Mobile Home Residents Race To Buy Their Park for $42.5 Million Before It's Too Late
Imagine coming home one afternoon and finding a Post-it note stuck to your front door — not a reminder from a neighbor or a delivery notice, but a message that could upend your entire life. That's exactly what happened to Damien Teague and more than 200 families at San Lazaro Mobile Home Park in Boulder County, Colorado, on March 20. The note was brief, but its implications were enormous: the park's owners were planning to sell the property for $42.5 million.
For Teague, a medically retired Navy veteran who has called San Lazaro home for 18 years, the news hit hard. "The next morning, I was sitting on my back porch working with ChatGPT to explore my options, just feeling the stress of the unknowns," he told Realtor.com. "As I was sitting there, I also felt the stress of the 212 other households that were feeling the same thing, and that was enough for me to take action."
What followed was a remarkable story of community organizing, legal maneuvering, and the growing fight by manufactured housing residents across the United States to maintain stability, affordability, and control over the places they call home.
What Is the Right of First Refusal for Mobile Home Park Residents?
At the heart of this story is a Colorado state law that gives mobile home park residents a powerful tool: the right of first refusal. Under this legislation, when a mobile home park owner announces their intent to sell or repurpose the property, residents must be formally notified and given the opportunity to submit a competing offer before the sale is finalized to an outside buyer.
In Colorado, residents have 120 days after receiving notice of the intent to sell to organize, secure financing, and submit an offer. If no agreement is reached by the end of that 120-day window, the seller is then permitted to proceed with selling the mobile home park to other buyers on the open market.
Colorado is far from alone in offering this protection. According to manufactured housing industry expert Glenn D. Esterson of TheMHPExpert.com, at least 22 other states have enacted similar laws. These statutes have become increasingly important as private equity firms, institutional investors, and real estate developers have shown a growing appetite for acquiring mobile home parks — often with the intention of raising lot rents or redeveloping the land entirely.
Why Mobile Home Park Buyouts Matter More Than Ever
The stakes in situations like San Lazaro's are extraordinarily high. Mobile homes are often the last frontier of affordable homeownership in America. Residents typically own their individual units but rent the land beneath them — a structure that makes them uniquely vulnerable when park ownership changes hands.
When a new owner takes over a park, lot rent increases can be steep and sudden. Unlike traditional renters who can move to a cheaper apartment with relative ease, mobile home residents face massive relocation costs. Moving a manufactured home can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $15,000 or more, and many older units simply cannot survive the move at all. This dynamic gives park owners enormous leverage over residents, making the right of first refusal not just a legal technicality but a genuine lifeline.
Resident-owned communities, where the homeowners collectively purchase and manage the land beneath their homes, have consistently shown better outcomes for affordability and stability. Studies have found that lot rents in resident-owned parks tend to rise far more slowly than those in investor-owned parks, preserving the long-term affordability that makes manufactured housing such a vital part of the American housing landscape.
How the San Lazaro Community Is Responding
Rather than accepting displacement as inevitable, Teague and his neighbors have chosen to fight back. In the days and weeks following the Post-it note that changed everything, residents at San Lazaro began organizing in earnest, exploring financing options and working to understand the legal framework that could allow them to purchase their community outright.
The path to a $42.5 million community buyout is not a simple one. Residents must secure financing — often through a combination of resident equity, nonprofit housing organizations, Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), and state or federal housing funds. Organizations like ROC USA, a national nonprofit that helps manufactured home communities convert to resident ownership, have played a pivotal role in facilitating similar deals across the country.
The 120-day clock is ticking, and the pressure is immense. But the residents of San Lazaro are determined to use every tool available to them under Colorado law to secure their futures.
The Broader Movement for Manufactured Housing Stability
The situation at San Lazaro reflects a nationwide conversation about housing affordability, tenant rights, and who gets to decide the fate of working-class communities. As housing costs continue to climb in metro areas across the country, manufactured housing has emerged as one of the few remaining options for moderate- and low-income families to achieve a form of homeownership.
Advocates argue that expanding right-of-first-refusal laws to all 50 states, strengthening financing mechanisms for resident buyouts, and increasing public awareness about these legal tools are essential steps toward protecting the millions of Americans who live in mobile home parks.
- Approximately 22 million Americans live in manufactured housing communities nationwide.
- Lot rents in investor-owned parks have risen dramatically in recent years, outpacing inflation in many markets.
- Resident-owned communities now number over 1,000 across the United States, a figure that continues to grow.
- Colorado's 120-day notice period is among the more generous timelines offered by state law, giving communities a meaningful chance to organize and act.
What Happens Next at San Lazaro?
The outcome at San Lazaro Mobile Home Park remains uncertain. Securing financing for a $42.5 million purchase is a monumental undertaking for a community of working families, retirees, and veterans. But the residents have something powerful on their side: the law, a growing network of nonprofit and public financing resources, and the fierce determination that comes from knowing that everything they have built is on the line.
Damien Teague's story — from a stressful morning on his back porch to a community-wide mobilization — is a testament to what ordinary people can accomplish when they understand their rights and refuse to accept the alternative. For the 212 households of San Lazaro, this is not just a real estate transaction. It is a fight for home.
Whether or not this particular effort succeeds, it adds another chapter to an expanding national story about the power of community ownership and the urgent need for stronger protections for manufactured housing residents across the United States.