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November 6, 2007

Mobile home park owners sue county

Genevieve Bookwalter
Sentinel staff writer

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/story.php?storySection=Local&sid=44810

The county is trying to avoid the same disaster with mobile home parks that the city of Santa Cruz faced with De Anza: A loss of rent control that decreases property values, drains equity and leaves residents stuck.

The county was sued last month over supervisors' attempt to close what they consider a loophole in state law. At issue is a technique that would allow mobile home park owners to charge tenants more than county-mandated rent control allows.

If supervisors lose the suit, park residents around the county could be forced to pay thousands of dollars more each month to stay in mobile home parks where many have lived for years. Residents also could watch the equity in their homes dry up, and have trouble selling the coaches to anyone else. Supervisors fear they could lose one of the last bastions of affordable housing in the county.

The anticipated problems are similar to those suffered by residents of De Anza Mobile Home Park in Santa Cruz, after a 2003 lawsuit ended rent control for new tenants there. Now many of those residents have said they feel stuck, because no one wants to buy the homes.

Mobile home park residents around the county fear the same fate.

"I'm not sure exactly what I would do if this was forced down my throat," said Angela Dysle, who lives in Alimur Mobile Home Park in Soquel, and whose landlord is part of the lawsuit against the county.

Supervisors weren't helped last month by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who vetoed a bill that would have reinforced their efforts by giving local governments more power in regulating mobile home park rents.

At issue is an effort by park owners to subdivide their property and sell off the spaces to park residents, similar to turning an apartment building into condominiums. Supporters tout the move as a way for renters to become landowners in one of the most expensive counties in the nation.

The catch, however, is those who do not buy in would lose the county-mandated rent control that allows them to park their coaches on mobile home park land for much less than market value.

"We're not against the residents buying the park or negotiating with the park owner. What we're opposed to is using this strategy," said Terry Hancock, attorney with Senior Legal Services in Santa Cruz.

Attorney Richard Close with Gilchrist and Rutter law firm in Santa Monica, who represents about 20 mobile home park owners around the state, argued that residents who qualify as low income under state rules would not see their rent change. Surveys show about 80 percent of mobile home park residents fall into that category, he said.

Meanwhile, park owners would be able to sell their land for market rates, said Close, who argued that those who can afford to buy would benefit, too.

"It's a method for them to acquire ownership of land and the increased value of land," Close said.

A court date to hear the suit has not been set.

Contact Genevieve Bookwalter at gbookwalter@santacruzsentinel.com or 706-3286.

 

 

 

Reader Comments

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Number of comments : 33

 

disabuser11/6/2007 2:04 AM

So is it that "those who do not buy in would lose the county-mandated rent control" or rather is it only those who do not "qualify as low income under state rules"?

 

scruzme11/6/2007 3:16 AM

corrupt to the core. this is wrong.

 

anonymous11/6/2007 5:30 AM

It seems as though it is those who cannot or will not buy in and are not quite low income who suffer the most. And with the current economic atmosphere obtaining a loan when you are on the margin could be very difficult. The biggest problem I have is the thought that Mobile homes build equity. It is a given that mobile homes and automobiles lose money and do not ever make a real investment. This makes it even more difficult, and even more rediculous for the
Chicago landowners and the So. Cal lawyers to think that they can just run over the locals who are barely making it.

 

Woody11/6/2007 6:06 AM

As a fairly new mobile home owner who is just barely making it as it is, this possible situation realizes my biggest fear. I am certainly not "low income" and would most likely lose all if the worst case scenario came to pass!

 

LR11/6/2007 7:03 AM

The residents never bought the land, they are renters. They should be subject to the same rent control laws as everyone else. It was wrong of them to expect full equity out of a rental.

