In March 2019, Jim Dailing decided to move into a manufactured home park in southeast Bend. Following his divorce, Dailing, a self-employed artist, didn’t have many options when looking for an affordable place to live. At the time, the median home price was around $450,000.
According to Dailing, he could either rent an apartment or buy a manufactured home. He felt that purchasing a home would be the better choice, as he could possibly recoup some of the money he spent on the structure when he was ready to leave — an important aspect of home ownership. But that promise of building equity has been challenged by recent spikes in the rent he pays for his lot.
Historically, manufactured home parks have been seen as an affordable homebuying option in the state and the nation, geared toward lower-income households. According to a draft housing report from the City of Bend, people most likely to live in manufactured homes in parks are those with annual incomes between $27,750 and $44,950 — accounting for about 16% of Bend’s households.
The state has identified manufactured homes as “needed housing,” requiring cities to plan for these parks based on a number of projections, including population, household income levels, market trends and inventory.
In 2016, the City of Bend’s Housing Needs Analysis noted that Oregon communities were losing manufactured housing parks. While the City reported fewer closures in recent years, the production of these dwelling parks in Bend has eased due to land constraints and the introduction of other housing types, such as duplexes, triplexes and townhomes.
While rising costs have affected the affordability of some manufactured home parks in the state, stakeholders and leaders are calling for increased support, seeing it as a necessary part of the housing continuum.
Meeting Housing Goals
In 2024, the average cost of a manufactured home in Oregon was about $135,000. A manufactured home, formerly known as a mobile home, is a factory-built house that’s typically placed on a permanent foundation. They are often long and thin and come in different configurations, such as single-wide and double-wide. Other prefabricated housing types, like modular and tiny homes, are similar but differ in building regulations, and can often be sited in a manufactured home park. In dwelling parks, people typically purchase the structure and lease the land, paying a monthly rent subject to changes and increases.
According to Jody Lyon, executive director of the Oregon Manufactured Housing Association (OMHA), just over 7% of Oregon homes in 2022 were manufactured. In 2016, manufactured housing in parks accounted for about 4% of Bend’s housing stock. Today, manufactured housing accounts for about 5.5% of Bend’s current housing stock. With state goals to create 36,000 homes a year, and given the state’s affordability crisis, Lyon sees manufactured housing as an important solution in reaching state housing goals.
“We can play a really significant role in that,” she said. “We can certainly help policymakers with their goals of overcoming the homeless issue and the affordability issue here in our state.”
OMHA’s members include five factories building manufactured homes in Oregon that, altogether, Lyon said, could produce 10% of the state’s goal every year.
According to Lyon, people can typically get a manufactured home purchased, built and sited within two to three months. Additionally, because factories are able to purchase materials in bulk, they keep building costs down.
The City of Bend’s 2016 Housing Needs Analysis, which found that residents strongly preferred single-family homes over an apartment or townhouse, noted that manufactured homes were, and will continue to be, an important source of affordable housing in Bend, providing a form of homeownership that can be made available to low- to moderate-income households. However, the growing acquisition of dwelling parks from big corporations has led to an increase in monthly costs.
Corporate Ownership
Dailing, who lives in a manufactured home park, Romaine Village, said his lease has more than doubled in price since purchasing his home in 2019.
A typical rate increase for the community is around 8% annually, he said. However, in 2022, it went up nearly 15%, roughly $1,500 more per year for renting the property. According to business records, the park is owned by the California-based LLC Elle Belle.
With the rising costs, Dailing worries about the state of his community, and others, that once offered a more affordable option to people like himself. According to Oregon Rep. Pam Marsh, who represents southern Jackson County, local ownership of these parks is dwindling, leading to large rent increases.
“What we’re seeing, unfortunately, in the manufactured park industry… is the introduction of corporate ownership,” said Marsh. “Big companies that have come in don’t have those personal relationships, have hired on-site management and are really looking to increase the value of the park at the expense of the tenants. That’s what we’re trying to address.”
