Private equity firms rapidly investing in mobile home parks

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Mobile home owners who for years have enjoyed some immunity from rising housing costs are increasingly finding themselves subjected to massive rent increases, not just here in Iowa, but across the country.

Havenpark Capital, a Utah-based real estate investment firm, raised eyebrows — along with rents — after it purchased parks in the Iowa City and Des Moines metro areas and immediately announced plans for rent spikes. In North Liberty, rents at Golfview Mobile Home Park will rise 58% and in Waukee, rents at Midwest Country Estates will rise 69%. Havenpark Capital recently purchased two more mobile communities: Iowa City's Sunrise Village and West Branch's West Branch Village. And as it turns out these are just the tip of the iceberg, the Iowa City Press-Citizen reported.

There is a growing trend among some of the largest private equity firms and institutional investors to acquire assets in the manufactured housing sector, according to a 2019 report put together by three housing advocates groups: Private Equity Stakeholder Project, Manufactured Housing Action and Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund.

The top 50 manufactured housing community owners together own 680,000 home sites — a 26% increase between 2016 and 2018, according to data from the National Manufactured Home Owners's Manufactured Housing Institute. The authors of the report note that the need to produce greater profits is leading to cost increases for park residents nationwide.

"Manufactured home communities are interesting communities," said Kevin Borden, co-director of Manufactured Housing Action, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit that organizes residents of mobile home parks to pursue housing affordability and resident protections. "They are relatively affordable for low income workers immigrant workers and...