Resident owned mobile home community in Golden a resource for others

As Coloradans continue to navigate rising housing prices, mobile home communities are becoming an increasingly popular option for affordable homeownership.

For several years, lawmakers have tried to make it easier for residents of those parks to purchase their properties.

"We moved here about 2 and a half years ago," said Valerie Dillon.

Here, at the Golden Hills mobile home park in Golden, which has been resident-owned for nearly a year.

"I can walk outside and just go in my yard with my kids," she added.

Here, her neighbors are farther away than they were in her apartment, but they feel closer than ever.

"My kitchen, my patio is usually like the hangout whether it's just a few of us or all of us," Dillon added.

A connection that started when their park was under the threat of being sold.

"The lot rent went from $795 to $895 to $1,095 in the one-month process to get to the closing table to buy my house and I had no recourse for that," she said.

She joined the community cooperative and together they started fighting to gain ownership of the property they already called home.

"Which we did, we ended up making three unsuccessful attempts and on the Fourth try became resident-owned; it will be a year in July," Cooperative President Joyce Tanner said.

Nearly a year later, Tanner says they want to share their experience and the ups and downs that came with it.

"When the property sold versus when we purchased it, the price of that went up exorbitantly, we did due diligence work and found we had $1 million-plus in infrastructure needs," Tanner said.

The task seemed daunting. They found the support they needed to get the deal done was in their own backyard.

"Housing prices in Golden continue to increase every year and when you have naturally occurring affordable housing that people can afford to stay in being able to make sure they can stay in that property without increasing rates year over year was really important to our goal," Golden Mayor Laura Weinberg said.

Weinberg says city council approved a $2 million deferred loan seeing a benefit in keeping the affordable housing option and the property locally owned.

"At least here in Golden it has been successful, and I know there have been other success stories around the state, it's been great to see people make those purchases happen," Weinberg added.

There are now 760 mobile home parks in Colorado. The number of resident-owned parks has jumped to 16, and five more are working on offers.

That's potentially 21 communities with new owners and neighbors who are closer than ever.

"A lot of relief... a lot of security especially knowing that our home for our kids is secure," Dillon said.