Thousands around state say they face exorbitant space rent increases as corporate ownership or management impose stringent rules not in place when homeowners first moved in; state Rep. Pam Marsh is taking up the issue
When 83-year-old Kayla Starr moved into Candlewood Park in Talent four years ago, the quiet "55 and older" mobile home park came with minimal maintenance and no amenities, but space rent for an older doublewide was an affordable $515 per month.
Starr, who has lived in the region for four decades, was drawn to the quiet neighborhood along Colver Road with a sense of community and enough space to grow some vegetables to help with monthly food costs.
Four years later, she's one of thousands of mobile home park dwellers around the state facing exorbitant space rent increases and corporate ownership or management who impose, residents say, stringent rules not in place when they first moved in.
With no limitations in place, Starr's space rent has increased more than 47% -- or $245 -- from $515 to $760 in four years. While privately owned by a family member of a former owner, the park is managed by Portland-based Commonwealth Real Estate Services.
Although mobile home parks once offered affordable living for seniors living on Social Security income and low-income and migrant families, a shift during the past decade found privately owned investment and property management companies purchasing or stepping in to manage mobile home parks.
While state law limits annual rent increase for buildings older than 15 years to no more than 10% -- or 7% plus inflation, whichever is less -- residents say annual increases have rapidly outpaced Social Security income and put a pinch on vulnerable community members.
Starr said her park has had increases beyond 10%, attainable prior to current state restrictions, and that added rules make it difficult for tenants to challenge unwanted changes. Attempts to form a tenant association to negotiate with management were unsuccessful, she said, in part due to residents' fear of retaliation.
Multiple attempts by the Rogue Valley Times to seek comment from Commonwealth went unanswered.
"They run the show, and the owner is almost never around. ... We've had excessive rent increases and a lack of repairs that the management is responsible for," Starr said.
"This is a senior park. Many of the people here are on Social Security as their only income. If we're lucky, Social Security goes up between 1-and-3% and when it does go up, they take more out for Medicare, so you don't even see that full increase," she said. "Our rent goes up 10-to-15% a year, and our income is going up 2% a year.
"We're being priced out, in many cases into being homeless."
Proposed legislation could help
Starr's situation mirrors those of countless others who have reached out to Oregon state Rep. Pam Marsh's office. Recently named chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee for the 2025 legislative session, Marsh, D-Ashland, said affordable housing and protection for mobile home and marina residents has been a focus since she took office in 2017. Prior to the September 2020 Almeda Fire, which destroyed more than 1,500 manufactured homes, Marsh's district had more than any district in the state.
With her fifth term set to begin Jan. 13, Marsh has drafted House Bill 3054, which she will introduce on Day 1 of the upcoming session, she said. The bill is geared at establishing protections for Oregonians living in more than 1,300 manufactured parks and two dozen marinas around the state, the lawmaker said.
"Corporate investment in these parks is really a nationwide issue. ... You used to have traditional park owners who were regular people, who maybe lived in the same parks they managed and had a sense of pride in their parks. Residents often thought of park owners as extended family," Marsh said.
"These manufactured home parks have historically been a refuge in our communities. They've been these wonderful, supportive neighborhoods where people took care of each other as they grew old. ... With this move toward corporate ownership, now you have people just desperate to just hold on to their homes and who are really afraid as they look to what might happen to them in the future."
Marsh said her proposed bill would be threefold: limiting rental increases to no more than the rate of inflation; limiting exorbitant increases when a unit is sold; and outlawing the ability for park owners to require aesthetic improvements to a home.
"There are already very fair rules governing maintenance in terms of paint peeling and cleaning up trash," Marsh said. "We've seen examples in one park where people are being told a new occupant will have to trade out the skirting to vertical from horizontal, or the reverse."
Marsh shared a recent posting for an available mobile home inside an established local park. The home was listed for $225,000 to purchase, with $25,000 down plus $890 per month space rent. Reflecting on another little-known issue, Marsh said it's not uncommon for rent space to increase without limitation after a home is sold. The process is called a "rent reset."
"There are no limitations on rent increases between residents -- when a home is sold -- so an owner can increase rent for a purchaser by any amount they choose," Marsh said, noting that rent resets make selling an existing home inside a park especially difficult.
"It's not unusual for me to hear of increases that went from $500 to $900 per month. They really have these residents over a barrel," the state representative said.
State tenants association advocating for changes
Bill Bateman, president of the Oregon State Tenant Association, a nonprofit that provides advocacy for tenants of mobile home parks and marinas, said he had witnessed countless instances of rent reset, beginning with his own experience. Bateman, who lives in Rogue Valley South mobile home park near Phoenix, said his involvement in OSTA began due to his own issues and intensified when he realized the magnitude of what was occurring statewide.
