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‘Home Sweet (Trailer) Home’ Yes!
Until the Vultures Swoop In.
In the heartless pandemic-fueled sweep of non-paying “deadbeats” from rental housing, plenty of innocent households are being pushed to the streets. A particularly egregious eviction process ravaging the last bastion of affordable housing, the house trailer, aka manufactured housing gets little attention. We’re not talking recreational vehicles, another story for another time.
To no surprise, private equity firms are scooping up mobile home parks with a devious strategy to get rich(er) by upending income-challenged house trailer-owners. NBC news recently reported:
“Since the 2008 financial crisis, private equity firms have piled into the manufactured home sector. Because manufactured homes are difficult and expensive to move, they are viewed as stable investments by private equity firms and shareholders. If a tenant is evicted, the property inherits the abandoned home and can rent it out again, producing a consistent source of revenue growth, said Linda Jun, senior policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform.”
Private equity firms’ typical strategy:
- buy out the park owner,
- install new management, and
- raise lot rents (residents own their trailer but not the land it sits on).
