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Edition: Final As The N&O's Richard Stradling recently reported, Hughes and his several dozen fellow renters face the real possibility of having to relocate because of a subdivision development. That's because Ligon Park, the northeast Raleigh mobile home park where they live, was sold last year, a deal in which they had no say -- because they don't own the land on which their homes sit. It's just business, as the buyers and sellers see things. It's a tough business, though, that needs a short-term solution for folks who have few alternatives to renting space for a mobile home. In Ligon Park's case, the original owners started with part of a cornfield in 1971. The Hughes family were the second mobile home owners to park on one of the park's rented lots. Even today, the park charges a reasonable monthly fee for a home that usually sells for less than $10,000. The economics work for retirees and blue-collar workers, including Mexican immigrants who come for jobs as roofers, painters and carpenters. The park worked, that is, until the owners decided to take advantage of appreciating land values and sell. Tayco Properties of Wake Forest bought the Ligon Park land in 2002, then sold it last year to another company. Southern Commercial Properties now has a sales agreement with one of the nation's largest home builders, Centex Homes. Surveyors' stakes signaled the coming trouble for Ligon Park's residents. To say they face a buyers' market for their homes is an understatement. Yet moving a mobile home costs upwards of $2,000 -- if a new place to park it can be found. Nowadays, mobile homes are sold as real estate along with plots of land, making them a better deal for consumers who can afford the package. But for present mobile homeowners, rental parks are dwindling and further narrowing the affordable options. Their prospects are particularly harrowing in the Triangle, where the average two-bedroom apartment rents for $760 a month and the average home sells for $219,000. Given the scarcity of new affordable housing being built here, the Triangle can't afford to lose mobile home parks that could be spruced up into communities of homeowners. Suppose one of the several nonprofits working to revitalize local urban areas were to take on an aging mobile home park, too. By attracting private donations and federal community development grants, such a group could help residents form a co-operative, buy out the park owner and invest in improvements. Some deserving folks would face a stable, more promising future while enhancing the environment for other property owners. Other states, such as New Hampshire, have made mobile home parks work for their residents, and North Carolina can, too.
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