 

Gail11/6/2007 7:14 AM

More mobile homes are now modular and equal in quality to a standard single family home...superior in some cases. The lenders take advantage of modular owners by charging 14.5% the land owners often refuse to sell the park to the residents because they could get more if they were allowed to develop the land as they see fit. The people are stuck in between a rock and a hard place because of greed. EVERYBODY is entitled to a profit - however - when you purchase a mobile home park, especially in a rent controlled area, you VERY clearly understand that people already live there, people who can't just hitch up their homes and leave. So how can it be acceptable for these park owners to buy a mobile home park with the INTENT of converting to condos? Jeeze, if a company who buys a lot has to accommodate a freakin' tar plant, how can park owners get away with ruining the lives of thousands of families? Our park owner bought this park ten years ago for under 1M. Over the years we have entered into negotiations to buy, offering him 3,4,5,6,6.5 million - and he wants more! We can't raise more than the park is worth, but he wants us to pay what he MIGHT be able to rake in if this were bare land! THAT is greed and why we need laws to protect people.

 

silva11/6/2007 7:24 AM

What people fail to understand is that the so called equity build-up is due to the County mandated rent control. The equity build up belongs to the land owners. The manufactured homes are personal property, and should not be associated with the land. Manufactured homes like all personal property depreciate in value. The successful lawsuit will return the equity to the land owners. The County supervisors only see votes, so they pander to the residents of the parks, while wasting taxpayer money on a lawsuit the County will ultimately lose.

 

Gail11/6/2007 8:00 AM

Silvia, the park owners certainly do realize equity. Mobile home parks are considered cash cows because the residents pay for the upkeep. If the infrastructure needs repair, the landowners can and do ask for a cost pass through and the residents pay. The landowners often buy older mobiles and install new modulars to sell at over 300k. Where is the loss?

If landowners want to realize their equity, they should sell to the residents, but often they don't want to. The people who buy modulars these days will not be able to realize the same or even close to the amount of pure profit the landowners do. The majority of modular owners simply want to live in a stable home of their own. We pay mortgages of 1k and more, pay space rent, pay property taxes, live work and shop here. Park owners export cash out of the county, often out of the state. There is a reason they don't want to sell their parks to residents and that is greed, pure and simple. Why should they kill off the cash cow?

Greed is a horrible thing.

 

Becky Johnson11/6/2007 8:12 AM

THE SENTINEL WRITES: "The anticipated problems are similar to those suffered by residents of De Anza Mobile Home Park in Santa Cruz, after a 2003 lawsuit ended rent control for new tenants there."

BECKY: It would have been more accurate to say "after City Attorney John Barisone caved in and gave up on the suit which attacked Barisone's poorly worded ordinance on rent control. A similar suit against MHC-owner, Sam Zell in
San Jose was successfully rebuffed when the San Jose City Council DIDN'T cave in.

 

Anonymous11/6/2007 8:21 AM

I hear that new renters at De Anza are paying $4,000 a month rent. That is robery!!!

 

Steve Hartman11/6/2007 8:33 AM

It's the park owners' faults. No! It's the renters' fault. All this finger-pointing going on and no one is pointing at the politicians who created the problem in the first place. Politicians created the problem by taking original rightful and fair rental profits from the park owners. This in turn, secured these politicians the votes of the many renters versus the few park owners to help in continuous re-elections and promotion of same "progressive" party endorsements.

But now the tides have turned and the park owners have decided to fight back. Now the huge inequities have turned against the renters - a reversal of fortunes so to speak.

It's not the fault of the park owners that they attempt to receive parity and profit for their very risky investments. And it's really not the fault of the renters attempting to take advantage of the rules eneacted by the politicians.

However, this problem was entirely created by the politicians in the first place - those who despise capitalism and market forces and who have adopted the socialist "It-takes-a-village" concept. What these politicians should have done is adopted a slightly different concept. It's the "When-In-Rome-Do-As-The-Romans-do" practice. Had these progressives adopted that strategy and allowed market forces to bear the burden like the rest of capitalistic
America, neither the owners or the renters would be facing what they look at now. There would have been a natural progression of rent increases and both sides would have some parity.

So I say, way to go progressives. Once again you have screwed the public at large and tried to lay blame on someone else.

