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

If they aren't coming here looking for jobs, then logically it must be handouts and voting Democrat.

 

This is pretty easy. John is conflating the building and purchasing of manufactured homes and how they are now being owned by major companies and investors, to the price of lots of land which are ever changing in their value and therefor taxed at different rates. Joh never says where these rental prices are going up, and since not a single person looked to be living in a new manufactured home, its not the home that is causing the price to change. My bet is that these places are located in liberal ran towns or outskirts of liberal cities like SF and the taxes are increasing which makes the rent increase as well. But lets forget about real reporting and get people to hate the rich who have zero to do with the price rise in renting land. The gullible sheeple will be outraged.

It also is blatant that he wants his audience to associate the "evil right wing" with this problem by putting in the add with duck dynasty stars. Pretty shameless Joh is, but what you expect from a leftst?

 

Dude multiple of my clients run multiple trailer parks a piece, I'm aware of the practices cited.

In trailer parks?

Here's the thing with parks: Most of the people there are nice people. Good people. Hard workers that are just making it. However, the situation tends to attract last resort types. They move their mobile home in, they've got a lot rental that's month to month because they have no or **** history, and its a ****ing rat trap when they move it in but it gets worse the longer it sits there because they don't do any maintenance. Then they stop paying their rent or leave a junk car on the lot for months after notice of default or whatever instance of default you want to name.
So you evict them from the space: but they don't move their **** off your property triggering the landlord's lien in the lease since it costs you to move the ****ing thing off and store it legally with a bonded company. That bonded company can then sell the property after a certain amount of time. Alternatively, you tell the person this, they do the math and realize they can't afford it, and you pay them some money for the property so they have some walk away money.
This is the nature of the beast. You're a last resort renter, some of those people are going to not fall through but LEAP through the cracks. At that point what are you supposed to do? Leave their **** on your property collecting rats and meth heads? Not charge rent? Not default people so the scumbags can ruin the place for the majority of decent people?

This is if they don't drag your ass (along with the mayor, city council, sherrifs dept, city pd, AG, some chick who talked **** on facebook etc) in to federal court because they are claiming to be a sovereign citizen who is not subject to the law of the united states. (no ****, cost my client a few grand to get rid of that stupid bullshit).

 

Not to mention that many municipalities, yes even out here in the sticks in Texas, look down on trailer parks. They zone them out of existence etc. Not to mention that people don't want to run them because of the stigma (OMG SLUMLORD@!!!! REEEE!!!) and because of the inevitable bullshit that follows trailer parks.
Making the few that still exist more expensive, supply and demand.

 

Wish I could make a response video to this as well. Next part he takes the segment from Dave Ramsey talking about how the house goes down in value. NO DUH!!! Its never the home that goes up in value, not even in the conventional home, its the land it occupies and the area its located in. Do you really think the 50 year old home will have the same price as the brand new home right next door?

 

Not to mention no one forced them to be stupid and buy a mobile home.

 

I agree with all of that . . . and it still has nothing to do with the practices being criticized in the video. Nothing. The video is about predatory investors who buy up the land and treat the tenants as (in their own words) "hostages" and jack up the prices by sometimes 30%, not because they are covering their costs or because they are offering something new of value, but because they have the leverage and they can. The video isn't about the "nice people" or the "good people," it is about predatory jackasses that deserve to be called out for their behavior.

 

Love the term "predatory loans". Like a business wants to sell you something through finance knowing you can never pay them back and company will take a loss in the end. So "predatory". The high interest rate comes from the fact that if you are going to buying one of these "homes" over a conventional home, you aren't in the best place financially but are still envious that other people "own" a home and you want what other people have.

 

Love his selectively edited customer call where they don't even show the previously mentioned pieces of advice to the lady who was going to be late on her payment.

 

Oh, so he did get to the part where the homes are on land owned by someone other than the builder of the homes, yet he doesn't specifically mention that. And that the fact that the rent is ratcheted up on the land, not the home. The lady owned her home, so it wasn't the point of the manufactures being evil, or "predatory loans", it was the land owners. I mean, what does the Carlyle group have to do with manufactures? The group actually screws the manufactures because no one can afford to buy a new home and move on that lot. Again, no mention of where this was located. Being on an outskirt of a growing town or city or suburb, that land may be growing in value and will be used for more middle class homes. People making poor life decisions isn't an example of the rich getting richer, its an example of dumb people being dumb.

 

Dude see some of my posts to wildjoker.

Towns look down on the parks, zone them out of existence, and so the existing park spaces go at a premium.
Then you have the idea that rentals aren't supposed to only cover costs and a modest profit: Rentals are supposed to be set at what the market will bear including profit if you can fill the slots that way.
When you've got a bunch of people working the oil fields (and similar long overtime, high pay work) in the area who outright prefer to live in trailer parks and have disposable income out the ass the market price increases.
When you add to that fewer parks because of municipalities looking askance? Still lower supply = still higher price
When you add to that fewer parks because people resent being considered a slum lord? Still higher.
When you add to that fewer parks because people resent dealing with bullshit for lower compensation than they could otherwise obtain? Still higher.