Bateman and his wife moved into Rogue Valley South, owned by Commonwealth, in March 2023. Space rent was advertised at $652.50. A rent reset bumped Bateman's rent to $725 before he occupied the home. One year later, a scheduled 10% increase bumped his rent to $765.
"People are dealing with these same problems as far south as Brookings and all the way up to Portland," Bateman said. "Thanks to the governor, last year or the year before, there's now a 10% cap, so if rent is $700 it can only be raised $70 each year.
"The problem is that if they do it every year, in 10 years your rent has doubled ... and if you buy a home, there's no limit on how much a rent reset can be for."
Bateman, 75, still works to make ends meet. He said rent increases are often coupled with added rules on residents -- including aesthetic changes required to improve property values -- but with no buy-in from owners.
"The hardest part is there's no indication on what all the rent increases are used for. There are parks with roads in disrepair, clubhouses falling apart. ... What put us over the limit here was three summers in a row, our manager -- not our present one, but the previous one -- announced the pool would open June 1 when it was already hotter than the dickens," he said.
"So we walked out and saw the cover come off, and it was slimy green with maggots and a dead rat, just terrible," Bateman recalled. "It was unusable ... wasn't gonna open in five days. People went nuts. It was the third year in a row this had happened."
Bateman noted that the previous manager was replaced after allegedly threatening a resident of the park for complaining about poor condition of park facilities. A survey conducted by OSTA last year, Bateman said, reported more of the same issues for park residents. Of nearly 500 respondents from around the state, 83% reported struggling to pay other bills, with 41% stating they would not be able to afford to remain in their homes. Just over a third reported continuing to work past the age of 65, with 17% of respondents working more than one job and 47% reporting difficulty affording food.
The survey reported average space rent for a third of those who replied at between $1,000 and $1,300, with average space rent at $783. Based on a 10% annual increase, Bateman said regular increases could boost rent to $1,678, from $783, with a decade's worth of 10% increases.
Additionally, the survey revealed 43% had been ordered to complete unnecessary aesthetic upgrades; 38% were required to sign new leases when park management was changed; and 81% were allegedly threatened or intimidated by park management.
Residents worry for neighbors, remain hopeful for legislation
Susan Howard, a resident of Western Carriage mobile home park near Jacksonville, reported issues in her own park mirroring those reported in the survey. Howard and her husband moved into Western Carriage in June 2020. A Realtor nearing retirement, she knew the park was well kept with reasonable space rents. Within a year, however, private park owners sold the property to Legacy Communities LLC.
"Initially, we were paying $445 per month to rent the space, which also included water, sewer and garbage. I think it was a year and a half later ... it was raised 14.6% which was the legal amount the Oregon Legislature voted on for all rentals, not just manufactured home parks, during (an inflation spike in the years following) COVID," she said.
"Prior to that, the previous owners would raise the rent maybe only $10. ... If we were to sell our home today, the new rent would be approximately $935 and no longer includes sewer and garbage, which would bring the total to about $1000/month," Howard said. "That is on the low end in the park. The highest is now about $1,200 per month.
"We have at least four homes here now that have been on the market over a year and it was told to me by the owners that the high rent Legacy is asking is the reason they are not selling."
Requests by the Times for comment from Legacy were unsuccessful.
Howard said she and her husband feel fortunate to have a dual-income household. They worry for park neighbors living on one income, however, especially widows relying only on Social Security.
"If the legislation does what we think it will do, bring it down just to Social Security; everybody in the park will take a big breath," Howard said. "Everybody here that's been involved is kind of chewing their fingernails."
Starr, too, is hopeful for Marsh's legislation. She spent much of the past year trying to organize her fellow neighbors, to no avail.
"I spent six months going door to door with meeting announcements, talking to neighbors. The most we ever got at our meetings was about a quarter of the park," she said. "When it came down to writing a letter, asking for a meeting, three of the five people on our board said they weren't ready to write a letter. Most of them were afraid of retaliation."
While changes to park rules, according to state law, require a 51% approval from park residents, Starr said residents fear retaliation, such as frivolous citations or sudden demands to make changes to their properties. In Starr's park, management offers a $40 discount on monthly rent for tenants who maintain their parcels and "follow all their rules."
"If you get a speeding ticket or get cited for not cleaning up trash, no discount," she said.
"They fear they'll be out of compliance with those rules if they even ask for a meeting," Starr said, noting that she had contemplated buying an RV so she'd have a "place to be" if things worsen.
"It is really sad. Neighbors in my park who are really on a fixed income spent all their money to buy what they thought was an affordable and stable place to live. It's not funny all the ways we're being swindled," she added.
"A lot of elderly people aren't used to organizing and uniting as a common front. They just want live out their final years in peace and quiet and don't want to have to do all this. ... It's not right, but we just don't know what to do about it."