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Clip: Season 11 Episode 3 | 2m 7s | Video has closed captioning.
Mobile Home University co-founder Frank Rolfe brings a group of potential investors to a mobile home park in Illinois to show them what makes for a good investment while pointing out what he sees as unfavorable. At the same time, residents look on not knowing what this visit holds for their future and the fate of affordable housing.
Aired: 03/16/23
[Frank] All right, our quick park evaluation system -- this is not in your manual -- it's called the "ideal system."
I-D-E-A-L system of park evaluation.
This allows you to focus on what's important and not worry about the stuff that's not.
But you'll be shocked and turned off by, for example, the beach towel in the window instead of an actual curtain.
That doesn't mean anything.
What you gotta worry about are the following items: "I" is for infrastructure, "D" is for density, "E" is for a guesstimate of the expense to get the park up to where it needs to be, "A" is for the age of the homes and "L" is for the location.
There's two locations that work with mobile home parks.
There's that gritty, urban kind of deal that you would recoil from.
There's, like, an adult bookstore across the street and a liquor store.
That location works really well.
Because there's a lot of folks looking for affordable housing, they actually like that.
[Jean Morgan] What's going on?
[Sara] How long have you lived here?
- [laughing] Over 20 years.
[Sara] Wow.
[Jean] I like it.
[Sara] Yeah?
[Jean] Mm-hmm.
[Sara] And- and what do you like about living in a mobile home?
[Jean] Well, it's all- you know, it's like a little house I couldn't afford, you know, myself.
[Sara] What do you think we should do about the affordable housing crisis?
[Jean] I don't know, but it seems like when they have a nice piece of prime property, they call us up.
They build all the houses for rich people.
[chuckling] And, um... rich people, and no affordable housing for the low-income people.
[Frank] So, this- this park would not get any deductions...
If we don't keep the rents up to par, then the parks will go away, because there's other things you can do with the land that are higher and better than parks, unless the parks' rents are high enough to make it the better option.
[Sara] I mean, you could choose to stay with a mobile home park and just make less money.
[Frank] Uh, that is- that is entirely true.
There's no question of that.