Marsh, who has supported and advocated for manufactured housing in the legislature for years, proposed a bill that would limit rent increases in home parks and marinas, easing the cost burden on current tenants while assuring people aren’t pushed out.
While Oregon’s rent cap law covers manufactured homes, Marsh’s proposed bill would apply more protections to a number of increases tenants can face.
“What we’re seeing is when a unit goes on the market, there’s no limit to what the next person can be asked to pay, and when the rent skyrockets for the next person, that prospective buyer is suddenly not interested in buying the unit. So, it really has a direct impact on the existing owner,” said Marsh. “We need to do something to corral the corporate owners who are just milking people to the point that they they’re not going to be able to sustain it.”
In 2016, a City of Bend analysis found that between 2003 and 2010, Oregon had a statewide decrease of 25% in its number of manufactured home parks — a result of many park landowners selling or redeveloping their land for uses with higher rates of return.
Since then, Racheal Baker, the housing division manager with the City of Bend, said park closures have mostly stopped as a result of state legislation requiring park owners to rectify closures with tenant payouts.
Among the rising costs, many homes in these parks were built in the 1970s and require work to keep them safe and livable. A growing recognition of support needed for these dwelling parks has been seen at the state level.
“Over the last few years of understanding the needs and some of the gaps in the manufactured home space, it was clear to us that we needed to do more to elevate it in the conversation, particularly some of the important conversations on policy and resource,” said Andrea Bell, executive director of Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS).
A Push for More Support
While many cities have focused heavily on “middle housing” construction such as duplexes, triplexes and townhomes after HB 2001 required communities to accommodate these housing types, many officials have continued to advocate for the need of manufactured housing.
In the last year, Lyon with OHMA worked with several policymakers on ways to promote the development of land for new manufactured homes and stimulate the production of them.
House Bill 3145, which Marsh is working on in the current legislative session, would use state funding for prefabricated homes to help support the industry, and requires OHCS to hire a contractor to support the prefab home industry.
“What we’re trying to do in that bill, is really start looking broadly at innovation, investing in it, collecting data, seeing what works, so that we can think differently,” said Marsh.
According to an Oregon Business report from 2023, manufactured home stakeholders were not involved in the governor’s Housing Production Advisory Council — indicating a lower level of priority for state government. However, Lyon sees a shift happening in the state legislature.
“I do think we’re going to see positive changes,” she said. “I think that maybe we haven’t been seen as a product. [The state] has been looking more at going vertical and multifamily options, but we’re doing our best to share about the product and the positive impact it can have here in our state.”
According to Bell with OHCS, the state has utilized resources to help support residents, like its Manufactured Home Repair and Replacement Program and Preservation Programs.
“I’m excited to use all of my energy, force and position of responsibility to make sure that manufactured housing programs continue to be strengthened and expanded here in Oregon,” said Bell.
While it’s difficult to incentivize manufactured housing in a growing economy, according to Baker with the City of Bend, the need for more manufactured homes will likely increase in the coming years.
Local officials, like Deschutes County Commissioner Patti Adair, have advocated for growth in this sector, including the creation of a large dwelling park on the outskirts of Bend. According to Adair, she proposed a project on 57 acres of land right outside of the Urban Growth Boundary, in northwest Bend, that would create about 330 manufactured homes. While the plans didn’t make it to the legislature, Adair hopes to continue advocating for opportunities like this, alongside the state.
“Thinking about manufactured homes, they are such a good opportunity,” said Adair. “You always have to have a range of houses… we need this kind of housing in Central Oregon.”
This article appears in The Source Weekly January 30, 2025.
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We need more manufactured homes, but the rise of corporate takeovers of parks is simply appalling. Indiscriminate lot rent increases with the potential added bonus of the company deciding to sell later to a developer and giving out eviction notices. Either we need to allow regular lots to have manufactured homes, or we need to support owner-resident parks, where the residents own their houses and a piece of the park like a condominium.
Would CoOps work for manufactured homes?
There are some lovely trailer parks around the country. They don’t have to turn to trash just because they are inexpensive.
Don’t forget that property taxes play a big part in space rent increases.