile home units and offers a unique approach to one of California’s thorniest problems.

There’s treatment for substance use and mental health issues. But also movie nights, a dog park and professional kitchen – places where residents can build community, learn skills and even sell their wares.

The nonprofit Salt + Light partnered with Self-Help Enterprises to build the village. It’s modeled after a similar community in Austin, Texas, which prioritizes treating chronically homeless people with dignity.

Organizers are hopeful the village can be replicated in other rural communities as California grapples with an affordable housing crisis. In Tulare County, the unhoused population has grown to just over a thousand people, according to the most recent count.

Fri, Sep 27, 2024 – In other action, the council unanimously approved a new ordinance that will require owners of mobile home parks who want to sell the land or develop it to obtain a special conditional use permit, and to submit a Relocation Impact Report.

They will also be required to help mobile home owners with the costs of relocation, in addition to expenses such as replacing blocks, skirting, siding, porches and decks, and with insurance to protect against damage, security deposits and first and the last month’s rent for a new mobile home park.

Fri, Sep 20, 2024 – A recent study looking into mobile home parks in El Dorado County shows residents are facing hardships with rising rent and old infrastructure, giving concern that more seniors could become homeless.

Vice President of Housing El Dorado Frank Porter, who serves an organization that works to promote affordable housing solutions, revealed to the county’s Commission on Aging that mobile home residents are scared to lose their housing due to inflation and rent increases.

Porter showed the commission during an August 15 meeting that of 185 responses from a mobile home survey conducted by HED, in collaboration with the El Dorado Community Foundation, many reported annual rent rate increases, some as high as 8%, which has become ‘a large risk factor that could lead to homelessness.’

Nearly 75% of the survey respondents were making less than $38,000 annually and are classified as ‘very low income,’ Porter noted. The median income countywide was determined to be at $113,000.

Another vulnerability the residents face is the homes themselves; many were built in the 1970s and ‘80s and have exceeded their lifespan and have repair/ maintenance issues. The residents are often responsible for having to pay out of pocket for the repairs, Porter noted. HED determined that 62% of mobile home structures were 42 years or older.

Thu, Sep 19, 2024 – A sprawling mobile home park in Malibu that was owned by the seaside city’s founding family has been sold to one of the nation’s largest owners of manufactured housing communities.

Point Dume Club of Malibu, which has 297 residences, will continue to operate and not be redeveloped into the kind of tony estates commonly found in Malibu, the new owner said.

The 95.4-acre site on the Point Dume promontory is the largest privately owned oceanfront parcel in Malibu, said real estate broker Dustin B. Wilmer of Marcus & Millichap, who represented the seller in the recent transaction.

The sale price was not disclosed, but a person familiar with the terms of the deal who was not authorized to talk about it publicly put the sale at nearly $200 million, far below the price the land would command if it could be put to other uses.

The new owner is Chicago-based Hometown America Communities, which operates nearly 80 mobile home communities in 12 states, according to the company’s website.

Point Dume Club of Malibu is one of two mobile home communities in Malibu. In the last two years, homes there have sold for an average of $2.1 million and as much as $5.6 million, Wilmer said. Such prices buy only the mobile home itself as owners lease their plots of land from the property owner.

Fri, Sep 13, 2024 – Residents of Capri Villa mobile home park and their supporters gathered last Sunday alongside a busy Petaluma thoroughfare to protest what they have described as injustices by park owners.

The protest comes as residents at Capri Villa, Little Woods Mobile Villa and Youngstown – all Petaluma mobile home parks – are asking the city to enforce its regulations while park owners repeatedly attempt to raise rents by hundreds of dollars per month. Each proposed rent hike automatically triggers costly arbitration hearings.

Meanwhile, park owners of Little Woods and Youngstown have threatened to close both of those parks. Park owners have said said the city’s regulations do not allow them to remain economically viable in the long term and have sought the right to reset a lot’s rent to market rates after mobile homes are sold.

Park owners at Youngstown and Little Woods formally stated their intent to close in a June 21, 2024 letter. In August, the city added new fees to its master fee schedule as it begins the process to prepare necessary reports and gather information per its closure procedures.

Thu, Sep 12, 2024 – Soaring prices put purchasing homes out of reach for most people, but building new housing is slow and expensive.

So far, most solutions to this housing crisis have focused on subsidizing prospective buyers. But what if there were a way to make housing cheaper at every step of the process: cheaper to build, cheaper to buy, and still affordable for the next resident?

In San Bernardino, a sunny California city located about 60 miles east of Los Angeles, a first-of-its-kind experiment is underway to test these ideas on a single plot of land. Think of it as an affordable housing policy trifecta: three different strategies to bring down housing costs – all at once.

The first innovation is to streamline manufacturing. About 90 percent of homes are built on the land they rest on, but in San Bernardino, manufacturers assembled a modest house – 1,462 square feet, three bedrooms – in a factory before transporting it to its final destination on Ramona Avenue.

Tue, Sep 3, 2024 – The owner of a controversial mobile home park is suing the city of Fresno for $1 million, alleging that rent control has cost the company money and diminished the park’s value.

The lawsuit from La Hacienda Mobile Estates says Fresno’s Mobile Home Park Rent Review and Stabilization Commission’s November 2023 decision to only allow a minimum rent increase has prevented the park from being profitable.

Harmony said it needed to increase rents at the park by $350 a month – a 150% increase – to earn a 12% rate of return on the company’s investment and help pay for significant repairs to the property.

Since Harmony took over, occupancy at the park has fallen below 50% largely due to evictions, according to Mariah Thompson, senior attorney with California Rural Legal Assistance, who represents many mobile home owners at La Hacienda.

Sun, Sep 1, 2024 – If you are planning on purchasing a home in one of California’s 5,230 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