Maine mobile home owners are pushing back against private investors
Mar. 23—For four years, residents of Bowdoin's Mountain View Estates mobile home park have approached Aug. 1 with a mounting sense of dread.
It's the day they find out how much they'll have to pay to rent the land their homes sit on and, for many residents already struggling to make ends meet, even a small increase can become a hardship.
The 53-home park has withstood four years of consecutive rent hikes since it was purchased by a New York real estate firm in 2021. The first three weren't major, just $35 a month. But last year, the $75 jump was harder to swallow.
As another Aug. 1 approaches, a growing unease has permeated the park.
"These people are just hurting ... we're all scared," said Jerry Highfill, 79, who has lived in the park since 2001. "They're just increasing their income at the poor people's expense. There ain't nobody living in a mobile home park that's wealthy."
Mobile home parks in Maine and across the county are increasingly being purchased by out-of-state investors that then raise the monthly lot rents, sometimes by as much as twice or even three times the price, according to national data.
Homeowners like Highfill are left with few options.
But several bills in the Legislature are working to get ahead of the problem and help communities purchase their parks before investors can. So far, two communities have successfully purchased their parks, and another is under contract. But more than twice as many have tried and failed. For communities that aren't able to buy, lawmakers and residents are trying to institute rent control to try to protect what many see as one of the last true forms of affordable housing.
When Highfill first moved in, the monthly lot rate on his $27,000 mobile home was $265.
Over the next 20 years, he saw his monthly rate increase by just $80.
But in the four years since Philips International took over, his monthly rent has jumped $180, an increase of 52%. Philips International did not respond to questions about the rent increases.
Highfill pays $525 a month, but new residents are paying closer to $700.
"In reality, the last affordable housing in Maine that a young family or retirees can get into is going to become a memory," he said.
'TENANTS ARE ALMOST CAPTIVE'
During the pandemic, when housing prices began to rise, capital equity firms that had long invested in strip malls or multiunit housing started eyeing mobile home parks. Since people own their homes and rent the lots, the parks made an attractive investment — as landlords, they're not on the hook if a refrigerator breaks.
Around the country, investors began snapping up mobile home parks, increasing the rents and then sitting back and collecting profits.
"Capital equity players started recognizing these types of investments as quite lucrative," said Pat Schwebler, co-director of the Cooperative Development Institute's New England Resident-Owned Community Program. The organization assists manufactured housing communities looking to purchase their parks and provides ongoing support after the purchase.
In 2020 and 2021, institutional investors accounted for 23% of national manufactured home purchases, up from 13% between 2017 and 2019, according to a joint project between the nonprofit Private Equity Stakeholder Project and Manufactured Housing Action, an organization of homeowners.
Meanwhile, "Maine became the best thing since sliced bread," Schwebler said.
People and investors alike flocked to the state.
Prices on any type of housing skyrocketed, causing some people to seek out mobile home parks and leaving many longtime residents with few options other than to stay put.
"Mobile" home is a bit of a misnomer. Moving a manufactured home is complicated and expensive. If a homeowner could even find another park to take them, it would still cost at least $10,000 to move.
"For most folks, that's not very doable ... it would take a lot for them to actually pick up their unit and move," she said. "The tenants are almost captive."
Investors know this, she said, making their acquisition all the more enticing.
There's a startling lack of statewide data surrounding mobile homes.
According to the Maine Manufactured Housing Board, there are 468 active licensed parks in Maine, but it's unknown how many lots or residents there are, what the median lot rent is, or what share of the communities are owned by out-of-state corporations, though the Bangor Daily News estimates it could be as high as 20%.
In 2019, the median home sale price in Maine was $225,000. Five years later, it was more than $390,000.
Mobile home-specific sales data has been harder to come by. Manufactured homes are categorized as personal property, so park sales are not tracked by the Maine Association of Realtors. But prices have increased along with other types of housing.
Manufactured home prices on Zillow vary, but most well-maintained homes are priced above $100,000. A new home in Kittery's Yankee Settlement park is listed for $389,000 with a monthly lot fee of $685. One 2005 double-wide in Saco's Blue Haven Mobile Home Park is listed for $241,000. The lot rent or "HOA fee" is $750.
LAWMAKERS TAKE NOTICE
"People living in mobile home communities are unique in the sense that they own their home, but not the land on which it sits, so it presents a really difficult dilemma when the land sells, oftentimes to a person who is intent on using it as an investment," said Erik Jorgensen, senior director of government for MaineHousing.
