Rent or Buy a Mobile Home in LA

[GigiH]

I am looking at having to move to Los Angeles in the next year, and am considering whether to rent a one bedroom apartment, or buy a 2-3 bedroom mobile home in a "family park". I net about $4000 a month from my job as a PTA and I have a 2 year old son who will live with me 50% of the time. Average rent for a 1 bdr in LA is $2440. When I look on Zillow, I've found some nicer looking mobile homes for under $200,000. One 2 bdr home I've found would have a mortgage of around $1086 plus a rent space of $856 (=$1942/mo) and I would be able to rent out one room to cut down on my payment. I'm wondering if this is a pipe dream or if my thinking/hoping has any base in reality. What are your thoughts, 'Stachers?

[lhamo]

I would want to be REALLY sure that the underlying land was not at risk of being sold out from under you, or that the park might be bought out by venture capital (there is a big move to aquire parks going on right now).  Because the huge risk is that you pay $200k for a mobile home and then a year or two down the road the land gets sold and there is no place left you can move it to.  It has happened all over the country, including just down the road from me -- one of the last mobile home parks in North Seattle got bought by a developer and they put up $700-800k townhomes.  They did give the park residents a year or so to move, and some financial incentives, but I'm pretty sure most of them ended up in worse situations.  There was another park a few miles west that was going to be sold but I think the city swooped in and bought the land to preserve the housing for the current tenants -- eventually they will develop it and probably help people find other affordable units in the city pool.

[ixtap]

Many of these parks have similar rules to rentals and would not permit you to rent out a room.

[Paper Chaser]

Also keep in mind that mobile homes tend to depreciate like vehicles more than they appreciate like traditional homes.
And they tend to have a much more defined lifespan for construction and materials.

[GigiH]

Thanks for the feedback everybody. I appreciate the dose of reality before I got too carried away with the idea.

[sisto]

It might actually be better, you just need to weigh out the pros and cons. Keep in mind that it is considered personal property and not real estate. You also generally have to pay a much higher rate to finance them and for a shorter term than a mortgage. As for renting a room, you would just need to know the rules of the park it exists in. Usually you can't sublease, but most of the time you can in fact rent out a room if you are also occupying it. They are governed by HCD, the department of housing and development so you have some resources available for disputes etc. I just purchase one for my son who recently moved back to California from Las Vegas. The park is under new management and they have raised the rent significantly, but I was able to negotiate a better price because of it and for the square footage per dollar it was worth it over renting. Eventually he will get a house, but for now it's a great option and he will be renting out a room to offset the costs.

[lhamo]

Another thing I'll mention:

I know people seem to think that Craigslist isn't really a viable way to find apartments in HCOL areas these days due to the high number of scams, but DS found a decent 1 br apartment via a CL ad in an older complex a 20 minute walk from the Berkeley campus for $1850 just a couple of weeks before classes started.  A lot of old-school landlords who self-manage still go the CL route over more expensive options like listing on Zillow or Rent.com.  My experience here in Seattle is also that you will find lower rents and greater flexibility going with smaller landlords rather than trying to work through big corporate rentals or property management companies. 

Nextdoor can also be a good place to find leads on cheaper rentals -- here in Seattle I have seen more and more small landlords looking for tenants through Nextdoor, probably due to new rental laws that passed in the last couple of years that say you have to offer the unit to the first person who meets your stated criteria.  Rather than posting a vacancy publicly it seems many of these landlords are trying to find tenants via word of mouth.  Not sure how legal it is, but I understand where they are coming from.