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What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

newyorker.com

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Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#111

Post by chadcmulligan »

evancox100 wrote: post #78
dtwest wrote: post #36

Having spent a decent amount of time in one of these myself, I much prefer the term "trailer park" to "mobile-home community". The article uses the term interchangeably, but they explain this important detail themselves: "The homes in the park are not as portable as its name implies; they’ve been placed on foundations, and their hitches have been removed." In my experience, in older parks especially, there is no way…

Fascinating. In searching on the difference between an RV and a mobile home, I came across this gem from Frank Rolfe, who's profiled in the New Yorker article: "If it has to be pulled by an actual truck (which is what costs the $3,000 or so in the move) then it’s a mobile home. But also remember that there is a component that can only be pulled by a truck in most RV parks, which is called the “park model”. These are…

All part of the poverty industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_industry

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#112

Post by simonh »

clairity wrote: post #72
FooHentai wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure you're entirely correct. A lot of people plan on downsizing their housing when they reach retirement age - Move somewhere smaller because you don't need to accommodate the kids any more, and further out of an urban center because you don't need to commute any more. This is a net positive - It frees up more valuable real estate in urban centers for working-age citizens to utilize, and extracts capital fro…

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.

It’s not the economic system as such that drives up real estate prices, it’s us the people who want to live in a nicer house. We bid up the prices of real estate in competition with each other. It’s not some external sinister faceless policy monster, it’s the queues of people who line up to view properties for sale - us.

I’m a Brit but we have this bad here at the moment. A house next to ours came on the market just last week, it wasn’t even listed inline yet but on day one the estate agent had a long list of people registered with them viewing the property all day and got four offers. It’s those people living in my area competing for property driving up house prices.

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#113

Post by throwaway894345 »

burntoutfire wrote: post #67
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…

> I suspect we gutted our middle class with globalization. It's not about middle class. In other rich countries, everyone, incl. the lower class, can afford to live in apartments, and doesn't have to resort to living in trailers.

I lived in a trailer growing up. They tend to be lower end, but "affordable housing" apartments are going to be comparably low-end. I'm guessing the reason they're more common in the US than in Europe is because land in the U.S. is so much more abundant, not because 500 sq ft apartment is inherently more dignified than a 1000 sq ft trailer.

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#114

Post by exolymph »

omegaworks wrote: post #95
exolymph wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Far be it from me to argue that the United States is competently administered compared to, e.g., a successful firm.

It's still a global superpower for a reason, and that reason is not "communism will totally work this time"

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#115

Post by brudgers »

pram wrote: post #71
dtwest wrote: post #36

Having spent a decent amount of time in one of these myself, I much prefer the term "trailer park" to "mobile-home community". The article uses the term interchangeably, but they explain this important detail themselves: "The homes in the park are not as portable as its name implies; they’ve been placed on foundations, and their hitches have been removed." In my experience, in older parks especially, there is no way…

The term I always heard is “manufactured home” which makes more sense. I grew up in a double wide. Once it’s set up you quite obviously can’t move it again without wrecking everything lol

The technical difference is a mobile home has a license plate, is registered with the DMV, and taxed like a vehicle. A manufactured home (or modular home) is built to the building code and taxed as real property at the same rates (typically) as a site built house.

But in ordinary usage people use the terms interchangeably.

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#117

Post by zie »

bityard wrote: post #88
dhbradshaw wrote: post #48

After a cold snap recently I went out to visit an older couple in a trailer who had had their plumbing burst due to freezing. The trailer was in really rough shape. They were huddling under blankets because heating and insulation were inadequate. And now they had no water. Two things make me angry about the trailer park situation. 1. people living there who only get poorer from it. They own the portion of the home th…

Where I live, there are many levels of quality when it comes to "trailer parks". I know of a few that are essentially slums: very low-income residents, crowded, dirty, noisy, and packed with trailers from the 50s and 60s. I don't know who would _choose_ to live in these places. Maybe it's a case of poor people being poor because they make poor choices. Or simply aren't aware that there are better options. On the othe…

Or, because they have no money and it's all they can afford.

it's that or being homeless. In a trashy RV park, they generally get running water, electricity and a toilet that flushes. Actual homeless people are a step down from that, generally no running water, etc.

Also note, most homeless persons are effectively barred from working. (employers mostly require an address to hire you)

source: me. a formerly homeless person and have lived in the trashy RV parks before.

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#118

Post by em-bee »

goda90 wrote: post #80
mike_d wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In almost every part of the US anything except a single family home should be illegal to build. Land is in extreme abundance and multi-tenant properties are almost always built and owned by corporations.

Third alternative. Multi-family homes owned by co-ops of all the residents.

another alternative is to give more legal protection for tennants so that corporations can't exploit them anymore

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#119

Post by danans »

Some companies are trying to move manufactured homes from the lowest quality rung into housing with better quality/design, like:

https://www.palmcanyonmobileclub.com

Granted, these are marketed toward retirees, which is why they are in Palm Springs, but it nonetheless shows that with a little investment in design and materials (which doesn't have to be very expensive), the format of manufactured homes can be separated from their historical associations with low quality.

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#120

Post by jrnichols »

CalRobert wrote: post #26
BitwiseFool wrote: post #12

How can individuals compete against institutional money? Housing prices are skyrocketing in my area and there are stories on the news about investment firms buying up homes and putting them up for rent. What's to stop these well financed institutions from buying up more and more real estate and forcing more people into renting?

The removal of rules making it impossible to create more housing would be a start.

and in california, removal of the insanely high permit/building fees. that would be a great start.

I also wonder how many of these real estate firms are backed by Chinese investors too.

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