So the question becomes, "how do we go in and dis-incentivize investor purchases and find different ways of preserving affordability for this population?" he said.
That's a question state lawmakers have been trying to tackle.
In 2023, the Legislature passed a law that requires park owners to give residents at least 60 days' notice if they plan to sell, giving the community members the chance to purchase it themselves. The park owner isn't required to accept the offer, but must negotiate "in good faith."
Last year, the governor and Maine State Housing Authority created the Manufactured and Mobile Home Park Preservation and Assistance Program — a $5 million fund to help residents purchase their parks. But the money is dwindling.
Gov. Janet Mills has earmarked an additional $3 million in the budget, and a bill proposed by Sen. Joe Baldacci, D-Penobscot, would infuse another $3.5 million.
At least four other bills this session aim to further preserve one of the last vestiges of affordable housing.
Sen. Cameron Reny, D-Bristol, has proposed two bills — one would create a tax exemption up to $750,000 to incentivize the sale or transfer of housing developments, housing parks or apartment complexes to resident-owned communities or cooperative affordable housing corporations.
"This gives residents a leg up when they try to buy their homes, which is increasingly difficult these days," she said while presenting the bill, which on Wednesday unanimously passed the committee that oversees taxation.
The second would attach a $50,000 per-lot fee to the purchase of a manufactured housing community on top of the purchase price, to be paid to MaineHousing. Resident-owned co-ops or affordable housing groups would be exempt from the fee.
Schwebler, at the Cooperative Development Institute, said lot rents in community-owned parks are "extraordinarily low" and are often only raised to fund major park improvements.
"Until the housing is secured as resident-owned, you have no guarantee it's going to be affordable," she said.
Rep. Cheryl Golek, D-Harpswell, and Rep. Cassie Julia, D-Waterville, have both put forward bills to cap the allowed annual rent increases for mobile homeowners.
None of these bills is the perfect solution, Jorgensen said, but together they provide "a box of tools that might be useful."
WINS AND LOSSES
In 2019, the residents of two communities in Camden and Arundel purchased their parks, bringing the number of resident-owned communities in Maine up to 10. But then things were silent for almost five years.
Schwebler credits the 2023 law for the recent surge in energy around resident-owned communities.
"Before, these residents didn't even stand a chance and now they do," she said.
In October 2024, the Blueberry Fields Cooperative closed on the Linnhaven Mobile Home Park in Brunswick for $26.3 million. The 278-home community became the first to purchase its park under the new law.
Last month, Cedar Falls Mobile Home Park in Bangor followed suit, closing on the 130-home park for $8 million.
And in Monmouth, residents are under contract to purchase the 42-home West Village park for $1.8 million. They expect to close in May.
All told, that's 450 units that will be preserved as affordable housing, Schwebler said. That number could increase to as many as 600 if the Brunswick and Bangor parks follow up on existing infill opportunities.
Financing can be a challenge for the park, but assistance from the Cooperative Development Institute, as well as funding from MaineHousing, the Genesis Fund and sometimes the parks' municipalities, can help push efforts over the line.
Jorgensen, at MaineHousing, noted that even with assistance, it's still a business deal. The park is real estate, and real estate is expensive. Rents will have to increase.
"The goal is to make that as tolerable as possible," he said.
In Brunswick, for example, residents were initially facing a nearly $275 increase, but additional funding from MaineHousing helped bring that down to $100, which will remain in place for three years.
Jorgensen said that the success of the Blueberry Fields Cooperative was "catalytic" for many of the proposed bills. But so were some notable losses.
While three parks have been successful, more than twice as many have failed.
Schwebler said that since 2023, eight communities have tried to buy their parks but had their offers ultimately rejected.
A year ago, two parks in Old Orchard Beach — Old Orchard Village and Atlantic Village — put forward a $40.5 million bid for their parks, which were owned by the same company. Ultimately, the owners, who feared the cooperative wouldn't be able to come up with the money, chose to go with Follett USA, a California real estate firm.
Following their defeat, the residents instead lobbied to pass a rent control ordinance that capped annual rent increases at 5%. Old Orchard Beach voters approved the change in November.
For communities that haven't been successful, or whose parks have already sold or are unlikely to be sold any time soon, rent control is the only hope for protection against constant increases.
There's currently an effort to pass rent control in Standish, and one in Bowdoin was just struck down.
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