Stabilized rent is focus of manufactured home parks bill
COURTESY / JEANEE WRIGHT
In this 2020 file photo, members of Charter Oaks Village operations committee are seen after residents bought the park.
Legislation proposed in the U.S. Senate would encourage owners of mobile home parks to sell to residents rather than another landlord or developer.
The Manufactured Housing Community Sustainability Act recently was co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine.
The proposal would be beneficial to park residents in Maine and across the nation, King said.
An estimated 22 million Americans live in manufactured housing in over 50,000 manufactured housing communities, according to a news release.
Maine has over 600 manufactured housing communities, the most out of any New England state. Ten of them are resident-owned housing cooperatives. Up to one-fifth of manufactured housing communities in Maine are owned by out-of-state investors.
The bill would create a 75% federal tax credit offsetting capital gains if the property is sold to a resident-owned cooperative or nonprofit.
“Communities across America are facing a serious affordable housing crisis, so we must continue to provide creative solutions to lower housing prices across the country,” said King. The act “would give residents the opportunity to form a cooperative and buy the land to keep large out-of-state investors from buying out their landlord and jacking up rent prices."
Maine law
Maine has passed a law that requires owners of manufactured housing communities to give residents advance notice if they are selling the property, providing an option for residents to offer a purchase price two months before the sale date and three months for residents to acquire financing.
Recently, two resident-owned communities secured funding to buy the land they live on in Rockland and Thomaston.
In 2020, residents at Charter Oaks Village, a manufactured home community on the Biddeford-Arundel line, bought the 40-site property on Route 111 after receiving notice saying the property was going to be sold.
Many manufactured park owners, like owners of other businesses, are at or near retirement age. Combined with the way the parks are structured — the owner owns the land, leasing it to residents, who usually own their home — they are ripe for investors.
An increasing trend is investors, many from out of state, buying the parks and raising rents past what those living there can afford, or reselling the property for development.
Manufactured homes are an important part of the state’s affordable housing stock.
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