Did you know
millionaires are eligible for rent control housing in
California? Yes, it’s a fact. Rent controlled mobilehomes are NOT
means tested. This is why some waterfront mobilehomes are selling
for over $4 million in Malibu, California!
This really underscores how misdirected some public policy can be
when trying to find real solutions to California’s housing
crisis.
This page is intended to introduce Californians to the many
reasons why our state is facing a housing crisis, solutions and
misguided policies.
According to
analysts, government imposed regulations and fees are leading
contributors to why California is the most expensive place to
live in the U.S. An average California home ($440,000) costs
two-and-half times the average national home price ($180,000),
and the average monthly rent is $1,240, 50% higher than the rest
of the country. This is not news for those who see a big portion
of their paycheck going to housing each month.
Instead of addressing the
root cause of the housing crisis, some policymakers are
championing rent control, despite the fact that it has never
effectively preserved or expanded affordable housing stocks. One
of their favorite targets is manufactured housing communities or
mobilehome parks, as if private property owners are responsible
for the housing crisis. When manufactured homes offer all the
quality and comfort of a stick-built house, at prices 30% less, a
compelling case can be made that they are part of the solution
and not the problem.
It is time for state and local government regulators should
abandon the current course of driving up the cost of housing with
costly, unneeded regulations, only to hastily impose price
controls that don’t work once homeownership becomes unattainable.
It is time for real and meaningful solutions.
Making housing construction less expensive and more plentiful
so that the savings can be passed on to all prospective
homeowners is a good place to start.
WMA and our members look forward to fully participating in this
important public policy discussion. We invite you to join us.
To follow California housing issues, Like us on Facebook and
Twitter.
California’s housing affordability challenges remain daunting and
continue to increase, according to a draft report from
the state’s Department of Housing and Community
Development released Tuesday.
By JOHN PHILLIPS / Staff columnistDec. 22, 2016 Updated Dec. 23, 2016 7:59 a.m.
As a lifelong resident of California, I grew up believing
wholeheartedly in the California dream — the idea that one day,
my friends and I would be able to own our slice of paradise right
here in the Golden State. Little did I know that because of the
sky-high cost of housing, the only real estate most of us can
afford are the Styrofoam missions we glued together in the fourth
grade.
By: JACQUELINE LEEPUBLISHED: December 21, 2016 at 6:49 pm | UPDATED: December 22, 2016 at 7:17 am
PALO ALTO — Residents of Buena Vista Mobile Home Park in
Palo Alto are celebrating two victories this week.
The mobile home park, which has been in danger of closing for the
past four years, will stay open for now because of a Santa
Clara County Superior Court judge’s decision.
by Sue Dremann / Palo Alto WeeklyUploaded: Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 8:55 pm
Buena Vista Mobile Home Park residents received a hopeful
pre-holiday present from the Housing Authority of the County of
Santa Clara on Tuesday when its board of directors unanimously
agreed to seek acquisition of the mobile-home park during a
closed session meeting.
by Kevin Forestieri / Mountain View VoiceUploaded: Fri, Dec 9, 2016, 3:31 pm
A coalition of elected leaders from all nine Bay Area counties
agreed to an ambitious new vision for regional growth in the
coming decades, calling for a more balanced mix of jobs and
housing that curbs displacement, explosive cost-of-living
increases and long hours stuck in traffic jams.
By JEFF COLLINS / STAFF WRITERPublished: Nov. 30, 2016 Updated: Dec. 4, 2016 10:34 p.m.
How can California increase the number of homes that people can
afford?
By giving more money to cities that build sufficient affordable
housing, some said at a recent housing summit in Los Angeles. Or
cutting off funding to those that don’t.
The issue of rent control – long dormant in the Bay Area – was
back on ballots Tuesday as rents continue to rise in an an
increasingly competitive regional housing market.
Affordable housing is one of the most important issues facing
Sonoma County employers, workers, leaders and citizens. With our
great weather, easy access to recreation and other quality
lifestyle amenities, Sonoma County is a highly desirable place to
live and has been for some time, yet it is not an easy place to
afford to live.
A prominent Measure V supporter who had been at the forefront of
the campaign confirmed on Monday that she had sent an email
earlier this year offering to drop out of the movement to
establish rent control at mobile home parks in unincorporated
Humboldt County in exchange for the purchase of a $100,000
double-wide by her park’s owners.
When first asked by the Union whether she had written
an email that smacked of extortion, the former head of the Yes on
Measure V campaign flatly denied doing so, stating, “No! No! No!
I don’t know how else to say that word – wait; nien, nay, non,
nyet.”
In an effort to educate public policymakers on how mobilehome
parks operate and how the misapplication of rent control has
contributed to California’s housing crisis, the Western
Manufactured Housing Communities Association (WMA) has launched a
statewide public education campaign.
In an effort to educate public policymakers on how mobilehome
parks operate and how the misapplication of rent control has
contributed to California’s housing crisis, the Western
Manufactured Housing Communities Association (WMA) has launched a
statewide public education campaign.
