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Comment

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were initiated to help low-income families with housing. Instead, hedge fund operators and investment conglomerates are taking advantage of these loans to buy up family-owned mobile home parks (MHP) and apartment complexes. In CA the buyer no longer has the Prop 13 protections that the previous owner had so the taxes are much higher. The buyer passes those tax increases on to us, the residents, who had no say-so in his/her purchase of our homes/apartments. Immediately the buyer skyrockets the rents. A recent sale of a MHP in Huntington Beach, CA resulted in rents rising nearly $900 per month. These conglomerates have purchased nearly half the 17 MHPs in our city, doubling and tripling the rents in less than 5 years. Residents are. primarily seniors, veterans, disabled, families of all income levels. We were assured by the previous owners that rent increases would be stable and we budgeted for those incremental raises. Instead, we are priced out of our homes with housing costs of 50-90% of our income (for rent, mortgage, home insurance, property taxes, upkeep and maintenance). Frequently, MHP maintenance by the new owner falls drastically, making our homes worth less and less. We are a vulnerable population being preyed on by savvy and greedy investors. Please stop them from buying or at least prevent them from increasing rents beyond 5% per year.