The Mobile Home Renaissance – Challenge or Opportunity?

California Mobile Home Loans

Mobile Home Mortgage

Manufactured Home Loans

Cities throughout California are pursuing avenues to encourage affordable manufactured or mobile housing and renovate rundown areas in their city centers. In addition, these cities are intentioned to maximize population density as they redevelop these lots. There are literally thousands of these lots across California and they are zoned for residential usage. These lots are typically either vacant or currently occupied by substandard dwellings. These same lots can be zoned for single-family detached housing or for multi-resident occupancy. Either way, these lots have a lot in common:

They are located in areas where affordable housing is needed

Many are owned by the city itself.

They are not currently bringing in sufficient tax revenue for the city.

They are typically smaller, long and narrow lots.

Site builders will not or can not profitably build on them.

They are PERFECT for manufactured or mobile housing!

For example, the city of Bellflower, through its Community Development Department, while searching for ways to redevelop a blighted area, worked in conjunction with the California Manufactured Housing Institute (CMHI) on the Palm Vista development. A typical Cinderella story, Palm Vista was once a dilapidated trailer park in Bellflower but now is an innovative housing development owing to creative planning and federal funding. The community features brand new two-story manufactured homes lush with attractive landscaping. The residents of Palm Vista own the home itself but lease the land in what the Department of Housing and Urban Development have termed an "ownership community". Each of the mobile homes includes three exclusive parking spaces, a small porch area and an upstairs view window. The site development includes a curb and gutter, sidewalk and playground for the neighborhood children.

With the aid of a $500,000 grant from the city of Bellflower, 22 obsolete and dilapidated trailer homes and 4 bungalows were removed from the blighted park and were replaced with 15 brand new 2-story manufactured homes by Fleetwood. Each of the homes is attached to another home at the garage, thus allowing more efficient use of the land and satisfying the desire to increase the housing and population density. The use of the land is consistent in keeping with the surrounding neighborhoods, which consists primarily of condominium developments, apartment complexes and senior housing developments.

Palm Vista truly demonstrates the flexibility of manufactured and mobile homes when used for pull-out/fill-in projects and small lot developments. In particular, the Palm Vista project maximized home and population density while also providing attractive, affordable homes in Bellflower.

So, challenge or opportunity? If Palm Vista represents the possible opportunity, then there are hundreds more throughout the state of California (if not the nation) that can also become part of the Mobile Home Renaissance that is taking place in older neighborhoods.