Mobile home parks here and around the country are being bought up by private equity firms and wealthy investors.
It might seem like an odd investment. However, people who live in these parks often own their manufactured homes — but not the land they sit on. And they’re not actually very mobile.
The 2022 documentary “A Decent Home" tells the story of many of these mobile homeowners and their fight to stay in their homes when their rents were raised — or their land was sold out from under them.
Sara Terry spent seven years making the film, and it’s screening Friday, Aug. 30, at Glendale Community College.
Conversation highlights
When did investors start buying up mobile home parks? How common is this?
SARA TERRY: It's become quite common. It began, the very early days of it were actually back in 2015, when the Carlisle Group was one of the first major private-equity firms to start buying mobile home parks. They bought a couple in Florida and a couple in California. And all private equity firms everywhere were watching what Carlyle did, and they had pretty spectacular success. And they followed suit like all over the United States.
So what would happen then to the people who are living there? Would they hold on to them, raise rents? How did they make money off of this?
TERRY: Well, in some cases, I know as in Phoenix, you've had parks that have been sold to developers, and the parks have closed and turned into development. But normally a private-equity firm holds a park because private equity essentially looks for a place where they think more money can be made. And in mobile home parks, historically, it was a mom-and-pop business where, you know, a fair rent was charged for the land that the mobile home, manufactured housing owner paid to live there. And, it stayed relatively low, but fairly so because the homeowner pays for everything, you know, the upkeep of their home, the, you know, repairs. It's not like, you know, renting an apartment.
So what private equity found it could do was coming and raise lot rent — sometimes by as much as 60% and 70%. Which, you know, may not sound like much if you're going, "Oh, it went from $320 to $405." But think about if your mortgage was increased by 40%, 60% ... that is a huge impact on people, many people on fixed incomes or many people already working two and three jobs. You know, it's like this is the first rung on the ladder of the American dream. This is where people are first getting a chance to own their own home.
Tell us about some of those people that you focused on in the film. You talked with people who own mobile homes all over the country, but focused on this place in Aurora, Colorado, called Denver Meadows.
TERRY: Yes, Denver Meadows was, there were two parks — one in Iowa and one in Denver Meadows — that were the main storylines that are the main storylines in the film. There's a couple other parks that are in there as well. But in Aurora, Colorado, at Denver Meadows, the owner decided he was going to try to sell the land. And he did it in a sort of very hidden way, and the residents found out about it. And this community of over 100 mostly Latino, many immigrants, many families. You know, parents working two and three jobs. When they organized, with the help of an organization called 9to5, they went to city, every city council meeting for something like three years and fought the attempt to sell the land. It was an attempt to rezone without letting them know about it.
It was, it's a heroic battle. Because what happened I won't spoil the ... ending of the film. But what happened in Colorado, there's, Colorado went from being one of the worst states in the country for mobile home park protections to being one of the best. Which isn't saying a ton, because there's still more to go. But it, everything that's changed in Colorado was because of how these people fought for everything they had.