What you end up with is a group of persons running these who are first and foremost businessmen. You pay your fees, abide by the rules, or you **** off and they WILL have someone like me throw your ass out on your ear. Why? Because people are CLAMORING for these few spaces and I have literally given your spot to you over someone else and every minute you're in there under default is a minute I could have a better tenant in there who wouldn't give me any bullshit. And guess what? You've over extended yourself buying that mobile home, not me. You've made it a rat trap. You've not put money away to move the thing if you have to move.
None of that is my failing.

^ To normies that sounds like being predatory. Its not however: Its what rentals of last resort in absurdly high demand with artificially (government) limited supply look like. All business. **** up and you're out.
Don't like it? Go to your next city council meeting and demand, DEMAND, that they approve zoning for new mobile home parks. Whatever the number of total rentable spaces is you need at least double to have a lackadaisical, I'll enforce it if I feel like it but I probably won't because I need the tenant, sort of mindset from the owners.

If you haven't done that, I find your complaints so much sour grapes

 

I'll sell you this mobile home, then 3 years later after you default and I take it back and you've trashed the ****ing thing I'll somehow make my money back and a tidy profit. Said no one ever.

 

Essentially, mobile park owners took the idea of McDonalds owning the land under the building in which is franchised to an individual. Its not about the manufactures, but without putting the manufactures in the segment, you couldn't have blasted conservatives with the add with the duck dynasty guy. Then all you are left with are liberals preying on the elderly and poor.

 

Based on my own landlord experiences and those of friends, I can see the truth in everything you write here.

It is nice to see firsthand real-life posts to counter the bleeding heart SJW tears.

 

I'm a businessperson myself, not a "normie," and yes, it (the behavior described in the video) is predatory. I'm not accusing you of engaging in that behavior; in fact, you seem dead set on conflating the actions of run-of-the-mill landowners, and I just don't buy it. I've known a lot of property managers. Most are good people. The ones described in the video are not. Check the video for details and for investors describing their predatory behavior in their own words. And consumer backlash is often more effective than zoning laws.

 

Another person who apparently hasn't watched the video and is discussing something else entirely.

 

If you do not manage or own trailer parks, in this context you are a "normie".

When you cannot create more mobile home parks in the municipality because of zoning, consumer backlash against the park owners is not going to help.

Nor are most consumers sophisticated enough to realize that the root of the problem is city government

 

City government has not forced this kind of behavior (again, the behavior described in the actual video, not your behavior). It is purely voluntarily. No one is forcing them to buy the land and then engage in predatory pricing practices. And, yes, the PR fallout will likely hit them harder than zoning laws would. It often does.

 

And SNL too.

 

Trust me: If you're saying "they've hiked the lot rents and there is no where to go those fiends are preying upon those poor innocent unsuspecting people!" the city government has indeed forced this kind of behavior.
But what would I know, I'm just a lawyer who represents trailer park owners for a living. The **** would I know about trailer parks?

 

No, they aren't. Watch the people in the actual video. City governments aren't forcing them to do anything. They are doing it intentionally and are being gleefully predatory about it. Whatever you know about trailer parks, you sure don't seem to know much about the behavior in the video in question, which is what we are actually talking about, and keep trying to change the subject to other, more honest behavior that hasn't nothing to do with the predatory practices in the video.

 

*sigh* roadkill you really need to learn to read the posts people write without inserting your own ideas into theirs.
They are doing it because they are able to, because the market will bear it. As explained above, the market will bear it for very particular reasons chief amongst those reasons being the supply of trailer parks is artificially limited by city government.
If they wanted to do this but supply of parks was such that people could choose a different place to rent from and didn't have to rent from "predatory" landlords, they wouldn't have many takers. Particularly long term as word travels fast in the trailer park community that someone is an *******.

You do not understand a key basis of the formula, hence you misconstrue the result.

 

Yes I believe he’s mostly talking about those living in mobile home parks being price gouged on their rent. I wonder what a typical contract looks like.

 

I have. Hence why I've criticized your misrepresentations.

No one, literally no one, has argued against that. They are able to. Able to =/= forced to.

The market will bear it =/= forced.

No one has argued otherwise, but creating an environment where predatory practices are possible or even attractive is not force and doesn't make it non-predatory.

The land is increasingly being purchased by predatory landlords, hence why options keep disappearing.

P.S. - This is happening in cities like Houston too, where it happened to my father and where there are no zoning laws.

You haven't shown anything I haven't understood about the formula and have misrepresented the "formula" as somehow equaling the government forcing landlords to engage in these predatory practices, which is pure fantasy. Disagreeing with your misrepresentation =/= not understanding the formula.

Straw men don't make for good discussions. Please put them away.

 

A typical lot rental? Its a month to month lease with a landlord's lien for if you get evicted and leave your **** on the lot (mobile homes are personal property unless attached to the land by paperwork etc. Once attached they cannot be moved. If you're renting its personal property).
Month to month meaning its only a month long. Meaning when you go to renew I can raise the rental.