By: The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial BoardSeptember 23, 2016, 6:00am
The biggest problem facing California is housing affordability.
Rent and home prices are so high that middle-income and
low-income households alike often struggle to pay for shelter. In
metro Los Angeles, one-fourth of households spends at least
half their income on housing. As understood by Gov. Jerry
Brown and anyone familiar with how free markets work, the best,
most decisive and longest-lasting solution to this problem is to
add housing stock.
Rents in California are 50 percent above the national average.
The cost of a new home is 2.5 times what it is elsewhere in the
U.S. And the chances of being “house poor” are significantly
higher here than in any other state in the country.
(StatePoint) As the Boomer population ages and retires, massive
shifts in the housing market are to be expected. One current
popular trend with these older Americans is manufactured housing
in land-lease communities, where homes are placed on leased land
and the overall price of the home is lower than other types of
homes. And many of these communities offer senior-friendly
amenities.
Only 13 percent of San Francisco households can afford to pay the
nearly $7,000 a month in housing costs for a median-priced home
here, according to recent analysis by Paragon Realty.
“By definition, half the homes sold in any given county were at
prices below the median sales price, i.e. there were
numerous homes that were more affordable than the
median prices used in this analysis,” said the report. “However,
any way one slices it, the Bay Area has one of the most
expensive— if not the most expensive—and least affordable housing
markets in the country.”
BY JIM MILLER AND ANSHU SIRIPURAPUAUGUST 18, 2016 2:29 PM
Attempts to craft an end-of-session affordable housing package
are “dead” for the year, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said
Thursday, saying there continues to be intense opposition to Gov.
Jerry Brown’s proposal to relax local land-use rules in return
for $400 million for housing projects.
WESTERN MANUFACTURED HOUSING COMMUNITIES ASSOCIATIONAugust 17, 2016
Demand for new housing is at an all time high and new housing
construction is not keeping pace. Government regulations are also
to blame. It can account for up to 30% of the cost of a new
home. Now is the time for real and meaningful solutions.
WESTERN MANUFACTURED HOUSING COMMUNITIES ASSOCIATIONAugust 17, 2016
Did you know millionaires are eligible for rent control housing
in California? Yes, it’s a fact. Rent controlled mobilehomes are
NOT means tested. This is why some waterfront mobile homes are
selling for over $4 million in Malibu, California! This really
underscores how misdirected some public policy can be when trying
to find real solutions to California’s housing crisis.
By: Michael Hiltzik - Contact ReporterAugust 12, 2016, 8:40am
Kate Vershov Downing is a lawyer working for a Silicon Valley
technology firm, married to a software engineer. But even with
two good jobs in the household, she’s been driven out of the Palo
Alto housing market, where the home she rents with another couple
costs $6,200 in monthly rent and would cost $2.7 million to buy.
After six long months of hard work, the Humboldt Mobile
Homeowner’s Coalition is now waiting to know whether their
initiative will be on the ballot this November.
PRESS-ENTERPRISE EDITORIALPublished: June 23, 2016 Updated: 6:18 p.m.
Builders and elected officials grappled with the affordability
crisis last week in Ontario at a policy conference put on
annually by the Building Industry Association’s Baldy View
Chapter.
By Jonathan Lansner, Staff WriterPOSTED: 06/25/16, 9:31 PM PDT
The region’s housing crunch is steep, by any economic measure. A
database of housing affordability statistics created by The
Associated Press shows Southern California’s two main
metropolitan regions – Los Angeles/Orange counties and the Inland
Empire – consistently rank among the U.S. markets that most
stretch the household budgets of both homeowners and renters.
Data were census figures through 2014, the latest available.
Rent control ordinances essentially all impose some type of limit
on rent increases for all or some subset of rental units in a
local area and also often include requirements for new buildings
to include some minimum percentage of “affordable” units meaning
ones rented for less than the owner could get in a free market.
They are motivated by the idea that rents are too high because
landlords are greedy. That, however, is not the true cause of the
problem.
By Scott Herhold,, Bay Area News GroupPOSTED: 06/17/16, 10:46 PM PDT
After Supervisor Joe Simitian announced Wednesday that the
county’s Housing Authority would join the fight to preserve the
Buena Vista Mobile Home Park as a refuge for the working class in
Palo Alto, a reporter asked him what it meant. Enough big words.
What was his spin?
By Sheila Dey, Executive Director, Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association.JUNE 20, 2016
The Sacramento Bee recently profiled mobile home
owners who are taking advantage of a “loop-hole” to reduce
their tax liability on beach front homes in Malibu, worth
millions of dollars. Needless to say, the Los Angeles County tax
assessor wants more property taxes, and the law is on the side of
property owners.
By Arlene Martinez, amartinez@vcstar.comPosted: June 18, 2016
It’s no secret some mobile home parks, which have tried
repeatedly (and unsuccessfully) to have rent control repealed,
sometimes use the long-term leases as a way to get out from under
them.
A wise man once said that the best way to get out of a hole is to
“stop digging.” Today California is short 1.5 million affordable
homes for families struggling to make ends meet, and the hole is
growing bigger each year.
