Big Bay Area mobile home park with hundreds of units is bought
SAN JOSE — A big mobile home park in south San Jose with hundreds of spaces has been bought by a family based in an upper-crust Bay Area community in a deal that tops $40 million.
Rancho Santa Teresa Mobile Home Estates at 510 Saddle Brook Drive in San Jose has a new owner, the members of a family trust from Atherton, a wealthy San Mateo County town.
The buyers paid $40.7 million for the Rancho Santa Teresa mobile home complex, according to documents filed on Oct. 13 with the Santa Clara County Recorder’s Office.
Rancho Santa Teresa is a large mobile home park with 315 spaces in the Edenvale district of San Jose.
The new owners also obtained a loan of $30 million from First Foundation Bank at the time of their purchase of the mobile home park, county property records show.
An Atherton-based family trust headed up by John Worthing and Margaret Worthing is the buying group, according to public documents.
Investors — and in some cases, real estate developers — have begun to hunger in recent years for mobile home parks in the South Bay and elsewhere in the Bay Area.
In 2021, Pulte Homes paid $50 million for Winchester Ranch Mobile Home Park, a 110-unit complex in San Jose. The park has been bulldozed and is being replaced by 688 homes, consisting of 320 single-family homes and 368 apartments.
Other purchases appear to be investments that would keep the properties as mobile home parks. Among these deals:
— Plaza del Rey, an 800-unit mobile home community in Sunnyvale, was bought in 2019 for $237.4 million by Chicago-based Hometown America Communities.
— Sunshadow, a 121-unit mobile home community in San Jose, was bought in 2019 in a $12.3 million deal by a group headed up by legendary Chicago-based real estate executive Samuel Zell.
— Mary Manor Estates, a 116-space community in Sunnyvale, was bought in March 2022 for $39 million, also by Hometown America Communities.
In September of this year, a deal was struck to ensure that the vast Silicon Valley Village Mobile Home Park in San Jose, with about 1,600 residents, would remain a mobile home park. The deal ensured that the residents wouldn’t face wide-ranging evictions. A group headed up by Aptos-based real estate executive and robotics company chief executive officer Kenneth Miller has agreed to lease the land beneath the park and take over management of the complex.
In the case of the just-purchased Rancho Santa Teresa mobile home park in San Jose, the Worthing family trust that bought the property is not involved in real estate development, according to an internet search of their activities.
In 2021, John Worthing wrote a letter to the editor of this news organization regarding the federal capital gains tax. In 2020, Worthing supported the reelection of Cary Wiest to the Atherton Town Council.
Rancho Santa Teresa is on a site that is part of what was once the Frontier Village western-themed amusement park from 1961 to 1980 at the corner of Monterey Road and Branham Lane.