Once worth several million dollars, Anderson has made a drastic change in her living arrangements.  She went from a Malibu Mansion to a one-bedroom trailer located in a run-down trailer park.

The debt-ridden actress is raising her two children, Brandon and Dylan, in the park while struggling to make ends meet, claiming she wouldn’t change her life with anyone else’s.

“The boys and me love the trailer park, it’s a special community, we’re happy here,” Anderson has said.  “It’s the most beautiful place, it’s where I take my motorcycle, my surfboard.”

She later added, “There are firemen with their children, surfers, all sorts.  The children are so happy.  I wouldn’t trade my life with anyone.”

Frank & Dave’s Opinion of This Story:

When we first saw this story, our initial impression was that it was a joke. With a bit of research, though, it appears to be true.

Living in a mobile home gives many people a feeling of divine freedom, as they are not tied to any standard conventions on housing and lifestyle. Pam Anderson has always been a “free spirit”, so it looks like she matches up to the product perfectly.

What’s crazy is why the Manufactured Home Institute has not jumped all over this story to promote the mobile home product. Can you even hope for a better testimonial or spokesperson? Hopefully, somebody can shoot a few pictures of her in front of her singlewide before she moves back into a beach house in Malibu, and promote those aggressively via the National Enquirer, etc. That would really give the industry a shot in the arm.

We cap the enrollment at just 20 people, and only have a couple tickets left.

This is the last time that we will be holding the event in Dallas in 2010, so if you are convenient to the D/FW Metroplex, this is the event you want to hit to save on travel expense!

For more information call (800) 950-1364 or go to www.Mobilehomeparkstore.com.

The power to the park was lost when Duke Energy’s lines that serviced the park burned out. To run new lines, the company has to obtain a boring machine that can dig under roads. Duke thinks it will take about a week to get the power turned back on.

Robert Love is a longtime resident of the park, but is having great difficulty coping with the loss of the power. “I’m on oxygen, but I’ve got no electricity. I’ve had to rely on two small oxygen machines, but they’re running low, and I’ve got to find somewhere I can get electricity for them. I’ve already lost over $500 of food in my freezer”

Residents are trying to cope by staying outside their homes, or visiting neighbors who have generators to cool off for a while.
Frank & Dave’s Opinion Of This Story:

This article is a great example of the hypocrisy of the media concerning mobile home park owners. If this was a master-metered power system, owned by the park, the paper would be all over the owner and how terrible they were to let this happen. In this case, Duke Energy receives not one criticism.

The other lesson to be learned here is the risk you run when you own a park that is master-metered for electricity. Imagine if the power being out was your fault. You’d have every tenant in the park threatening you. Do you really think the tenant lost $500 of food  in their refrigerator? What does he have in there, lobster and caviar? But that’s the kind of threats you’d have, too. So before you buy a park with a master-metered electrical system, make sure that you can mentally handle situations such as this.

During recent flooding, the park had damage, as well as tenants’ personal property. Those tenants have sued the mobile home park. The park is claiming damages which include loss of revenue during the period the park was flooded.

Frank & Dave’s Opinion of This Story:

You don’t see a story like this very often. Normally, it’s the park’s flood plain zoning that is being blamed. But you can have parks that are not in the flood plain impacted by heavy rains as well. Even the best drainage plans rely on storm sewers or creeks that can be jammed with debris and fail to operate. Whenever you buy a park in a low-lying area, particularly near a body of water, you have to make sure that you have 100% awareness of what the possibilities are if some type of flood device malfunctions. You don’t have to be in the flood plain to have liability issues with flooding -as this park demonstrates.

What makes this event so exciting is that almost half of it is held in the field – in actual mobile home parks. You will walk around everything from no-star to 5-star parks and learn how they work and learn the difference between a good deal and a bad deal.

“We really like doing this event in Dallas, as Frank and I have owned so many mobile home parks over the years here and really know this market well” said Dave Reynolds. Some of the parks that will be toured are ones they have formerly owned, as well as ones that they currently own.

For more information go to www.mobilehomeparkstore.com, or call (800) 950-1364.
Frank & Dave’s Opinion of This Story:

If you buy a mobile home park without attending this Boot Camp, you have made a serious mistake. This event will pay for itself many, many times over. We have actually had people who took the Boot Camp and turned around and dropped the deal they had under contract before they showed up, in order to pursue better deals that we showed them how to find. Others have found great deals immediately following the boot camp, using the principals we taught them.

The owner of the mobile home had it listed for sale, and was shocked when they received a deposit refund for removing the home. They immediately called the police.

The mobile home was found at another mobile home park three miles away. Welch had apparently called the manager of the park that the home was originally in to see if she could get the title to the home that was stolen, but the manager turned her away.

