TY - JOUR
T1 - Real Property Supremacy
T2 - Manufactured Housing and the Limits of Inclusion through Finance
AU - Kear, Mark
AU - Meyer, Dugan
AU - Wilder, Margaret O.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 by American Association of Geographers.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Manufactured housing (MH) communities have emerged as a high-profile and lucrative asset class. Despite this, it is costly or impossible to get loans to buy homes in most mobile home parks. This article explores this ostensible contradiction—that whereas MH parks are desirable and liquid assets, the individual homes that compose them are not. We explore the implications of this contradiction for housing justice as well as financial and environmental vulnerability. We argue that the marginality of MH in U.S. housing markets is rooted in the privileging of real property above personal property. We describe the origins and impacts of this “real property supremacy” in two parts. In the first, we outline the macro-historical context of real property supremacy using a variety of sources, including interviews with federal officials and industry experts as well as document analysis. In the second, we connect this macro context to its micro consequences, drawing on interviews with MH residents, nonprofit and social-service practitioners, and park managers and owners in Tucson, Arizona. We conclude that state-supported property hierarchies create conditions where constrained housing options, semiformal financial practices, and unique tenure forms combine to (re)produce unique and intersecting forms of vulnerability in MH communities.
AB - Manufactured housing (MH) communities have emerged as a high-profile and lucrative asset class. Despite this, it is costly or impossible to get loans to buy homes in most mobile home parks. This article explores this ostensible contradiction—that whereas MH parks are desirable and liquid assets, the individual homes that compose them are not. We explore the implications of this contradiction for housing justice as well as financial and environmental vulnerability. We argue that the marginality of MH in U.S. housing markets is rooted in the privileging of real property above personal property. We describe the origins and impacts of this “real property supremacy” in two parts. In the first, we outline the macro-historical context of real property supremacy using a variety of sources, including interviews with federal officials and industry experts as well as document analysis. In the second, we connect this macro context to its micro consequences, drawing on interviews with MH residents, nonprofit and social-service practitioners, and park managers and owners in Tucson, Arizona. We conclude that state-supported property hierarchies create conditions where constrained housing options, semiformal financial practices, and unique tenure forms combine to (re)produce unique and intersecting forms of vulnerability in MH communities.
KW - financial geography
KW - home lending
KW - housing
KW - manufactured housing
KW - property
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85159627936&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85159627936&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/24694452.2023.2200507
DO - 10.1080/24694452.2023.2200507
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85159627936
SN - 2469-4452
VL - 113
SP - 1900
EP - 1917
JO - Annals of the American Association of Geographers
JF - Annals of the American Association of Geographers
IS - 8
ER -