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What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

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Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#91

Post by peter_d_sherman »

>"The Mobile Home University Web site states,

“Mobile home parks are the hottest sector of real estate right now, due to the endless decline in the U.S. economy.”

The site points out that thousands of baby boomers are retiring each day, and that they will receive around fourteen thousand dollars a year in Social Security income:

“Mobile home parks are the only segment of real estate that grows stronger as the economy weakens.”"

PDS: A potential (or actual):

inverse-correlation...

How interesting!

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#92

Post by exolymph »

omegaworks wrote: post #89
exolymph wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States is the land of high variance. We let people crash and burn, but we also let people soar. A society that permits the former is unremarkable — letting people suffer is the default in poverty, and most countries are relatively quite poor. But the latter, letting the tall poppies stand proud with not much more than heckling for their height, is something special, and it's a big part of how we've become…

This is blatant capitalist propaganda. Basic access to things like housing and education make for a tangibly wealthier society. Every dollar we invest in preschool education, for example, nets out $6 in terms of return throughout the course of the child's life.[1] The nation continues on its "high variance" trajectory because it is structurally incapable of acting democratically. Two of the four major deliberative bo…

> This is blatant capitalist propaganda.

Oh indeed, and you're salty about it because you know that you're losing because you simply cannot deliver equivalent results.

dang, if you're reading this, I'll take my smack on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper now.

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#93

Post by clairity »

FooHentai wrote: post #86
clairity wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's a false dichotomy. you can support freeing up urban real estate and retirees downsizing without assuming a house is an investment. for instance, if the economic system acted to stabilize home values neutrally rather than explicitly promoting increasing valuations (through interest rates, and other mechanisms), you could still have those positive dynamics without the negative externalities.

You're right. Ops position was that housing should not be seen as any kind of investment. My point was that, for retirees, housing is a valid investment vehicle and that dynamic is valuable to society as a whole. But on reflection, I'm thinking in the wrong terms here. I could better view this as housing being an important store of value for retirees, rather than an investment generating financial return for them.

exactly. i'm actually ok with a primary home being a modest investment (like 0-1%/year appreciation over inflation, but not 2+%), i'm unabashedly against naked wealth extraction via the corporatized investment mentality, leaving people homeless, or at the very least broadly overleveraged (a profoundly negative externality).

there's also the oft-mentioned japanese view that homes are a depreciating asset, though land values remain quite high, so the asset class is still modestly investible, iirc.

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#94

Post by akvadrako »

bityard wrote: post #79
milkytron wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that term as well, and I suppose it's useful to have a different term for that type of home vs one that is built on its foundation from the start. But the term manufactured home seems odd to me, aren't nearly all new homes nowadays "manufactured"?

"Manufactured" means built in a factory and can be transported on a semi. As opposed to most buildings (in the U.S. at least) which are built on-site by a contractor.

It seems a bit confusing compared to prefab homes though, which are mostly made in a factory and assembled on site.

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#95

Post by omegaworks »

exolymph wrote: post #92
omegaworks wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is blatant capitalist propaganda. Basic access to things like housing and education make for a tangibly wealthier society. Every dollar we invest in preschool education, for example, nets out $6 in terms of return throughout the course of the child's life.[1] The nation continues on its "high variance" trajectory because it is structurally incapable of acting democratically. Two of the four major deliberative bo…

> This is blatant capitalist propaganda. Oh indeed, and you're salty about it because you know that you're losing because you simply cannot deliver equivalent results. dang, if you're reading this, I'll take my smack on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper now.

Delivering results for whom exactly? Look outside and you'll see homelessness rising and storefronts closing.

The entire failed national pandemic response is due to the perverse incentives of our system.

Five hundred thousand Americans (and counting) are dead because we couldn't close the economy for a couple months and pay people to stay home.

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#97

Post by diggernet »

akvadrako wrote: post #94
bityard wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Manufactured" means built in a factory and can be transported on a semi. As opposed to most buildings (in the U.S. at least) which are built on-site by a contractor.

