CONCORD, N.H. – It doesn’t take long for homeowners in Resident Owned Communities to realize the impact of buying their manufactured home communities.
After just five years of resident ownership, ROC Members’ site fees are already 11% below market, according to the results of a longitudinal market rent assessment study by a national appraisal firm. That translates into average monthly savings of $49.50 over comparable communities that remain commercially owned!
These are extraordinary results for hard-working ROC Boards and Memberships who are also making and saving for community improvements like healthy and safe water, sewage systems, roads, and tree maintenance.
“I can verify this firsthand – thank goodness for the foresight of our founders who made this possible,” said Tom Powers, Board President at Clackamas River Community Co-op in Clackamas, Ore. “We’re all grateful to the community owner who wanted us to own it and for our Directors and Members who make our neighborhood what it is.”
The good news for ROC Members doesn’t stop at five years. ROC USA has financed a dozen ROCs that have celebrated 10-year anniversaries. For these ROCs, the average site fees are 21% below market, a monthly savings of $99.50 compared to market rates.
“It makes basic sense – remove the community from the speculative real estate market, remove the profit motive, and naturally homeowners enjoy lower costs over time,” said Paul Bradley, President of ROC USA.
About ROC USA’s third-party longitudinal study:
Every year, ROC USA contracts the national appraisal firm Colliers to conduct market rent assessments of Resident Owned Communities (ROCs) and comparable privately-owned Manufactured (“Mobile”) Home Communities (MHCs). The firm specializes in MHCs.
The ROC data set is made up of ROC USA Capital’s borrowers. The appraiser identifies and selects the like communities from their database and market knowledge and independently assesses market rents for each comparison.
ROC USA undertakes the comparison upon the fifth anniversary of a community’s becoming resident owned, and then every five years following. The five-year anniversary data set now includes 50 ROCs from coast to coast.
We report on the findings as averages because we don’t have permission to report individual property performance.
ROC USA will continue to engage a third-party expert to assess market rents and share the results of this longitudinal study.