Demand for cell homes has increased in recent years as other people struggle to find housing. It has also made cell home parks attractive to investors, who buy them and drive up rents.
In Washington state, some cellhouse citizens are struggling to buy the land themselves.
But experts say few resident communities will win the bidding war for more state aid.
Carnation Mobile Haven is an RV park for seniors about 40 minutes east of Seattle. Linda Brown, 82, lives in one of the tiny homes with her dachshund, Chavi.
“He sits here and offers me everything I can love and cherish,” she says. “We love others. That’s what we do. “
Brown is concerned because the owner of this mobile home park, who she says has generously kept rents low here for many years, is selling to an investor for just over $1 million.
Financial experts will probably have to especially raise rents to cover the purchase price. If that happens, Brown, who lives off a small Social Security check, will have to go. This is called “economic expulsion. “
“You know what I need more than anything?” Brown said, “That I’m 20 years younger and maybe I’m still working. Because when I could work, I had the strength, I had my own income. Yes, Chavi, I did. And I can take care of myself. “My biggest concern is that I don’t need my kids to take care of me. That’s my biggest concern.
As she answers questions, Chavi growls quietly.
“It’s very complicated for me,” Brown continues. I’m like the dog: anxious. “
Other people in this mobile home park say they could become homeless, like Tom and Patty Gilbert, whose home has become a rock of monetary stability, a typhoon of skyrocketing medical bills. Their home also fulfills an emotional need, such as a place where plenty of geodes, arrowheads, ancient bottles, and trilobite fossils collected over the course of 50 years of marriage are on display.
“We don’t know of any other positions we can afford,” Patty says.
At the end of the street, her neighbor Linda Henault puts it more somberly.
“We would have to take up position and move to a tent,” he says.
“In a tent,” says Norma Ross, Henault’s sister and roommate.
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Until recently, citizens thought they had the ability to acquire this position for themselves.
Under a state law that went into effect this summer, cellhouse park citizens now have the option to acquire the land beneath their homes as a resident-owned co-op. The procedure aims to increase land rents in the short term, to cover its debt. But then rents stabilized.
In Washington state, cooperatives in the resident-owned network, or Republic of China cooperatives, can benefit from ROC Northwest, a program of the Northwest Cooperative Development Center, a nonprofit organization.
Victoria O’Banion is aware of acquisitions within the organization. She says the few mobile home parks that manage to gather competitive bids can withstand a significant increase in rents.
“They have to do it because they work as a family,” he explains.
By contrast, Carnation Mobile Haven is full of seniors who receive a steady source of income from Social Security.
O’Banion says the Carnation deal didn’t come to fruition. Residents didn’t have enough money and she said the Northwest Republic of China didn’t have enough time to locate more.
The investors they’re going up against were just moving too fast, waiving all inspections so their deal could close in just 30 days, O’Banion says.
“Any cash from the state — any money you have to receive — requires a physical inspection of the park, an environmental analysis,” O’Banion says. “It requires so many inspections that it takes me at least 90 days. “
And that’s just to make a competitive offer that matches the personal investor’s offer of just over $4 million. O’Banion says it would take one to two years to find enough additional cash (about $3 million) to keep rents low in Carnation.
News of the failed deal hit the citizens of Carnation Mobile Haven hard. Steven Bayne, who pleads his community’s case to any state or city official willing to listen, is cynical. He says he believes the formula is rigged compared to mobile home parks where citizens are 55 or older.
“There are other people who will find themselves here in a very deep state of mind,” he says.
Bayne says ROC Northwest generated hope among the citizens of Carnation Mobile Haven, then stopped communicating when things went wrong, leaving citizens in the dark about their future.
“I feel like we weren’t treated with intelligent faith,” he says.
In an email related to Bayne’s complaint, Ann Campbell, director of the Washington State Department of Commerce’s Homeownership Program, pointed to a trite formula and misunderstandings.
“The Northwest Cooperative Development Corporation is an incredibly understaffed organization trying to work with various communities experiencing sales in our state. I am sincerely saddened by the communication factor you have experienced,” the email read.
O’Banion says it’s understandable that Carnation’s seniors are grieving.
“I hear them and I see them,” he says.
O’Banion adds that in 2024, he will ask the state legislature to fund systems that help secure more deals.
Rep. Strom Peterson of Everett chairs the housing committee and is open to the idea.
“It’s hard to compete with the personal market,” he says. “These are successful communities. There is an explanation why Warren Buffett is buying up communities across the country. These can be great investments. I think they can be great investments for the state. “
Mobile home parcels can charge the state between $75,000 and $100,000 per home to preserve, the residential model compatible with the native model. By comparison, a single apartment in the Seattle metro area typically costs between $300,000 and $400,000.
Peterson says it would provide easily accessible money to the Commerce Department so the state can step in and help resident co-ops temporarily obtain mobile housing parks, similar to how the state currently does with hotels and motels.
With a gigantic budget deficit (due to emerging costs of road culvert structure) and a short legislative session, it will be difficult to achieve in 2024.
Even if lawmakers act, it can’t happen fast enough to save Carnation Mobile Haven from investors.
Back at her cell house, Linda Brown pets Chavi the dachshund, sitting between her knees and the recliner. For several minutes, Chavi has been growling softly. The noise intensifies as the reporter with the big, fuzzy microphone gets up to leave.
“My dog and I,” Brown said.
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