It seems a bit confusing compared to prefab homes though, which are mostly made in a factory and assembled on site.

Yes, it is confusing. My brother in law works in that industry, and explained the differences to me this way:

Mobile home: Factory built before a certain date in the 1970's (which I've forgotten), with no particular quality standards in place.

Manufactured home: The new name for mobile homes, indicating that they have been factory built to clearly defined standards. Considered depreciating personal property by insurance companies and lenders.

Modular home: Also factory built, but to the same standards as homes built on-site. (These are the prefabs you mention.) Considered real estate, the same as site-built homes, by insurance companies and lenders.

Edit: Wikipedia links to this archived page, which provides more specifics:

https://web.archive.org/web/20120323074714/http://www.mhcomm...

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#98

Post by nicolas_t »

starpilot wrote: post #47
Shacklz wrote: post #14

The US are such a weird country... on one hand, Silicon valley et al, producing the coolest tech & the shiniest toys, and on the other hand... people who can only afford to live in trailer parks, even with a full time job. It never ceases to amaze & depress me simultaneously.

I read that the world needs both types of economies. The US is a dynamic, freewheeling sort with the most extremes. You can get incredibly rich, but the bottom has no floor. It's easy to amass capital and to pay workers. Or have western Europe, which is a relatively painful climate for businesses. Taxation for extensive social services is stifling, but at least most of the middle people are OK.

With the problem of western Europe having massive braindrain. A doctor in France who decides to work in China will easily quadruple his salary. likewise in pretty much any country. An engineer in France, working in the US will also triple his salary.

Of course, there's less safety nets, less benefits but for educated people who are part of the upper middle class (doctors, teachers, engineers, etc...), the increase in salary is such that it really makes no sense from an economic standpoint to stay in France.

I'd say it's better only for working class to lower middle class.

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#99

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

evancox100 wrote: post #90
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can't. Nothing and they are already are doing it. Blackrock raised billions during COVID on the idea that once the evictions kick off, lots of homeowners will lose their homes and those tenants with black marks will have to pay more and more to rent. Every person abusing the COVID moratorium just to screw over the "landlord" who owns one property is just one more nail in the US clusterfuck coffin. Edit: it's Bla…

You must be talking about Black stone , the private equity/LBO group, not BlackRock, the ETF provider. I don't think there is a Mobile Home Index ETF, not yet at least. I think there is a lot of hate directed to BlackRock, which is really meant to be directed at Blackstone. BlackRock is an absolutely huge financial company, to be sure, but is soley in the business of ETFs and asset management, which aren't exactly ab…

You're right, it is Blackstone.

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#100

Post by throwaway894345 »

kevingadd wrote: post #68
throwaway894345 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect we gutted our middle class with globalization. Any jobs that could be exported overseas for cheaper were, and management was rewarded for saving investors so much money by outsourcing those jobs. If we had a stronger collective identity (as with many European countries) we might've felt a kinship or patriotic duty to protect those jobs or otherwise redistribute the wealth garnered by outsourcing. And I'm no…

Globalization and other factors didn't help, but the continued refusal to pay people a reasonable wage for full or part time work is a huge part of why the middle class is struggling and the class below is failing to move up into the middle class over time. The minimum wage hasn't budged in decades, and in general wages have not remotely kept up with increases in productivity and revenues. If the minimum wage had bee…

> The minimum wage hasn't budged in decades

That doesn't appear to be true: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart. Additionally many states have their own higher minimum wages.

> in general wages have not remotely kept up with increases in productivity and revenues.

Isn't this because of globalization?

> There's a lot of paranoia about possible negative impacts of wage increases, but it's been tested in many municipalities at this point with no major issues, and virtually every other western country has a much higher minimum than us.

I don't think this is true? I'm pretty sure when we raise wages, jobs move overseas except for those jobs that are fundamentally local (fast-food employees, agricultural workers, construction, sanitation, etc). I'm not opposed to raising wages, but I think we also need to keep jobs from flowing overseas.

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