Homeowners in Florida are being quietly priced out of their communities. People often own their manufactured homes but rent the lot underneath them.
Census data shows lot rent in the state has nearly doubled over the last decade.
That means manufactured housing parks, which are considered the largest source of unsubsidized affordable housing, are now growing unaffordable.
Under Florida law, management can pass along fees, like utility charges and property tax increases, as long as they are considered “reasonable” and are mentioned in a park’s original governing document, which is called a prospectus.
Homeowners Todd and Mary Cruikshank moved to Country Villa Estates in Riverview from Wisconsin. They invested thousands of dollars to turn it into the home they desired, but soon saw hidden fees tacked on.
The couple says the rising lot rents are impacting their quality of life. They listed their home for sale but decided not to move after receiving offers that were too low.
In their words: Mary and Todd Cruikshank
Parts of this interview were edited for clarity.
TODD: During the time we came up, it was not very trafficky for a change. I don't know how that happened, but we got up, and the park seemed like it was quiet and nice.
And so we put an offer on it the first time we saw it, and then we went back up to Wisconsin. It was accepted, and we just made the arrangements and bought it and came down, and surprise!
I know at the time, it was higher than what we were looking at, but it was still somewhat affordable. It was around $700 – the lot rent. Shortly after that, it started going up like every couple of months.
It seemed like we got another hidden fee that got tacked on, and now it's up to around 1,000, and they say it's going to keep going.
MARY: And that’s in under two years. They didn’t really so much give us a percentage increase. They told us what the lot rent was. Think it was maybe through the end of the year, or through a certain period of time, that it would be going up after that.
I think in June is when they have the lot rent increases. I know they can pass along a certain percentage of property taxes to the residents. The old management company never did that.
And then there was something to do with water usage long before we came here. Probably within two or three months of us moving here, that fee was going to be divided amongst the residents, and we all had to pay for that.
So we started paying for water that had been used 10 years ago by people who are long gone.
They nickel and dime with a lot of certain fees. They don't necessarily refer to it as the lot rent increase, but they add on this, and then they add on that.
Before you know it, that $740 or whatever we were paying is another $20 in a month, another $50 a month, and it just keeps going up and up, and we get nothing in return for it then.
TODD: When we moved in, we had to do a lot of things. It doesn’t look cosmetically – besides the kitchen – but we put well over $30,000 into it.
And there’s no way we’re going to get what we put into it – much less probably what we paid for it two years later, because nobody wants to pay $1,000 and then have the house expensive.
A lot of the residents have said that their house is worth nothing now because you just can’t get rid of it. It’s frustrating because if we even got what we paid for the house and lose $30,000 – usually when you buy a house and improve it, you’re investing in your house and the amount goes up, not down.
So we have it listed for more than we paid for it, but we’ve gotten one offer for less than we originally paid for it by $5,000 and not counting the $35,000 we put into it. We probably won’t be able to sell.
MARY: We’re putting it out there. It’s the lot itself.
It takes a special kind of person who’s going to look at this and say, “I want that privacy. I want that yard. I like the lot. I like the landscaping.”
You’re not going to really find that at most of the other lots in here. So somebody that’s just looking for their cookie-cutter little right next to the other house type of thing probably will have no interest in this.
TODD: We do love the lot. We have privacy back here, and then the back, and we’ve landscaped it really nice, and that’s what we liked.
We looked at one other house when we moved in here, up the street, and it was nicer inside. But it was like Mary said, right next to each other – on another. So we like the fact that we can garden back there and plant. Mary likes to plant stuff.
It’s nice. And maybe it will take the right person who just says, “This is the lot I want. And I don’t care how much the lot rent is.”
MARY: We don’t have a house out there right now that we’re waiting for this to sell so that we can buy that one or anything. We’re kind of keeping things open and exploring things.
But I would love to move into a similar type of community. If possible, to have one where we would own the land versus paying a lease amount there.
The neighbors that we have gotten to know here are good, kind people who you can tell have worked hard in life. And a lot of them have lived in this community for quite some time.
It breaks my heart to see good people suffer like that, and we’ll miss the neighbors.
This project was supported by The Pulitzer Center's Local Reporting Grant.