The home had already been fully re-painted at the new park.

Welch claims that the park manager had given the home to her.

 
Frank & Dave’s Opinion of This Story:

There’s certainly more to this story than meets the eye. How did Welch get the home moved out of the park it was in without anyone noticing? How did the Manager not notice? Why would Welch have called the old park for the title, immediately identifying herself as the thief? We hate to be so negative on the park manager’s character, but wouldn’t it be more logical that the park manager sold Welch the home, or gave it to her to get it out of the park – and has now conveniently forgot that part of the story?

We’ve had managers dispose of all types of park property, from yard sales of park tools to stealing items from vacant homes such as televisions and VCRs. It is nearly impossible to invisibly move a mobile home. There is definitely more to this scenario than was reported.

The residents had filed a suit seeking more relocation money, as the park is being re-developed and all residents must move out. A City of Thousand Oaks ordinance that required higher amounts was removed after similar ordinances in other cities were struck down in court. The residents were suing to try and get the ordinance reinstated, despite the fact that case law showed it to be illegal.

The residents had a 90 day timeline to file the suit and serve the city, but failed to meet that deadline. As a result, the judge dismissed the suit.

Frank & Dave’s Opinion of This Story:

You’ve gotta love mobile home park residents. Not only is their lawsuit stupid- asking a court to reinstate an ordinance which the court has already found to be illegal- but they can’t even file it on time. Bet they probably wouldn’t have missed the deadline if it was for NASCAR tickets or a knife show- or just a sale on Budweiser.

The noise level at Leisure Lake is currently at 78 decibels. The wall will lower that sound level to around 60 decibels. A normal conversation is at a level of about 60 to 70 decibels.

This section of Highway 101, including the sound wall, will cost about $20 million. The park has 134 lots.

The city arts commission has also proposed to decorate the wall with 40 inch medallions depicting scenes of Petaluma history and culture.

“We’re ecstatic about it” said Carol Pederson, the manager and resident of the park. “We were afraid it was going to be put on the back burner. It’s a godsend for us”.

Work on the project should begin in 2011.

Frank & Dave’s Opinion on This Story:

Just further evidence of the new “love” city government has for mobile home parks. Somehow, mobile home parks have become the new favorite child of city hall. We think it’s because they have finally realized that mobile home parks are a far better form of affordable housing for cities than low-cost apartments. We just hope that low-cost apartment owners are ready for the same scrutiny and scorn that park owners had to endure for decades.

Residents contend that the owner is doing this to end rent control at the park. Once subdivided, the owner will have the ability to set the price of the lots at whatever he feels appropriate. Residents have also hired an attorney to battle the move. They cite case law that suggests that such a conversion cannot be carried out without the approval of residents.

The residents of Surf and Sand had offered to buy the park for $6.75 million, which the owner has so far refused.

Frank & Dave’s Opinion of This Story:

This is the kind of stuff that only happens in coastal California and Florida. Anywhere else in America, you offer $100,000 per lot for a park and it’s sold. Many of these tenants are paying low lot rents for their spaces, which cannot go up until their death under rent control statutes. The $6.75 million offer is very generous based on the actual net income, from what we’ve read in other articles on this situation. If it was us, we’d take the $6.75 million and go. The owner has postured himself into a win or lose scenario now – if he loses the subdivision case, then the tenants have no interest in buying the park at all, and certainly not for $6.75 million. Since the current owner received the park through inheritance, it reminds us of the old saying “pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered”.

Waterhouse, who bought the park in 2005, is suing the city, claiming that the park has not been a senior park for years, since past owners did not do a census of residents’ ages, as required by law. As a result, he wants the park to be open to all ages.  Rents in the 200 space park are around $450 per month. Stick-built homes in the market are between $320,000 and $650,000. Many seniors contend that if the park becomes all-age, they have been harmed, since they bought their home with the assurance that it would be a senior park, and cannot afford to move.

“We’ve hired an attorney to go over the lawsuit” said Larry Asp, President of the American Canyon Manufactured Homeowners’ Coalition, a group that represents the park’s residents. 

Frank & Dave’s Analysis of This Story:

Expect to see more of these type of news stories, as park owners try to expand their customer base to soak up vacancies. There are many parks out there that are designated “senior only” which are no longer in demand by seniors, and the only way to fill vacant homes and lots are with families – and they are unable to move in due to age restrictions. If someone said to us “do you like senior parks?” we’d say “sure, as long as it’s not limited to seniors”. You can still have a senior park with no age restriction, if that’s the way that the demand takes it. But you want to be flexible to react as markets and trends change.