Clearly, both city councils and the county supervisors could have passed legislation decades ago to allow the sale of lots for mobile homes - just as Montevalle did years ago. then, all those who had acquired mobile homes in the past 5 to 30 years would have real investments now and none of this trouble would be occurring. But these politicians wanted to have control and authority over every aspect of our lives they could grab. This is one of those results.

So, while I don't have a dog in this hunt, I think park renters' anger is misdirected. The politicians suckered you-not the park owners.

 

AS11/6/2007 8:41 AM

I live in a moblie home and am a single parent. It was the only thing I can afford. If that happened to me I would have to just leave the place. I would never be able to pay the rent. All of my hard work would be gone. I don't expect to make money on my home I just hope to be able to stay living there. I think it is really bad that these big companies come here and buy a park knowing there is rent control and than think it is O.K. to get rid of rent control in the name of making money off people who just want a place to live. Thanks board of sups for doing the right thing. Tell those big companies to go home and do that to thier families. Greed is a horrible thing.

 

AS11/6/2007 8:42 AM

I live in a moblie home and am a single parent. It was the only thing I can afford. If that happened to me I would have to just leave the place. I would never be able to pay the rent. All of my hard work would be gone. I don't expect to make money on my home I just hope to be able to stay living there. I think it is really bad that these big companies come here and buy a park knowing there is rent control and than think it is O.K. to get rid of rent control in the name of making money off people who just want a place to live. Thanks board of sups for doing the right thing. Tell those big companies to go home and do that to thier families. Greed is a horrible thing.

 

tp11/6/2007 10:22 AM

I think there are lots of great points here. Rents are artificially low in mobile home parks because of rent control. Mobile home owners mistakenly recieve equity when they sell because they are selling their priveleged status (not the land). Mobile homes have gone up in value because housing costs have gone up, not because the mobile home itself has gone up in value.

Look at what it costs to rent a mobile home. It costs about the same as it costs to rent other housing, but the person getting all the rent is the person who owns the mobile home, and rents the land for a fraction of its value. This seems a bit off to me

Park owners, on the other hand, should accept reasonable offers to sell the land to mobile home owners. Also, this is really a problem of housing costs in general in this area. Of course changing it will hurt people. Of course we should have more affordable housing.

 

GDH11/6/2007 10:51 AM

Mobile home owners don't own the land. Why are they asserting rights to it?

 

GDH11/6/2007 10:52 AM

This isn't cuba..

 

absurd11/6/2007 11:24 AM

scruzme; Where is the corruption?

anonymous; Why is it the
Chicago owners fault that the residents are barely making it? It is their own fault.

Gail; I have lived in mobile homes and know several people who own mobile homes and they are no where near the quality of a prebuilt house. Not even close. How is a renter entitled to a profit? And why is it wrong for someone to purchase a piece of property with the intent of making as much money off of it as possible? This is
america after all. Greed is what this country was founded on and what makes it survive today. Look to Russia to see what socialism does for a country and it's people.

AS; Why is that all you can afford? And why is it wrong for a company to make as much profit as they can? Making money off of people is the American way. Why should it matter if they live in a mobile home or an apartment? Learn the realities of life and make them work for you. Maybe you would be able to afford a better place to live.

tp; your reasonable offer is NOT my reasonable offer. Why should a park owner have to accept an offer they do not value as "reasonable"?

To all of you Mobile Home owners; Caveat emptor. You get what you pay for. A second rate home on someone else's property, that endears you to them for the time you foolishly rent there. I learned this in the second grade and it is not that hard to understand.

 

Concerned Consumer11/6/2007 12:01 PM

Sounds like another attempt to punish people who try to economize on lifes biggest expense-housing!

The greedy propose these laws-and uually win.

 

disabuser11/6/2007 1:09 PM

Gail, how many lots are in your park and what are the going rents under rent control?

 

polio11/6/2007 1:38 PM

How would you like to own a large apartment building and then suddenly have your tenants demand a large equity position in your property just because they have their vehicles parked on your property. I see similarities.

