Op-ed: Three things I'll do in Congress to slow rising rents at mobile home parks
Over and over on the campaign trail, I've heard a variation of a story a couple told me in Exeter: we're retired and live in a manufactured home in a mobile home park. Our property taxes went up. An out-of-state corporation bought the park and raised our lot rent. Now we can't afford to stay in our home, and we have nowhere else to go.
At the center of our nationwide housing crisis are stories like these. Retirees move into a mobile home park thinking they've found an affordable place to enjoy their well-deserved retirement. Then the park gets bought by an out of state company backed by private equity, and the rent and fees go up. Meanwhile our cash-strapped municipalities reassess the properties at a higher value and the tax bill goes up too.
This is not a rare story anymore. Institutional investors now own about a quarter of the manufactured home units in this country. Remember who this affects the most. More than 160,000 people in our district live on their Social Security check. Three years ago, California-based Boa Vida bought Tara Estates in Rochester. New residents now pay $720/month for their lot fees and their property taxes on top of that.
Recent federal legislation, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, was a real step toward addressing the housing crisis in our country. It enables manufactured homes to be financed like houses instead of like cars — which we already do here — and will make it possible for thousands of people beyond the Granite State to get a mortgage. But the part everyone is talking about, the cap on corporate landlords, does not reach these residents, because it limits companies that own hundreds of single-family rental homes from buying more homes. But the investors buying up our mobile home parks are not buying homes. They are buying the land underneath homes people already own.
More of the same won't fix this. In Congress, I will fight for three things.
First, make it worth an owner's while to sell to the people who live there. Congressman Pappas and Senator Shaheen have reintroduced the Manufactured Housing Community Sustainability Act, which would forgive 75 percent of the capital gains tax when a park is sold to a resident cooperative instead of another investor. I will help push for this legislation in Congress.
Second, we need policies that give residents a real right to buy, not just an opportunity. I will support the Promoting Residential Ownership of Manufactured Home Communities Act, introduced by Rep. Maxwell Frost in March, which pushes states to strengthen their opportunity-to-purchase laws and helps pay for down payment assistance. New Hampshire wrote the first of these laws back in 1983 and it is no longer strong enough. In Hopkinton, residents organized a cooperative and matched the offer and lost the park anyway. The chance to buy is not the same as the right.
Third, put federal money behind cooperatives so their residents’ offer is as good as cash. Private equity can often close in 30 days with cash in hand. Residents can't, and that is one of the reasons forming a cooperative is difficult. This is what our own New Hampshire Community Loan Fund was built to do, and it is why 152 communities here are resident-owned and 9,000 homes have stayed affordable. It is the best model in the country and we pioneered it right here!
Is this a perfect solution? No. A resident-owned park isn't automatically cheaper, because roads and water infrastructure cost money and co-ops need to raise rents to pay for this work too. The difference is that the money stays in the community instead of leaving the state, and the people voting on the increase are the people who have to pay it.
In April 2026, Hampton, where I chair the Select Board, was recognized by the New Hampshire Department of Business and Economic Affairs as a Housing Champion. I have a record of fighting for affordable housing at home and I am ready to take on special interests in Washington to make it easier for us to afford to live in New Hampshire.
Whether you live in manufactured housing or not, the housing crisis affects us all. As I've traveled across the district I've heard from thousands of people: young families delaying having children, recent college graduates moving out of state instead of staying, seniors living in their cars off 101.
This crisis is about wages and prices, but it is also about time. People deserve to earn enough to put food on the table and to have the time to sit and enjoy it with the people they love. We all deserve to be able to retire. The Exeter couple, and the hundreds of Granite Staters who have told me they can't afford to stay deserve a leader with a plan to ensure they can.
