In Reply to: Thursday: you’re 80% done but already checked out* posted by mh on August 27, 2026 at 09:08:09
Carol DeAngelis first learned Aug. 7 that her mobile home park near Asheville had been purchased by COARE Communities. A day later, she attended a meeting held at the mobile home park, where a representative from COARE told her that her lot rent would rise from $350 to $850, an account confirmed by two other tenants who attended the meeting.
DeAngelis, who owns her mobile home but pays rent for the property it stands on, was shocked.
"It's going to be pretty difficult to live," she told the Citizen Times Aug. 12, adding that she is undergoing treatment for cancer. The new lot rent would take "a good half" of her check for the month.
"Plus, there's no guarantee it won't keep going up," she said.
Carol DeAngelis talks about a significant increase in the rent for her mobile home while sitting in her home on Aug. 12, 2026. DeAngelis, who has cancer, is concerned about being able to afford the increase.
The new property owner is Wedgefield MHP LLC, a limited liability company operated by COARE, which owns more than a dozen similar companies across North Carolina, according to business records kept by the N.C. Secretary of State.
A bigger problem
Investment companies acquiring mobile home parks and raising the lot rent is not just a local phenomenon — It's happening nationwide. Madeline Bankson, senior housing research and campaign coordinator for the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a nonprofit advocacy organization that researches and tracks the impacts of private equity on communities, workers and the general public, told the Citizen Times on Aug. 20 that mobile home parks are especially vulnerable to predatory tactics used by some private equity companies.
"The entire investor business model is trying to generate as much revenue as quickly as possible," said Bankson, who uses they/them pronouns. "It's like having a waffle house where the customers are chained to the booths. (Mobile home owners) just can't leave."
Bankson said that the company likely knows that many tenants can't afford such a dramatic increase in lot rent.
"That's the worst I've maybe ever heard," they said.
"We hear these stories of folks who are having brown water that's coming out, having water shut off for long periods of time, living with no power," Bankson said. "I think it's pretty safe to say that the actual business model is to undermaintain the properties while also jacking up the rent. It's just kind of a lose, lose lose for everybody except for the very rich people who run these firms."