Residents of three mobile home parks bought out the company which owned the land their homes sat on in an “unprecedented” $48 million deal earlier this week.
On Monday, families in Tanglewood Cooperative in Keene, Bear View Crossing Cooperative in Allenstown, and Black Bear Village Cooperative in North Conway officially bought their parks with financing help from the state and two local banks. As part of the terms of the deal, the 874 homes in the parks will become permanent affordable housing.
Unlike most homeowners, homeowners in mobile home parks typically only own their homes and lease the land on which they sit from a landlord. This unusual arrangement, while offering a much cheaper path to homeownership, can open some mobile home park residents up to exploitation by an unscrupulous park owner. In addition, some mobile homes depreciate in value over time, while nearly all traditional homes tend to increase in value over time.
After hearing their parks were to be sold to a major national operator of mobile home parks, residents of the Keene, Allenstown and North Conway parks formed cooperatives with technical assistance from the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, starting in November 2018. They received financing from the Community Loan Fund, The Provident Bank, Northway Bank, the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority, “impact investors,” and a community development block grant administered by the New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority, according to the Community Loan Fund. In a statement, the fund called the deal “unprecedented” in its history.
“It means residents coming together as a community like we should, to watch out for our elders, watch out for our neighbors,” Tanglewood resident Sharon Harper said in a statement.
“We’re basically doing this for a lot of the younger folks in the park, so they’ll have low-income housing,” Tom Moughan of Black Bear Village said in a statement. “It gives them a chance to own homes, and as they have kids and they grow if they want to move out they’ll have a better chance at selling their home in a cooperative community than if it was privately owned.”
Cooperative ownership means the parks’ homeowners are now eligible for products and services, including real mortgages, that weren’t available to them previously. Studies show that the availability of home financing, when the land is secure, improves a mobile home’s value, the owner’s ability to make improvements and overall housing affordability, according to the Community Loan Fund.