Roughly 20 million Americans live in manufactured houses, which are homes made in factories.
Although they’re often called mobile homes or trailers, that’s really a misnomer because their owners can’t easily relocate them. Typically, the people who own them rent the land underneath the houses from the owners of manufactured home parks. Sometimes, an owner will rent their home to someone else while paying to rent the land as well.
Manufactured homes tend to be far more affordable than other single-family homes because they have lower upfront and monthly expenses. A typical one costs around US$120,000; smaller ones, known as single-wides, cost around $87,000.
I’m studying poverty, inequality, collective action and rural housing as a sociology Ph.D. candidate. In 2025, I began to conduct in-depth, on-the-ground research documenting the experiences of residents in manufactured home parks in rural Wisconsin whose park was either for sale or had been sold to a private equity firm. So far, I’ve interviewed 15 people as part of an ongoing study that is forthcoming and not yet published.
I’ve found that in this region, as is occurring in the rest of the country, rents tended to spike soon after those firms bought the parks. Those rent hikes are, in turn, creating a crisis for many low-income residents who may suddenly need to move, but have limited options.
Getting priced out
Nationally, rents in these parks have increased by 45% over the past decade. This increase, which is not adjusted for inflation, mirrors overall rent growth. But it shows how manufactured housing is becoming less affordable at the same rapid pace as the broader rental market.
And in many rural areas, mobile homes are the main source of affordable housing.
In 2025, I interviewed a man I’m calling Anthony Perez. (I’m using pseudonyms to protect the privacy of everyone who spoke with me, which is a standard social science research method.) He had worked as a logger in northern Wisconsin until a debilitating back injury ended his ability to continue in the profession past his early 50s.
In anticipation of having a low income for the long term, Perez chose to invest his life savings in a manufactured home.
“There was a trailer for sale, and it was decent,” he said. “I had a little savings and workers comp, so I bought it for $9,000, thinking I could afford to live there on my disability income.”
That plan broke down when a private equity firm bought his park and instantly raised his monthly rent from $350 to $500, now costing him more than half of the $800 a month in Social Security Disability Insurance benefits he received.
It’s hard for people like Perez to relocate a manufactured home. That’s because moving them after installation is expensive, costing anywhere between $5,000 to $10,000. These costs leave low-income residents effectively stuck if their rents rise beyond their means.
With no other housing options, Perez decided to stay and fight alongside his neighbors, all of whom were facing the same rising rents and uncertainty about their ability to remain in their homes. Together, the residents have started organizing meetings to conjure up strategies to resist the changes imposed by the new ownership.
“They’re bullies,” Perez said. “So we here residents have to make some noise and get some power in a group to push back.”
AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel
Rising anxiety
Perez was among the many residents I met who lived in fear of losing their home and with limited options of where to go.
Johanna Hansen, a retired high school teacher who also invested her life savings in her manufactured home, lived about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west in another manufactured home park that a private equity firm had recently put in an offer for.
“I own my home, but I don’t own the land that it’s on,” Hansen said. “I always feel that insecurity of not knowing what will happen a year from now – or with the current sale, maybe even sooner than that.”
If the monthly cost of renting her lot rises by more than $100, Hansen says she will have to sell her home and move.
“Had I known the park was going to be sold to an investment group, I wouldn’t have bought in the first place,” she said. “But now I’m stuck.”
Repeating a similar mistake
In my view, today’s threat to mobile home parks echoes the loss of another affordable housing option: single-room occupancy units.
In the 1950s, these rooms accounted for roughly 10% of rental housing. They typically offered shared bathrooms and kitchens for the equivalent of about $100 to $300 per month in 2025 dollars. Starting in the mid‑20th century, cities rewrote zoning and building codes to eliminate hundreds of thousands of those units, contributing to an increase in homelessness.
Manufactured housing today stands at a similar crossroads. Like single-room units, manufactured homes are stigmatized and undervalued as an important source of affordable housing by policymakers and the public.
And like the single-room units that have largely disappeared, that housing is at risk of being lost, too.
The author would like to thank University of Wisconsin-Madison Sociology professor Jessica Calarco for her supervisory role and support on this project.