Trailer Park Foreclsoure Sale = Opportunity for Trailer Condos

This blog's basic theme is about how we know what we know. We all tend to hunker down and protect our own view of the world, most of us believing it is the only truly correct one.  It's easier not to have to think too much, but it also leads to lots of problems when we can't see alternatives to our own truths and possibilities.


Here's the plan.  

I did a recent post on a trailer park in Anchorage that is shutting down.  There were even a couple of comments from people who had lived in trailers saying it was just what they needed at the time. 

Then I noticed this foreclosure notice in the Anchorage Press.

Here's a trailer park with 24 occupied trailers, valued at $1 million (land only.) Minimum bid is $850,000.  Though the trailers aren't included in the appraisal, it says they are included in the sale.  So I'm thinking. . .

One million dollars.  Divided by 24.  That comes to about $42,000 for each trailer plus the land.  Who really wants to buy a trailer park full of tenants?   Collecting rent from 24 tenants in trailers probably isn't the most profitable use of 2.4 acres of land in town.  But if you want to develop this land, you're going to have to kick 24 families out of their homes, families who are living in low cost housing they aren't likely to be able to replace.

People in the trailer parks aren't homeless and most aren't unemployed.  They just don't earn enough to buy more permanent housing.  So, what if Alaska Housing were to bid on this property and then set up a kind of trailer condo association?  The people in the trailer parks, for $42,000 each, could buy their trailer and the land it sits on like a condo.

Using an online mortgage calculator, we get:

1. $2,500 down  (Permanent fund checks are coming in October, so any trailer with two Alaskans in it will be able to come up with most of that amount.)
   
2. I've heard interest rates are down to 4% now, but that wasn't available on the mortgage calculator I used.
   
3. A ten year loan makes more sense than 15 for a trailer, but they didn't have that option.
   
4. So $422.61 per month (obviously a rough estimate) and these people are in their own place with a cooperative arrangement with the neighbors to maintain the trailers and the property.  I'm guessing that's less than they pay for rent now.

And the minimum bid was $850,000 so there's a chance it might go for less than a million.

It would also need a condo fee (though taxes were in the calculator.) It seems Alaska Housing could work out a deal so that people have the option of contributing manual labor as part of their condo fee.

So, these low income folks would be able to afford to own their own place and develop some equity - not just in the trailer, but in the land itself.  They would have an incentive to keep up their property and to work cooperatively with their neighbors to maintain all the common land and everyone's property value.

They would use the skills they have (these people may be poor, but it doesn't mean they're unskilled) and learn what they need (the Housing Authority or the local Community Council could help here) to run the condo associations.  These activities might well lead them to take a more active part in larger community politics.  

Sure, there are lots of details to work out.

The people working for the State of Alaska on public housing and homelessness have rules to follow, but wouldn't it be nice if we had a Governor and Legislature that could work quickly and cooperatively to take advantage of unexpected opportunities and allow an agency to do something innovative and beneficial? It isn't impossible.  It's just that we haven't demanded this from the people who we elect as our representatives.  They really do respond to voters.  It's just that most voters don't ask much of them. 


Or, in the meantime, someone with an extra million dollars (there are such people) could do a really good deed, by making this investment in the people in these trailers.  Remember, she wouldn't be giving them the million, but would be selling them their homes at a price most could actually afford.