From left, Jewel Estates Cooperative President Thomas Levesque and Treasurer Susan Sylvia, and ROC-NH Housing Cooperative Specialist Zachery Palmer. Photo courtesy of the Community Loan Fund of New Hampshire

A mobile home park in Merrimack is just the latest in New Hampshire to be purchased by its residents.

Homeowners in Rancourt Estates Mobile Home Park have purchased their 44-unit manufactured-home park, making it New Hampshire’s 133rd resident-owned community, or ROC.

Using training and technical assistance from the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund’s ROC-NH team, homeowners organized and formed Jewel Estates Cooperative in June. The cooperative then matched the $2.8 million price of the park’s owner, Claude Rancourt, and finalized the deal Dec. 1 with a mortgage from the Community Loan Fund, the fund said in a statement.

The community is being renamed the Jewel Estates Co-op.

“We are in a prime development area, with new apartments and condos being built every year. Going co-op and having the chance to control our own destiny was a no-brainer,” said Jewel Estates Co-op President Thomas Levesque.

Co-op Vice President Lisa Stringer said the residents’ ownership of the park “means having security, control, and freedom over our own land.”

Typically, mobile home park residents own their own homes but not the land underneath them.

Jewel Estates Cooperative is Hillsborough County’s 15th ROC. Those communities contain 1,028 long-term affordable homes.

Cooperative ownership also means Jewel Estates’ homeowners are now eligible for products and services, including real mortgages, that haven’t been available to them. Studies show that the availability of home financing, when the land is secure, improves the home’s value, the owner’s ability to make improvements, and overall housing affordability.