Many owners of manufactured homes on leased land are being told they have six months to move the home or get out. They are caught in a Catch-22. The owners of communities are learning that the land on which the manufactured homes stand has great value to developers who want to build shopping centers, apartments or condos. Many of the small- to medium-size manufactured-home communities are on the edge of cities where land values have risen dramatically in the past few years. Homes in these communities are 15 to 30 years old.
The value of these older homes is often $5,000 to $15,000. Even though they are older and do not match today's home values, they represent affordable housing.
Moving these older manufactured homes, often aging single-wides, is not an option. They will not be accepted in most communities, and the cost of moving ranges from $3,500 to $7,000 or more. There is no resale market. The only option for the residents is to abandon them. The residents lose their homes and have to move elsewhere. Rarely do they have the funds to purchase a new or newer home. The Manufactured Housing Institute in 2000 estimated the average price of a new manufactured home was $46,500. The average price of a site-built home was $162,300. Small communities on valuable land in Florida are prime candidates, but larger communities with as many as 350 homes are being sold. Any community on land where values are escalating are at risk.
Florida has more mobile/manufactured homes (almost 900,000) and more communities (more than 2,600) than any other state. Polk County leads the state with 65,235 homes and more than 250 communities. Pinellas County has more than 50,000 homes, then Pasco 43,700 and Hillsborough 42,000. Don Hazelton, president of the Federation of Manufactured Home Owners of Florida, said that communities with a total of 3,000 homes have closed in the past three years.
Rental income to the community owner cannot match the potential of selling the land to a developer. The landowner has the opportunity to cash in on his investment. The good news (if you can call it that) is that under state law, owners are eligible for some compensation for their homes, up to $1,375 for a single-wide and $2,750 for a double-wide, if they abandon their homes. But that is too little to buy another home and to find affordable rents. However, if they move their home to another community, they can receive state moving assistance up to $3,000 for a single-wide and up to $5,000 for a double-wide. But that's just a small part of the cost: Recent relocations of double-wides in Polk County have cost as much as $15,000.
Can we blame the landowner for taking advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sell the property he invested in for a windfall? I think most of us would take the cash. The land was purchased as an investment, not as a social experiment. The landowner can't compensate the owners adequately, and the state funds are inadequate.
So what are the solutions? Are we to sit by and watch as millions nationwide are displaced from home ownership with little or no compensation? It is time for state legislators and for Congress to recognize this growing crisis and provide funding that will offer one of two options: make available adequate funds to help the homeowners relocate, and/or funds to assist park owners to upgrade the community so that rental income becomes more meaningful.
State legislators and Congressional representatives will tell us that they are confronted with severe budget problems and funds just are not available for this. I disagree. Our politicians are always capable of finding funds for their pet projects.
This crisis will not go away. It will continue to grow, and it is possible that hundreds of thousands of hardworking people will be displaced. It is time for our politicians to recognize the problem and do something about it.
- Send comments or questions to Len Bonifield at elb@gate.net or fax to 863 853-8023, or phone (863) 858-1557. Please include your e-mail and mailing address. Because of the volume of mail and phone calls, he can't respond personally to every query. Bonifield is a manufactured-home resident and a past HOA president and former officer of the FMO District 1 board of directors.