 

howard11/6/2007 1:55 PM

Those people commenting on how the mobile home 'space renters' are profiting from rent control - at the expense of the mobile home park owners - are overlooking a few things 1. Almost all the mobilehome parks were purchased under the existing rent control laws - this means they bought the parks much cheaper than if the parks had no rent control - (and that is not the homeowners 'fault') - The land owners paid the market rate 2. The people who live in the parks and bought homes had to also pay the rent control house prices - which are higher prices due to rent control. To change the law now, or eliminate it, would give an unearned windfall to the landowners at the homeowners expense. Very few of the mobile home park residents bought their home before rent control - so they are not receiving any undue windfalls.They also paid the market rate.

It is neither fair - nor logical - to change the current rent control system when all concerned parties originally agreed to play by its rules.

 

BD11/6/2007 3:18 PM

If only someone in power, way back when, would have created laws to insure housing not be allowed for investment purposes, but only for a roof over one's head. This would not be happening and greed, although it would still be present, would not be allowed to take shelter from human beings.

There are some cruel people here shaking a finger at those who bought coaches and rent the land beneath them. Many bought to give their children shelter and moved in with an agreed-upon rent. How dare you judge when there are so many in this area struggling to make a living.

In case you have been stoned for the past 10 years, I'll let you in on what has been happening around you: rents and real estate have drastically gone up (more than in most of the nation) from the prosperous
Silicon Valley workers moving here. I actually appreciate the diversity they have brought to our area, but no intelligent person who has lived here can deny that this is a fact. The rich were bidding well over what houses were being listed at.

To rip the roof away from those who have worked in this community, who have fed and supported this community is uncalled for. I am grateful that I don't have to live with your conscience.

Absurd: It is not the fault of the residents that they are barely making it. If you had been paying attention for the past several years you would see that. If you think the
Chicago owners are innocent of this, you are quite naive.

 

absurd11/6/2007 4:41 PM

"If only someone in power, way back when, would have created laws to insure housing not be allowed for investment purposes, but only for a roof over one's head. This would not be happening and greed, although it would still be present, would not be allowed to take shelter from human beings."

This is a crazy statement to make. Again ask the people of
Russia how socialism worked for them... This is America, founded on the principals of making money. Real Estate is probably the best investment to make since someone will always need a roof over their head and people are constantly dropping crotch fruit further exacerbating the situation. It is in fact the American dream to own a house and make money off of it.

I am shaking my finger NOT at the individuals just trying to get by in a mobile home, I am shaking my finger at the people who feel they should be able to make a profit on someone else's investment. Like polio submitted, how is it fair for these people to believe they have any money coming to them on another persons investment. If they are struggling to get by, do as others have done, increase your skill set and get a better job. Or get a second job to help with expenses.

I may have been stoned off and on for the last 10 years, but I still see what has been happening around this area.
Santa Cruz county has become a hotbed of Real Estate activity. Why? Because it is a beautiful place to live and play. I bought my home 14 years ago(no I am not from Silicon Valley and was not working there at the time. I am now, but that is because the wages paid by SC county employers is a JOKE) and at the time I had to have 2 jobs to pay for it and was grateful for the VA loan I earned to make it happen. The rich are bidding over the listing price because they could. Does this put that second home out of reach for me? Today it does. So I go out, improve my skills, get a better job and use that money to move to another place. Basic economics. Do I like working 2 jobs? No. But if I want nice things I must sacrifice. I do not expect anyone to hand me anything on a silver platter. I was taught I EARN what I get. I also don't expect that I could even afford a house in Belair so I do not live there. If I could not afford to live where I am I would find a place to live that WAS affordable.

I disagree with your last statement BD. It IS indeed the fault of _most_ residents that they are barely making it. There are many factors. Some due to single parents, teen parents, poor education, lack of motivation. Some are insurmountable. Get a second job or get some better skills and then get a better job. That is the way of life like it or not. Money makes this world go around and if you have none or very little, life sucks. Deal with it and get a better job. No one promised you anything for free. If one of the many laws in this country are holding you back or causing you distress, do something about it. There are enough organizations in existence to help with tuition, child support and food stamps so there are no excuses. It is also NOT the
Chicago owners fault. they made an investment and want a pay off. Simple economics again. If they are trying to change the laws to make money then there is an issue. Just use your power of voting to make sure the law does not get changed. Simple really.

