Mobile Homes: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

If you artificially limit the supply, you have forced the results of artificially limited supply with absurdly high demand.

If you don't understand that a zoning law is naked force, I am unsure how to go about helping you.


Want to know how I know you don't know what you're talking about?

Houston, while it does not have zoning, DOES have municipal ordnances about TRAILER PARKS. Fancy that eh?
No zoning != no rules on where you can stick a trailer park.
Most places call that zoning. In a "no zoning" city like Houston they just call it something else. https://library.municode.com/tx/hou...inances?nodeId=COOR_CH29MAHOREVE_ARTIIIMAHOPA

Chapter 29.

You're talking to a lawyer who practices in Houston dude.

 

Yes. You can. And if you price gouge and jack it up over 30%, people are also free to be upset with you about it. "Can" =/= exempt from criticism.

 

This happens even in areas like Houston, where supplies are not artificially limited. There are other business model considerations at work here.

Zoning laws don't force investors to price gouge. The make it more attractive, easier for them to do so, but they do not force them. And this still happens even in areas without zoning laws. If you don't understand that, then this isn't about business knowledge.

 

IF the demand for spaces is such that that is the going rate that the market tolerates (defined as "I can find someone for this spot today, for cash right now"), they're free to be upset but there is little to be done when the demand is high and the supply artificially limited by city government.

 

Again: Supplies ARE artificially limited. "no zoning laws" is something tourists and normies (like yourself) have an idea of that doesn't really match to the reality of the situation. See the municipal code I quoted you for ****'s sake

You realize that someone who runs a company has an outright fiduciary duty to maximize profits for the business right? That is a duty imposed on them by law, not by the individual shareholders. Not acting to maximize profit of the business is a breach of fiduciary duty, something they can be taken to the cleaners for.

If you don't understand this you are not a businessman.

Therefore when a city government, and as stated 3 times now EVEN CITY GOVERNMENTS LIKE HOUSTONS DO (yes, even with the "no zoning". Feel abused yet?) artificially limits the supply while doing nothing about the demand said city government has forced the hand of the persons operating the businesses. Legally speaking.

If you don't like that: Talk to your city government and demand they allow more mobile home parks. That is the root of the problem, supply. Without artificial limitations on supply, the market would find its level and the gouging would not be possible because people would have sufficient alternatives and the market would have to collude to keep the prices up which would subject them to a RICO case.

You want to blame the greedy greedy businessmen, when you don't understand that they are bound by law to act that way on behalf of their investors whether big corp or small, llc to lp to gp, and that the only reason the situation exists is because all those nice folks at city council didn't want to help out the trailer trash because they mostly don't vote or attend council meetings but rich folks who don't like "their kind" or "those sorts of places" do. But for their initial limitations by use of force (zoning laws or municipal codes being naked force) the supply would be unhindered and even with the demand making gouging something that would not occur with regularity.

 

So long as you understand that no one is forcing them to price gouge and that people are free to criticize them for price gouging, which is all I've been trying to explain to you.

 

And I appreciate the update, but look at the business model for more than a few minutes and you will see that there are other forces at work besides zoning, including leveraging the current resident's relative inability to move because of damage to the building and the high cost of relocating. That's what the investors in the video specifically talk about leveraging to price gouge. It isn't just about zoning.

 

Oh so month to month is typical?

Do they typically raise rates every month?

I’d also like to know if how much difference the price changes over the year on average.

Home rentals are what, usually year to year?

Hmm if I was ever in a position where I needed to rent in a mobile home park I think I’d rather be renting the home and the property. A whole big benefit to renting is that a landlord has to fix issues.

 

And, again, without the artificially limited supply they wouldn't have the opportunity to make something like that a normal course of business as you complain of. And if they did since the supply is flush you'd be able to tag them for it. What part of that is lacking in your understanding?

If there were more competition it would lower the base rentals and provide 1) an alternative in the first place 2) a place to move to.
People letting their property go to **** or not holding back the cash needed to carry it with them is hardly the landlord's fault. A landlord not letting abandoned property just sit on their premises collecting vermin of the four and two legged variety is hardly surprising or strange or predatory.
People having shitty histories so they have to get a month to month where this is most risky is again hardly the landlord's fault.
Nor is there being prudent and only giving a risky renter a month to month somehow predatory rather than prudent.

 

In the situations the OP is complaining of? Yes. Those are going to be rentals of last resort to people with no or **** history. They are risky, hence they are short so if there IS a problem it is a short term problem. Mobile home parks are intended as high turnover places as well, many people like to come and go as they please some following seasonal work others just nomadic by nature.
The month to month assists with all that.

Is every month a raise typical? Not really, unless you're trying to get rid of the person because they're a shitty tenant.
But lot rents generally raise when 2 conditions are met: 1) the owners need money 2) the market will bear a rate increase.
If you're running 3 or 4 parks off the same parent entity with a 150 spaces a piece and you raise lot rents across the board 4 dollars per space per month, that's an additional 2400. When you take into account that your base rent would've already covered your costs, that's alot of gravy for a minor burden on your tenants.

Will vary from park to park, location to location, owner to owner.

