(Source: The Desert Dispatch (Barstow, Calif.))
By Sara Mitchell, Desert Dispatch, Barstow, Calif.
Sept. 27--SACRAMENTO -- A state bill by Barstow's Senator Jean Fuller aims to make it easier for mobile home tenants to get private loans, which locals say is necessary because few commercial banks will take that risk.
The bill would allow mobile home owners to make private seller's loans to tenants without having to secure additional certification. It passed unanimously in the Senate and was recently tabled for the Assembly's next session in early 2012.
There are a number of mobile home parks in Barstow and historically their owners were able to provide private loans at their discretion, as long as they had a real estate broker license. Kathy Pirwitz, an assistant manager at Holiday Homes mobile park next to Walmart, said tenants can't often afford the a bank loan's high interest rate, so the owners may choose to offer a private loan.
"It's always been an issue to get loans on mobile homes," she said, because mobile homes depreciate in value, unlike a brick and mortar home.
But after the housing crisis, federal and state regulations were passed in 2008 and 2009 that required the mobile home owners to get an additional finance lender license before giving out such loans.
The senator's office calls the extra regulations overly burdensome on mobile park owners, who tend to only occasionally give out a private loan. Pirwitz said the Holiday Home owners had given private loans to tenants before, but chose not to get the additional licensing after 2008 in order to continue.
"It got to be too complicated," Pirwitz said, "and they decided that they did not really want to do it because it's too much paperwork."
Sunrise Pass on Windy Pass is one local park that got the extra licensing to continue to give private loans, but the corporate office did not immediately return phone calls for comment.
The California Department of Real Estate says the current regulations are designed to protect the consumer, but Curtis O'Brien, a local broker and owner of Exit Strategy Realty, sees Fuller's legislation as a positive for the mobile home market.
"Seller financing is one of the keys in financing markets," O'Brien said, adding that he thinks mobile home owners should have the choice to take the risk with a loan without extra restrictions. Fuller's bill "restores some of the freedom they should have had all along," he said.
Contact the writer:
(760) 256-4126 or smitchell@desertdispatch.com
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