Lot rents in crisis

Lot rents for homesites for manufactured homes in central Florida—not in Americana Cove, of course, we’re stable—have been increasing at a startling rate lately, according to a recent article in Click Orlando. Residents in Osceoloa, Volusia, and Lake counties have been reaching out to News 6 to complain about rising rents. They said that corporations have been buying mobile home parks and then quickly increasing rents.

One resident of Spanish Village, a 55+ community in Leesburg, said her lot rent for the past two years has been $480 per month. But it’s jumping soon to $850 per month. President of the Spanish Village HOA, Philip Roy, told News 6 that 32 out of 36 homes for sale are listed because the rent has reached unaffordable levels.

A secondary effect of those rent increases, said Roy, is that many people haven’t been able to sell their house because the rent is too high. “So people are actually losing their equity in their homes very quickly,” he said.

From 2015–2023 the median price of home lots has nearly doubled throughout the state. In the Tampa-St. Pete area lot rents have far outpaced rents for single-family homes.

“These are folks on fixed income,” explains Jeff Grabel, director of litigation at Bay Area Legal Services. “So $100, $200 extra per month might be doable for someone who’s working, making a decent living, but if you’re on social security, or you have a modest income, that prices you out of the market.”

Stay tuned to the Cove blog for more on this constantly evolving story.