The Mobile Home Economics | Explorer

[music playing]

• Frank Rolfe?
• Yes.
• Billy Mintz.
• Hi, Billy. How are you?

BILLY MINTZ (VOICEOVER): Frank Rolfe's company is the fifth largest owner of mobile home parks in the United States.

BILLY MINTZ: Beautiful place.

FRANK ROLFE: Thank you very much.

BILLY MINTZ: Wow. Show you in here. Our motto is kind of we provide a clean, safe, affordable place to live, just like it is here. Micro-housing is hot. You just have a whole lot of people who just can't afford to buy a house today. It's almost impossible for people. So we're like, by far, the least expensive form of detached dwelling there is. I mean, some homes you'll see are like $2,000 for the entire home.

BILLY MINTZ (VOICEOVER): Here's how Frank's business works. He buys old mobile home parks, makes basic repairs, gives them a fresh coat of paint, and then puts homes on the market. Basically, you're repositioning properties, bringing them back to life. And everybody's happy.

BILLY MINTZ (VOICEOVER): He owns the land, so whether he rents out the homes or sells them, residents pay a lot fee of around $250 to $375 per month, providing Frank with a steady stream of revenue.

So this is a unit for sale?

It's for sale or rent. Renting this is $550 a month. But if you want to buy it, we'll sell it you for $500.

OK, so hold on a second. To rent it, it's $550.

Right. But to buy it, it's less.

Yes. Then how does it work for you financially, though?

Well, on paper, it looks pretty stupid, right? Because I've poured thousands of dollars into the house and I'm going to take a loss on this house of probably $3,000 or $4,000. But just to have someone on this lot, this lot is worth probably $30,000 with someone in it and it's worth nothing with somebody not in it. Our big focus is we want to be in the land business.

Right. So we're willing to take hefty losses on the homes just to be in the land business.

BILLY MINTZ (VOICEOVER): It's not much different from how the mobile home business started.

[music playing]

During World War II, a slapdash prototype of mobile homes housed soldiers and factory workers. After the war ended, small mom and pop shops set out to make the rickety World War II model a more permanent, affordable housing alternative, buying cheap land, installing homes, and then charging lot fees to the residents.

But the difference was that these mostly family-owned parks usually didn't raise rents. But after 2007, the demand for cheap housing skyrocketed and people like Frank saw an opportunity.

Our industry has been a contrarian bet on a poorer America, and that bet's been paying off really big the last eight years, right? Whereas our customers are the $10 to $50 per hour folks, there's no other options out there for those people.