Oregon and Washington are preparing for fights over rent increases in manufactured home parks
When Susan Zajac moved into the Royal Villas Mobile Home Park near Tigard three years ago, she thought she was making a good financial decision. She paid a mere $34,500 for her home and then rented the lot it sat on for $850 per month. Since then, her rent has steadily increased, to a current price of $1,200 per month.
Unlike many of her neighbors in the 55-and-older park, Zajac still works, but she says the increases from the park’s owner, Cal-Am Properties, are especially hard on her neighbors, many of whom are seniors on fixed incomes.
“It’s not the way it should be,” Zajac said.
She’s one of a growing number of tenants at manufactured home parks calling foul on park owners for what they say are exorbitant rent increases and unfair fees that are threatening to push tenants out of their homes altogether.
“It’s one of those situations where it seems like me and others buy in and kind of expect normal rent increases but not the exorbitant increases that have been happening,” she said.
Zajac was recently in Salem to support legislation aimed at protecting tenants like herself. The proposal, House Bill 3054, would cap rent increases for tenants in manufactured home parks and marinas at average cost increases as measured by the Consumer Price Index. Currently, rent increases cannot exceed 10% per year.
Other protections would cap the rent of someone who bought an existing mobile home in a park at 10% above what the seller was paying. Landlords would be restricted from requiring tenants to make aesthetic changes to their homes or to require home inspections when their manufactured home is being sold.
A similar fight is brewing in Olympia, where lawmakers recently introduced House Bill 1217. Termed a rent stabilization bill, the proposal would cap rent increases for all types of housing at 7% per year to provide “Washington renters with predictability, transparency, and the same protections afforded to other consumers.” It, too, specifically mentions manufactured homes.
The bills are two examples of ways to address the uniquely vulnerable position of residents in manufactured home parks. Unlike in apartments, people who own such homes but rent the land they’re on have less ability to leave if rental costs increase too quickly. Many are senior citizens living on fixed incomes, and steady rent increases cut against the value of their homes by making them less attractive if they wanted to sell.
Mobile home parks have also become a de facto source of low-income housing in places like Oregon, where housing production goals continue to lag and where building more homes is a key piece in addressing homelessness.
According to Clark County Assessor Peter Van Nortwick, manufactured home park residents, who are simultaneously renters and owners, are especially vulnerable to rising costs.
“They’re kind of getting hit double,” he said. “They will see increases in rents but they will also see decreases in the value of their manufactured home that’s sitting in the park.”
Arguments that rental rates should be left to the free market break down when tenants don’t have a choice of where to move, said Sen. Jeff Golden, D-Ashland, during recent testimony in support of HB 3054.
“As a practical matter, the tenants in these parks don’t have that choice,” Golden said. “The economics of moving a manufactured home to a theoretical competitor’s park keep tenants captive where they are as an economic matter.”
Both proposals in Oregon and Washington have been met with strong opposition from park owners, who say the legislation amounts to rent control and that it will have the opposite of its intended effect.
They argue that caps on rent increases will depress prices below market rates and force owners to run parks at the bare minimum standards so they fall into disrepair. During a committee hearing in Salem, opponents said the Oregon proposal would lead to more locally-owned parks being bought up by national conglomerates.
Jennifer Bagshaw owns a 180-unit manufactured home park in Medford. During testimony, she said the proposed Oregon legislation would have unintended consequences.
“My average increase per year for expenses is roughly 8%, and that is climbing steadily. As a small landlord, I rely on the flexibility to adjust rent for new tenants to cover these rising costs,” Bagshaw said. “Without the ability to adjust rents when homes turn over, these rising costs will become unmanageable, forcing small landlords like me to sell. The likely buyers will be real estate investment trusts, whose profit-driven practices are the ones causing this whole mess.”
The Washington and Oregon bills are in their early stages and have not yet been debated by the full legislatures, but supporters are hoping to keep the pressure on lawmakers. Washington’s chapter of the Association of Manufactured Home Owners is planning to rally with supporters for HB 1217 in Olympia on March 14.
Zajac, the renter in Portland’s southwest suburbs, said a recent town hall event at Royal Villas to discuss HB 3054 attracted 200 people to their park’s clubhouse, where they told visiting lawmakers their stories.
“Homelessness is a crisis that everyone doesn’t like. Everyone across the board,” Zajac said. “And it’s like, how do we solve it? Keep people in their homes.”
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the amount that rent could be increased at manufactured home parks under HB 3054. OPB regrets the error.
Salem Statesman Journal – February 11, 2025
Salem Statesman Journal – Oregon Bill Would Cap Rent for Manufactured Home Park Owners: What to Know
February 11, 2025
Author Dianne Lugo
The bill that would cap rent increases for manufactured home parks and marinas to the annual inflation rate.