Most people are forgetting that money makes this world go around and there is BIG money in real estate. That is a fact of life. Socialistic policies will do nothing but drive this country into the ground just like the
USSR.

 

Antsy11/6/2007 5:27 PM

Why don't the mobile home residents buy their own land develop it for mobile homes and move their units there?

Cost of land, cost of development cost of permits are all part of the equation that add to land value. If some shylock from
Chicago figured it out before you did consider it tuition at the college of the hard knocks.

If your unit is too old and rickity to move what is its value? It cost about $25,000 to relocate a mobile home so if your home is not worth that much on its own you are stuck with a poor investment. Many mobile homes built before the seventies have aluminum wiring which makes them fire traps which in turn lowers their values more.

My house goes down in value every year while the land it sits on goes up (according to the tax man). Why should a mobile home park be expected to do any diffrent?

 

BigWaveDave11/6/2007 7:42 PM

Nice post Howard.

The county needs to set up a donation fund to help support their cause.

Then they need to write a proposition that helps these poor suffering park owners out of their desperate situation.

I like this idea, take the original purchase price that the current park owner's paid. Then give them the cpi average of the period they owned the park along with their original purchase funds. Combined, this becomes the new purchase price for the current mobile home owners to pay for the park. Then you will finally see the mobile owners step up and buy the park and the poor park owners are relieved of their suffering. A win win situation for everybody!!.

Then we can kick the current park owners asses right out of SC. :0


 

howard11/6/2007 9:48 PM

The poet W.B.Yeats said famously - "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity" (from 'The Second Coming'.)

Connected to this issue - of mobile home rent control - is an upcoming ballet initiative for the upcoming June 2008 election. It is called the "California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act" and is brought to you by the passionate, busy beavers of the Howard (not me) Jarvis Taxpaper Association -and funded primarily by
Mobile Home Park owners and land owning corporations. (You may have noticed those nice young men standing outside 'Trader Joes' and 'Staff of Life'markets collecting petition ballet signatures - guess who is paying for them?) . It is, in my opinion, a scary and dishonest bill, and its title is designed to trick voters into voting out rent control, amongst other things, in the guise of somehow protecting homeowners from the government. A similar bill called 'Propositon 90' was defeated last fall - this one has a clever cozy title and just as greedy purpose - check it out!

(It is interesting, I should say - depressing, how our governor has aligned himself on these issues.)

 

CMRAA PRESIDENT11/6/2007 9:59 PM

Most of the negative comments come from people who are either comfortably rich and on the side of Park Owners, or who know nothing at all about mobile homes and their owners. First of all, you cannot equate mobilehomes to apartments. Apartment dwellers can trash the place and the building owner must pay for the repair. Mobilehome owners are required to maintain their homes AND the space. They must keep their homes looking neat and clean and in good repair and they must landscape and maintain the ground. Mobilehomes are the last of the affordable housing left in the state. A doublewide is generally 3 bedroom 2 bath and around 1700 square feet. They sell for an average of 100,000 dollars. Many sell for less. The people that live in them are, for the most part, elderly retired folks living on fixed or limited income. Others are those folks that work to support your rich lifestyles, serving you your high priced meals in places they can't afford to eat - or making your 5 dollar cups of latte., sweeping up your floors, cleaning up after you so you don't have to bother yourselves. We are the lower class. And we don't have the means to buy million dollar homes. If YOU are 70 years old tell me where you can borrow a hundred grand or more for your space - and forget a 30 year mortgage, think 10 years - add state mandated HOA dues - property taxes, and all the maintenence costs of the common areas - and think of paying four or five times what you pay in rent because you now "own" the land. Your home becomes worthless because you can't sell it - and you can't move it. So, after years of paying it off, living comfortably, if poorly, you are forced to walk away from it - and go where? For those without family there IS nowhere to go but to the streets. Don't pay any attention that you are willing to rob us of our dignity and self respect because you feel it is okay to make more money.

