U.S. Rep Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Skamania, on Wednesday met with residents of an east Vancouver mobile home park who fear it will be sold out from under them.
Vista Del Rio has been on the market for $41 million since April 2024. That has created uncertainty for the 300 or so residents, all 55 and older, many of whom are on fixed incomes. Owners of mobile homes in Vancouver’s 16 parks are not protected from the sale of the land where they rent spaces for their units. The parks can be sold and used for another purpose, requiring the homes to be moved or demolished.
During the meeting, Vista Del Rio residents urged Perez to redefine manufactured homes as real property and to make regulations on the property more clear and consistent.
According to state law, manufactured homes are defined as personal property if they are leased on land. Borrowers can’t take out home loans through U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs loans and U.S. Housing and Urban Development for personal property, which makes it difficult for residents in mobile parks to obtain the funding needed to buy their land, resident Steve Swope said.
Residents of the park believe that their homes should be considered real property because the homes are not mobile like a trailer.
The Vista Del Rio property is unique because all of the units are pit set, Swope said. That means the ground was excavated for each building’s foundation.
“They’re designed to be permanent. They’re designed to stay here, but they’re not designed to be moved,” Swope said.
Swope and his wife, Deb, moved to Vista Del Rio after selling their house.
“We appreciated the ability to own. As Steve and I have aged, we realized we really needed to be more frugal with monthly expenses, just life, and we didn’t need that huge house,” Deb Swope said.
Many of the other residents also moved from traditional homes to the park to downsize or save money.
Perez said preserving mobile home parks can be an opportunity to free up needed space in the housing market.
“You hear all the time about families not being able to get into a home when they start having more kids and not having any wiggle room in the housing market,” Perez said. “Part of the housing issue here is that having an older couple or person downsize is actually pretty important to the housing market continuing to move.”
Perez brought up the potential of expanding VA loans, as well as clarifying the regulatory landscape so mobile home parks will no longer be viewed as an asset to snap up.
