Mobile Home Parks and Rent Control | TMH 003
When I first started looking into the purchase of a manufactured home, I encountered space rental fees, and how they would and could affect my total monthly housing budget. The first bit of information I found was in a Trulia Forum where it was mentioned that mobile home parks are under Rent Control. Is that all Parks? I’ll be a new renter - isn’t Rent Control broken with New renters? Well, I did some digging and found some very interesting answers!
Before I go on, I must warn you that I will be talking about California, Southern California, and the City of Los Angeles specifically - but there should be enough information here to help you in researching your own area.
A Rent Stabilization Ordinance (RSO), commonly referred to as Rent Control, is administered not by The State of California, but by the city. All mobile home parks that operate in the city of Los Angeles are covered under the RSO. That covers my first question from above. Now for the second one - is the RSO broken with a new tenant? No, kind of. If I purchase an existing manufactured home, and keep it at its existing rental space, I will not break the RSO if:
I am the owner of the manufactured home, I live there, and it is my primary residence (I can’t own it and rent it out to a third party)
The lease on the space is not for more than 12 months. Leases for more than 12 months are not protected under RSO. Leases over 12 months are strictly voluntary to tenants.
Warning: the RSO provides that space rental fee for a New Tenant can be increased a maximum of 10% for the next available fee increase (12 months after the last). After that,new 10% increase the standard RSO increase is (3%-8%) will continue.
So, that’s some good news. When I am looking at manufactured home listings, the space rental fees quoted will be, pretty much, what I will be paying. In a future post I will discuss the disparities in rent from one park to another and why that may be happening. Right now I'm seeing rental spaces in parks that are in the $900 a month rang with pools and clubhouses, and then rental spaces in other parks that do not offer such amenities priced in the $1200 a month range. Why that is I have no idea - rent control seems to not be an issued causing this, but I could be mistaken...
Some further information:
Housing + Community Investment Development - HCID.LACity.Org. More information about RSO and mobile home parks.
Mobile Home Park Home Owners Aliance - MHPHOA.com. Has a listing of RSO for cities in California. Not all cities have RSOs, and if a city isn’t listed there that probably means it doesn’t have an RSO.
UPDATES AND CORRECTIONS:
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IMAGES:
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BizarreLA.com - three homes on Bunker Hill (Downtown Los Angeles) being moved. 1969.
Cal-Tales.Blogspot.com - home on Bunker Hill (Downtown Los Angeles) being moved. 1969.
Framework.LATimes.com - home in Hollywood, CA being moved. Aug. 31 1958.