Nearly half of California renters plan to buy a home, but
many can’t afford it, according to a survey released
Wednesday by the California Association of Realtors.
Western Manufactured Housing Communities AssociationJune 2, 2016
Did you know millionaires are eligible for rent control housing
in California? Yes, it’s a fact. Rent controlled mobilehomes are
NOT means tested. This is why some waterfront mobile homes are
selling for over $4 million in Malibu, California! This really
underscores how misdirected some public policy can be when trying
to find real solutions to California’s housing crisis.
Napa Valley Register, Opinion: BOE Member George RunnerJune 2, 2016
Just one decade ago, California’s housing market crashed,
resulting in mass foreclosures and dramatic declines in home
values. Today, we face a very different problem — a severe
housing shortage.
Gov. Jerry Brown wants to provide more low-cost housing through
an initiative that could unite liberals and conservatives,
Republicans and Democrats. As he outlined last month in his
updated budget proposal, the plan would reduce costs to
homeowners and renters by increasing the housing supply through
reductions in the state’s labyrinthine construction-permit
process.
For years, Gov. Jerry Brown has resisted efforts to spend more
money to build affordable housing. As part of his revised budget
released Friday, Brown announced what he said was a better
solution: making it easier to build homes for low-income
residents. In a new package of legislation, Brown is proposing to
streamline the permitting process for developers building
affordable homes.
Those in California media and politics understand – finally –
that there is a housing crisis. However, there’s no agreement on
what precisely it is or how it might be addressed.
A federal court jury on Thursday ordered the city of Carson to
pay $3.3 million in damages to a mobile home park owner for
violating his constitutional rights when it repeatedly rejected
proposed rent increases at his park.
California politicians talk about the housing crisis constantly.
But while offering a few token inducements for new construction,
they’re unwilling to address the macro issue.
California’s affordable housing stock is not keeping up with its
population growth.
“It all boils down to this,” Thornberg said. “Taxes and
regulations are a problem for state businesses, but it’s not what
defines California. In the end, this California growth story is a
lack-of-housing story.”
California is in the midst of a severe and growing housing
crisis, and the Legislative leadership in Sacramento appears to
not have the faintest understanding about the causes and possible
real solutions to the problem.
“The reason why California faces a housing affordability crisis
is simple, many experts say: Lots of people want to live in the
state and there aren’t enough houses for them.”
Sheila Dey, Executive Director of the Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association.April 3, 2016
WMA’s executive director, Sheila Dey writes, “Instead of
addressing the root cause, some policymakers are championing rent
control, despite the fact that it has never effectively preserved
or expanded affordable housing stocks.”
Slow-growth policies have indeed reduced suburban sprawl, but
there’s little doubt that they have also put upward pressure on
housing prices. So have the increasing costs of building permits,
environmental impact studies and a whole host of other
regulations now required of developers.
The housing market in the region and the rest of the state will
continue to be influenced by trends among the two largest
generations: baby-boomers and millennials. In simplest terms, the
boomers aren’t moving, and the millennials are – out of the state
– driven in part by high home prices in California,
said Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist for the
California Association of Realtors.
Three new studies commissioned by Next 10 — a San Francisco think
tank that focuses on quality of life in California — make a
powerful case that extreme housing costs threaten to make much of
the state like Malibu and Santa Barbara, where only the wealthy
can afford to live and most of the workers who support them have
long commutes from cheaper inland areas. The analyses — prepared
by Beacon Economics, a respected Los Angeles-based consultant —
make a powerful case that the focus of state anti-poverty efforts
should be bringing down housing costs.
The problem with inclusionary policies and other coercive
approaches to housing, such as rent control ordinances, is that
while they may be politically gratifying, they divert attention
from the real problem of housing in California, which is that we
have way too little of it.
California’s boom in high-wage jobs, such as those in the tech
sector, has shoved housing prices skyward and threatens to
squeeze low- and middle-income wage earners out of the Golden
State, a report released Wednesday warned.
“Not only are Californians leaving the state in large numbers,
but the people heading for the exits are disproportionately
middle class working families — the demographic
backbone of American society,” the American Interest recently
noted.
WMA addresses the most common questions related to California’s
housing crisis, and how rent control has not effectively
preserved or expanded affordable housing stocks.
Encouraging additional private housing construction can help the
many low–income Californians who do not receive assistance.
Considerable evidence suggests that construction of market–rate
housing reduces housing costs for low–income households and,
consequently, helps to mitigate displacement in many cases.
Politicians, particularly those on the centre-left, and some
policy wonks favour forms of rent regulation, such as rent
control (which is the placing of a cap on the rent that can be
charged) or rent stabilisation (which sets limits on how much
rent can be raised over time).
Rent control has been in force in a number of major American
cities for many decades. The best-known example is New York,
which still retains rent controls from the temporary price
controls imposed during World War II. But this policy, meant to
assist poorer residents, harms far more citizens than it helps,
benefits the better-off, and limits the freedom of all citizens.