Home rentals, like any other rental, can be month to month or for a term. A month to month is generally used when you're unsure of the tenant and don't want to get burned, or the tenant needs to be able to say "I'm moving out" with one month's notice only without the need to find someone to take over the lease or continue paying it.

That's quite common and indeed the best choice: You get the uh atmosphere of trailer park living, very mind your own business, and the supervisor has to send a person to fix the AC and the plumbing. Pretty simple and cheap, not a bad idea for someone wanting to save some money up who can take the stigma and the atmosphere.

 

I'm sure this is different from State to State, but in my State, many mobile home parks (trailer parks), the "renter" owns the trailer and is renting the space. The lease is normally the same as any other rental (i.e. apt, house, etc). They can be 1 year leases or even 5 year leases.

People normally do not move the trailer once in place. They are sold in place and the next "renter" just rents it in the same trailer space.

 

I'm working up to a nice trailer house.. my wife didn't immigrate from Mexico to live no mud hut!
Really , there is a brand, Karsten, made the Albuquerque that is just phenomenal.. I hate most MHs because they are about 90% size, but this one is full size and cost less than I could pay for materials and shipping.

 

You do realize that this was caused by radical leftism.

The subprime lender market was artificially created but regulations placed on banks that sold mortgages.

The same thing is happening with automotive loans. a simple thing to do that will avoid any problems caused by this is do not buy something you cannot afford. If people simply did that all the problems would be solved.

How much of our lives is mommy government supposed to regulate?

if mobile homes get priced out of your reach don't buy them you shouldn't buy them anyway there are crappy investment. go to just stay in an apartment until you can come up with enough money to put a down payment on a hhouse.Or rent a mobile home. They're made it extremely cheaply. I'd take my chances in an apartment over that.

 

There's many ways to skim the profit cat. This is why I've advocated my strategy of turning more workers into business people. If we can better balance out workers/entrepreneurs, I believe there's massive untold wealth for the United States. Furthermore, it'll be far more sustainable than the internet boom or the housing boom.

 

It was also talking in that video about the lots that you rent to park your mobile home on being brought up and the rent going up. A lot of the times you see this happen because they want people to leave, because they want to develop the property. Manufactured homes don't really have that long of a lifespan, and they turn into trash pretty quickly. If I were these people I would focus much harder on trying to buy a piece of property you put a mobile home on than the mobile home. You can always just rent a mobile home and put it on your property. That's a better way to go anyway.

 

Oh come on now, if you value your economy and your lack of wage stagnation over illegal aliens pouring into the country then you're just racist.

I mean kids locked in cages right.

 

Thanks, I really appreciate the information! That’s why I love coming here always learning about new things

 

Yea I’d assume if you had to go the trailer park route it’d be best just to rent it all lot and trailer. Personally I wouldn’t sign a month to month lease but others might not have the option I suppose.

 

Spot on my friend.

 

No, the issue is really why I was turned down when I wanted to build 800 square feet and had to build 1100 square feed, and then it went up to 2000 square feet a decade later, see "Lost Rights" by James Bovard.

See Negroid DEMOCRAT who told me he didn't want a "poor ******" living next door to him when I brought this up in the 1980's, he wired the pedestal on the aircraft, so even though we both were making good money, only I cared. Tell it to that fracking Negroid. See when Raygun said "they should have just built them a house," when they paid $30,000 dollars rent to house a homeless couple in New York, I took the challenge and came in under at 1100 square feet.

See "tiny house movement," see "camping on your own land," see "living off grid," see "DEMOCRATS zoning laws," and see "NAACP lawsuit on zoning laws that ended with the community reinvestment act." There are very few lots left that are zoned "manufactured" and none for tiny, in my area, two years ago I posted there were two lots for $10,000, but Zoning would require more than 700 square feet, so the smallest trailers in the $19,000 range would not qualify.

 

I decided to move out of an apartment and I found a trailer on an acre of land, for $17,500, the interest rates were Cotter Pin ones, about 22%. Side note: The hazmat team that cleaned the upstairs apartment that had a tub full of crap and a pile of potato chip bags that reached the ceiling, made me swear never to rent again, ever.

When Raygun said the thing about building a house instead of housing a couple for $30,000 rent in New York I decided to sell the “trailer” and see if it could be done. When I tried to sell the property the DEMOCRATS kept telling potential buyers they would have to move the trailer, so I had to fight the DEMOCRATS to remove the designation that it was a trailer since it was on a concrete foundation with basement and had two rooms attached.

I eventually won and sold the “trailer,” and bought 2.5 acres where I wanted to live, because the DEMOCRATS required 2.5 acres to build there, as it was a “watershed” excuse to keep ******S out. Therefore, I had $22,000 2.5 acre lot, and the challenge of building a house for $30,000.

Then I was turned down by DEMOCRAT zoning for the 800 square feet I wanted to build, and had to build 1100 square feet.

I built the house for exactly $29281.23.

You should change it to this:

Great. Looks like the greedy wealthy few are doing to mobile homes what DEMOCRATS have long done to regular homes, which is make them all unaffordable or less affordable to ordinary people so that they can make themselves wealthier, due to not wanting the real estate principle of regression, furthering the wealth divide in this screwed up country of ours. Joy!