On the wall of the recreational hall in the Paradise Bay Trailer Park are some eye-catching color charts and flyers.
They are not regular club activity bulletins-they are progress reports tracking the number of tenants committed to buying the 625-unit park.
The owners of the park, and a travel trailer park nearby, put the properties up for sale in October. Florida statutes give tenants the right to buy before the owner can entertain bids from other buyers.
The statute, which was passed in 1988, led to a mushrooming of “resident-owned” mobile-home parks, said Charity Cicardo, executive director for the Largo-based Federation of Mobile Home Owners of Florida.
“About half of the tenants (of the trailer park) have decided to become owners,” said Dick Meara, a member of the park’s tenant association.
Owner Ray Bobier offered to sell the parks for $16.5 million. Bobier, who did not return calls seeking comments, has since reduced the sales price to $15 million, according to tenants.
But before the deal can be consummated, a total of $4 million to $4.5 million must be committed as a down payment.
Meara said $3.3 million has been committed so far and he is optimistic the group will come up with the down payment by the March 15 deadline.
Prior to 1988, few mobile-home parks in the state were owned by tenants. Today, 468 of 4,000 parks are, Cicardo said.
“Tenants want to have control over their own financial destiny,” Cicardo said. “They don’t want to be subject to rental rate increases 10 years from now.”
“They can have peace of mind once they become owners. The main challenge when a mobile park is available for sale is to get 70 percent or more of the tenants committed to the purchase,” she said.
Meara could not agree more. For the past nine years, he said, the rate increases at Paradise Bay have been averaging 7 percent each year.
If the park is sold to a business, Meara said, “whether you like it or not, the rates are going up in July again.”
A smaller percentage of participating tenants could sow the seeds of conflict later on, as those who remain renters will suddenly perceive their “friends and neighbors” as the greedy owners, she said.
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