All Forum Posts by: Erik K.

I know that many investors buy manufactured housing parks precisely to avoid the cost and burden of owning the home structures. Suppose, however, that a well-funded buyer has a different strategy: gradually acquire all homes in the park and rent them out at full market value.

In some locales, rent control begins when someone buys a manufactured home and moves in (agreeing to whatever rent the park owner currently asks), and ends when the homeowner vacates.

In that situation, it seems that park owners may raise new rent so high that vacating homeowners would find it impossible to sell the home (except maybe at a ridiculously low price). Then the homeowners must acquire a new place for the home (if that's even feasible) or sell to park owners at any price demanded. If the home is removed, park owners could purchase and install a new home.

Rent control does not apply to homes owned by the park owner. So, whether or not the home is removed, the park owner gains something and the homeowner loses greatly in terms of money and aggravation.

In practice, does anything deter park owners from inflicting huge losses on homeowners in this way?

I'm focused on parks in California, but this could be a danger for homeowners anyplace where rent control ends when the homeowner vacates.

Hello, are you familiar with the Las Vegas rental market? If so, I have a mystery puzzle for you.

Looking on Zillow, I notice that 3-bed condos ask for only slightly lower rents than 3-bed detached houses ask. However, Zillow shows condos with asking prices close to half what is asked for houses.

Do the cheap condos require the owner to occupy them, and only the expensive ones are rentable? Or is there some other explanation?

Thanks for your ideas!

Thank you for your thoughtful reply.

Weirdly, that bathroom/kitchen-sharing exemption exists in the code governing cause for ending tenancy. I searched and didn't find similar language for the section governing the maximum rent increase. So roommates are protected from no-cause termination, but not protected from huge rent increases?

But that first link you gave, about mobile homes being exempt from the definition of "owner", sounds convincing. So I'm safe, but a regular homeowner renting out a room might not be. I suspect the lawmakers did not intend to protect roommates at all, but I could be wrong.

 In SEC. 3 of the bill (Section 1947.12 that was added to the Civil Code), it exempts "Residential real property that is alienable separate from the title to any other dwelling unit". My manufactured home is alienable (can be bought or sold because I own title), but what I'm actually renting to roommates (just a room and shared use of common areas) cannot be bought or sold. Technically, reading the law literally, it sounds like my rooms are not exempt and so they would be subject to rent control.

I'm pretty sure that's not what the lawmakers intended, though. They were targeting real estate businesses that rent out lots of dwellings. So the spirit of the law conflicts with the letter of the law.

I'll bet I'm not the only person wondering about this: Is any retail US tax prep software elegant at handling income for a mixed personal/rental property? For example, consider a homeowner who rents out some bedrooms for extra money.

TurboTax should just ask for the home’s various expenses and, for each one, ask what percent should be attributed to the rented part of the home. Then it could put some fraction of the expenses in the IRS Schedule form for rental income, and maybe the remainder where it belongs (itemized deductions?).

TurboTax Premier does not do that. Are its competitors any better?

Hello everyone,

Lots of tenant application/screening services can be seen using a Google search. There are so many that I'm deadlocked due to the excessive freedom of choice! Plus, there are no trustworthy reviews of these services.

Would the price they charge the applicant deter too many candidates from renting a room in my home?

I could just do many of the screening steps myself: check my state's sex offender registry, search for convictions using the websites of each county the applicant has resided in recently, and ask the applicant to unfreeze their Experian credit file for me. And I would phone all the references myself, even if I used one of those screeners.

Only law enforcement people are empowered to search crime databases nationally, as far as I can tell. This makes me wonder how all these tenant screening websites are searching.

Do you rely on such a screening service, or do you have your own process?

Thanks in advance for your ideas and replies!