Parks don't lose money. Park Owners take in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in net profit, but they want more. Zell who lives in Chicago and terms himself a "grave dancer" fought rent control in San Jose - and lost - and the park he owned - 800 units - brought in 7 MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR in gross profit. He owns 30 parks in
California and takes 200 million a year back to Chicago. I think you folks who denigrate the mobilehome owner need to do some homework.

 

anonymous11/7/2007 12:33 AM

Regarding the comment that mobile home park
renters should be subject to the same rent
control laws as everyone else: that's not
happening now. Even though we don't own the
land we have to pay property taxes on it just
as if we did. And you "regular" renters do not.

 

Concerned11/7/2007 10:01 AM

Three issues:

1. Why are Park Owners forced to subsidize 100% of their investment to so called "affordable housing"? This supposed to be a community wide subsidy. Yet Park owners are subsidizing 100% of their investment to it.

2. If this is truely "affordable housing" why isn't there any kind of income test in place to qualify tenants for this type housing? I know for certain that in Parks throughout the City of
Santa Cruz and Capitola that a majority of tenants would not qualify and in fact quite a few own the homes as a vacation homes and are somehow protected under this ridiculous ordinance.

3. How do you feel about Park Owners that owned the Park for years before the rent control ordinance was ever in place?? Is it fair that now they are forced to subsidize 100% of their original investment to affordable housing?

 

CMRAA PRESIDENT11/8/2007 9:53 AM

Three issues:

1. Why are Park Owners forced to subsidize 100% of their investment to so called "affordable housing"? This supposed to be a community wide subsidy. Yet Park owners are subsidizing 100% of their investment to it.

Exactly what do you mean by "subsidizing"? If you buy an existing business, say a strip mall with dozens of tenants already in place, and you raise their rents to offset the cost of purchasing the property, but raise it to a level that your tenants no longer can afford because their income does not match the raise - they go out of business - and you have empty shops.

Please understand that these days mobile/manufactured housing communities are being bought up by corporations. The original owners are getting elderly, their kids don't want to take over, so when they get an offer of millions of immediate dollars they take it. The residents don't have a say in who owns the Park. They are required by law to obey the Rules and Regulations (tenancy) and Mobile home Residency Law.

Mobilehome/Manufactured Housing Communities are very much a "symbiotic relationship". Each side relies upon the other for existence. Starve one or the other and both die off. However, in the case of Park Owners, they try and exchange the relationship for one that is richer in nutrients (money).

In your area there is one park that lost a rent control fight with one of those corporations. I don't think there is a single original resident left. Rents range from a couple thousand a month up to 5 thousand.

2. If this is truely "affordable housing" why isn't there any kind of income test in place to qualify tenants for this type housing? I know for certain that in Parks throughout the City of
Santa Cruz and Capitola that a majority of tenants would not qualify and in fact quite a few own the homes as a vacation homes and are somehow protected under this ridiculous ordinance.

Park Management has control over tenancy. For the most part, in order to qualify for tenancy the prospective buyer must show that their income is 3X the rent of the space and mortgage. So, if the space rent is 500 a month and the mortgage is 500 a month, the tenant must have a monthly income of 3 thousand. However, some Park Owners in areas without rent control ordinances can, and do, raise rents 10, 15, 20 percent, and sometimes more, and they can do that anytime they want - sometimes more than once a year. My Park Owner tried to raise rents by a total of 110 percent - and my Park is built on an old junk/landfill at the very southern tip of the SF Bay in Alviso. Not exactly high rent area. But before he applied for the rent increase, he stopped maintaining the common areas, fired the crews, and let the entire community degrade. This is a common tactic amongst Corporate Owners.