Proponents of the bill say it would protect residents, many of whom are on fixed incomes, from exorbitant rent increases.
Opponents, including park owners, argue the bill would lead to closures and sales to large corporations, exacerbating the housing crisis.
Supporters of proposed legislation that would limit rent increases in manufactured home parks and marinas say it would protect existing affordable housing, but opponents fear the bill would force the closure of smaller parks or selling to large conglomerates.
House Bill 3054 would cap allowable rent increases for tenants in manufactured home parks and marinas to annual inflation rates.
“It addresses an alarming trend that we are seeing in manufactured housing communities across our state which is the skyrocketing costs for tenants” who predominantly are on fixed incomes and relying on Social Security, said House Majority Leader Rep. Ben Bowman, D-Tigard.
Multifamily NW, an association of members managing nearly 300,000 units, also wrote testimony opposing the bill, saying rent control poliies have created uncertainty in the state.
“We all know that Oregon is facing a severe housing shortage, and it is abundantly clear that our approach to this issue is not working,” wrote Zach Lindahl with Multifamily NW. “Our focus should be on policies that encourage investment and increase supply, not those that further constrain the market.”
What Oregon House Bill 3054 would do
HB 3054 would impact a specific subsection of tenants: owners of manufactured homes who rent the land within a park or marina. If a person rents a home within a park, the law won’t apply. Recreational vehicles, apartments or mobile homes outside parks or marinas would not be covered by the law.
“We’re trying to provide a little more transparency, predictability around what the costs of staying in that park will be for people,” said Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland, a chief sponsor of the bill and chair of the House Committee on Housing and Homelessness.
According to testimony from the Oregon Law Center during a packed public hearing on Feb. 3, there are about 1,000 mobile home parks representing 62,000 spaces in the state. There are many of those parks in Marsh’s district in southern Jackson County.
The bill also removes some of what landlords can require before the sale of a manufactured home at parks or marinas. Rental increases for this subsection of tenants would be capped at the Consumer Price Index, a measure of inflation. The CPI calculation in 2024 was 3.2%, according to Oregon’s Office of Economic Analysis.
Landlords would be unable to raise rent above 10% of what a selling tenant was paying if they sold a manufactured home that would remain in a rented space.
The bill would prohibit landlords from requiring that a selling tenant, prospective buyer, or buyer agree to an inspection of the inside of a home as a condition to approve the sale or new tenancy. HB 3054 also would bar landlords from requiring aesthetic or cosmetic improvements from prospective tenants.
Supporters cite fear, affordability in Oregon
Nearly 250 pieces of written testimony were submitted in support of the bill.
Bowman said he and other lawmakers hosted a constituent event at a mobile home park in his district that more than 100 people attended. The theme that became impossible to miss, he said, was that the status quo is not sustainable.
“These folks are facing egregious hikes to their rent year over year and it is pushing them to the brink,” Bowman said. He said tenants in the mobile home park saw an 8.9% rent increase in 2022, a 10.3% increase in 2023, an 8.7% increase in 2024 and face a 9% increase this year.
The Oregon State Tenants Association submitted a report with a survey of nearly 500 tenants. According to the report, the average annual rent increase was nearly 7%. Average rent prices are projected to surpass Social Security benefits by 75% within 10 years and 100% within 15 years, wrote Rochelle Love Elder, vice president of the Oregon State Tenants Association.
Many of the tenants who would be impacted were too afraid of retaliation to submit testimony or even take a flyer, Elder told lawmakers. Most residents currently pay $865 a month in lot rent. Scheduled rent increases in 2025 will bring most residents’ lot rent to $951, she said.
“A lot of them are feeling like cash cows,” Elder said.
Elder described the bill as a solution to keep 62,000 people in their homes.
Opponents say bill would force closures, sale of manufactured home parks
Opponents of HB3054 said the bill would do the opposite of what it intends, forcing the closure of smaller parks or sales to large conglomerates. Nearly 100 pieces of submitted testimony opposed the bill.
“It is an extreme proposal that hits owners with a one-two punch,” said Bill Miner, a lawyer representing Manufactured Housing Communities of Oregon.
The organization represents 750 manufactured homes and marina facilities with 42,000 spaces. According to Miner, the bill relies on faulty assumptions.
“This bill is a solution in search of a problem,” he told the Statesman Journal.
A survey from 100 of their owners found the average annual rent increase from 2019 and 2024 was 5.39%. Miner told lawmakers that in the last month, he had received five calls from landlords representing more than 5,000 spaces about the process of closing their parks should the current bill pass.
Miner described the proposal as “an industry killing type of bill.”
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