The American dream – to own your own home, with the white picket fence and a car in the garage. For millions of Americans, this dream was threatened with the fallout of the Great Recession.
An analysis of home sales in Delaware from 2010 to 2013 conducted by The News Journal and published earlier this month in the May 4 edition examined how the housing market in Delaware is trying to rebound. Unfortunately, though, the American dream for over 45,000 Delawareans never materialized even without the foils of the economy.
For manufactured homeowners, their dream vanishes as soon as their house leaves the factory. Unlike most Americans whose home is their greatest asset, a manufactured home is a homeowner’s greatest liability.
The News Journal used a matrix of three factors to rank thriving neighborhoods: sales prices of houses in subdivisions; how long it took to sell houses; and how close the sale price was to the original asking price. None of that applies to a manufactured housing community. Manufactured houses, particularly those that sit on leased land, can take years to sell.
Oftentimes because of the lease, they are not even listed on the MLS to gather compatible data for comparison-shopping. Because they are titled and not deeded, they hold no equity, selling for 50 percent to 75 percent below the original price of the house. The title does allow you to trade in a house much like a transaction of a car, but trade-in value, like a car, is 80 percent to 90 percent lower than the sale price of the house.
How do I know all this? Because I am a manufactured homeowner living on leased land, and I had to navigate past this harsh reality in order to maintain a healthy financial future.
Is any of this justified? Run-away leases certainly don’t add value to a community, but current laws are curbing that threat. Building standards for manufactured homes are the equivalent and in some cases, exceed the standards of a stick-built home. The modern homes of today do not resemble the tin cans of the ’70s, featuring energy-efficient materials and construction.
In Sussex County, to add injury to insult, my home is not even considered a “dwelling” by legal standards, rendering it into a category of a souped-up car that flushes and has running water. My home is not considered “real property,” but chattel property, the type of property one lists during an inventory of prized possessions: jewelry – check; expensive coin collection – check; house – double check.
Knowing all this, why did my husband and I choose to live in one? Much like for the same reasons many people choose to live in their neighborhoods: location, affordability, quality and lifestyle. But why should I have to trade my investment and passage to financial security because the state and county believe I live in a car?
What is worse, why did The News Journal not even report on this segment of the market? Because manufactured homeowners don’t exist, much like income inequality doesn’t exist or the disadvantages of being a minority. Ultimately, we are treated as the “other” group that doesn’t belong to the real estate world.
We are shut out of conventional financing and we have little options to insure our homes. How unfair, unjust and inexplicably wrong. We do matter. We do exist, and our homes are proof that we have worked hard, we have paid property taxes on property we don’t own, we have contributed to the economy, and stabilized communities even when hard economic times hit.
My voice in Dover will work diligently to change the label of a manufactured homeowner. The American dream belongs to all regardless how their homes are built.
Paulette Rappa is a candidate for the 37th House of Representative District.