Absolutely, we have snowbirds, but they are not the rule. AND, there are provisions in the MRLs and usually the Rules and Regulations that exempt them from rent control ordinances. If it is not their primary residence, it does not come under those protections - and in order to be their primary residence, they must be there, I believe, 10 or more months a year continual occupation. AND, most parks will not allow them to sublet or rent their homes. In fact, most parks won't allow you to let your family, grandkids, or whomever, to stay more than 20 days per year without registering them as residents of the park.... and then they must "qualify".

Parks came into existence for a lot of reasons, but primarily as a means of using land that was laying fallow or useless to the owner. They answered a need for low cost housing. They became retirement homes or affordable first homes for newlyweds. Most parks were, and still are, 55 and older. Upwards of 80% of mobilehome residents are 65 and older. There are some 2 million of us in
California. A conundrum, right?

3. How do you feel about Park Owners that owned the Park for years before the rent control ordinance was ever in place?? Is it fair that now they are forced to subsidize 100% of their original investment to affordable housing?

Well, let's look at
Stanislaus County and Modesto. Equity Life Styles (Sam Zell) bought two parks in the area and immediately started jacking up rents. (Waterhouse Management is doing the same thing in Butte County) After nearly 2 years, the City and County came up with two phase rent control ordinances. Simply put, one phase allowed Park Owners to get long term leases with a 5% increase every year. Because ELS didn't like that and refused to go along with it, they also passed another phase that allows ELS to get a percentage of the CPI as the basis for a rent increase every year. Something like 3%. I am not entirely conversant with this, but that's the crux of the situation. Nobody like it on either side, but it was the lessor of two evils.

Let me ask something. Where was
Santa Cruz in the economic ladder 40 years ago when most of these communities were developed?

And let me point something else out. Park Owners collect their money for their spaces month in and month out. It doesn't matter if you live in the home or not. It doesn't matter if you move away putting up your home for sale, and it doesn't matter if your go bankrupt and allow the mortgage company to take over the home..... the rent gets paid by SOMEONE every single month. If it doesn't, then the Park Owner simply puts a lien against the home, winds up owning it, and because they are exempt from the law that says mobilehomes cannot be sublet or rented, sublet or rent, or outright sell the home - and continue to collect rent on the space. Waterhouse Management usually moves out an older home and replaces it with a new model, jacks up the rent to "fair market value", sells the home and carries the mortgage - and collects rent. Quite lucrative, no?

Oh, and "fair market value" of space rent according to Owners is what a three bedroom two bathroom house rents for in the area. Exactly how much is that, by the way?

And in answer to that one yahoo that said we should get two jobs - we worked, saved, raised families, and are now retired. We didn't need the best of everything, we didn't need to buy a new car every couple of years, we didn't need 50 inch plasma televisions - and we didn't neglect our kids. He is as greedy as the some of the land owners. I suppose it's a vicious circle - and someone has to lose in the end.... but why should it be the elderly and the poorest among us?

 

CMRAA PRESIDENT11/8/2007 10:16 AM

1. to furnish or aid with a subsidy.

2. to purchase the assistance of by the payment of a subsidy.

3. to secure the cooperation of by bribery; buy over.

Subsidy= Financial aid given by a government to individuals or groups.

After having looked up the definitions of "subsidize" - I find it does not apply to your questions. Park Owners in no way subsidize their tenants. As a matter of fact, rent control ordinances can be seen as a subsidy for Park Owners by gauranteeing them a minimum increase in rent every year in order to offset any costs in maintaining their land.

Let's say that next year we go into a recession and the Consumer Price Index goes flat or even into the minus column - Park Owners will still be gauranteed a minimum rent increase. In
San Jose that would be no less than 3%. In good years that could be as high as 7%.

I suppose, that using that logic, all government entities should be allowed to automatically raise your taxes because they are running a deficit budget - but let's say they are not - merely want to INCREASE the money they can spend. Should they be allowed to increase your taxes? Oh, and if you cannot afford to pay those increased taxes, take your home away?

Same difference.

 

cat11/12/2007 11:58 AM

This is not right!!!!!!!!