Editor's note: The New Hampshire Community Loan Fund is an NHPR underwriter. We cover them just like any other institution, and they have no role in our editorial decisions.
A manufactured home community in Albany is now owned by the people who live there. In June the residents of Albany Acres bought the property from former owner Patrick Houghton of Ranger Properties LLC.
To buy the property, residents formed a cooperative and will now run the community as a not-for-profit corporation.
“They purchase the land and infrastructure underneath their homes, and they run it as a democratic business in perpetuity afterwards,” Sarah Marchant said.
She is the chief operating officer and senior vice president of the resident-owned communities program at the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, which provided financing and business coaching to the Albany Acres residents.
Residents at manufactured home communities — sometimes called mobile homes or trailer parks — may own their home, but still have to pay rent on the land it sits on.
Marchant likened Albany Acres’ new operation to a small municipality — members of Albany Acres will elect a board of directors annually and vote on a budget that includes capital improvements and daily operations. They still pay rent on their lots, but now, members have to approve all rent increases.
Brad Armstrong, a resident of Albany Acres and vice president of Albany Acre’s cooperative board, said the community has been trying to buy the property for years. Now that the former owner has accepted their offer, he said the community doesn’t have to fear a property owner will start rent hikes or decide to sell the property, forcing them to move.
“Everybody down here in the park is either on Social Security or Disability or have low income,” Armstrong said. “Anybody in here can't go out and get [an apartment] because everything is sky high. They'd be homeless.”
Property owners of other manufactured home communities have drawn scrutiny for raising rents and management practices.
Armstrong has been at Albany Acres for about 13 years. A veteran who works part-time stocking shelves at Walmart, he said the new community ownership will allow residents to make the investments in the park that have been long-needed. He alleges the former property owner, Patrick Houghton, neglected Albany Acres’ infrastructure, leaving them with failing septic systems.
Houghton did not respond to NHPR’s request for comment.
Armstrong said rent, which was $455 under Houghton, will go up to $600 to pay for the improvements, but the cooperative is also applying for grants to keep the costs down.
“We can keep the rents down [and] affordable, and we can fix up the place as we go,” he said.
