On April 2, Geneva Miller, 85, received a letter from Commonwealth Real Estate, the property manager for Lakewood Vista, her 55+ mobile home community in northwest Eugene. Her heart sank when she opened it, saying, “My god.”
The letter said that the park was to be put up for sale April 20, and per Oregon law, the company was obligated to inform them of the sale and their right to form a tenant co-op to buy the park. They had until the 20th to send a letter of intent.
With a sale looming, for-sale signs are cropping up in front of the neat, small houses with manicured yards and with shady trees over retirees’ porches. Otters, geese and ducks find refuge in the small pond behind the newly remodeled community center. The park is currently owned by The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private real estate companies. Should it sell to new corporate owners, residents fear steadily rising rents, or worse, park closure and redevelopment.
This had happened before, in 2020. According to Deann Sweeper, 72, who was then on the tenant committee board, rents “skyrocketed.” While previous tenants were grandfathered in, Sweeper says new tenants were paying “almost double.”
“It’s very stress inducing,” she says. “That’s why we’re just gonna bite the bullet and go for the long shot and try to buy the park” via a co-op.
A co-op is a model for residents to own their community by owning shares of a nonprofit corporation that owns the property. These communities are managed by the residents through a democratic process for large decisions, and a volunteer board of directors, who handle day-to-day decisions.
Co-ops typically have more stable rents, as they only go toward operational expenses and not profit. They are also nearly immune to the threat of sale and have much longer leases, up to 50 years, according to Sweeper.
According to the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, three of the four largest private equity firms in the U.S. own large manufactured housing portfolios: Apollo Global Management, Blackstone and The Carlyle Group. Sweeper called parks a “cash cow” for investors. According to Resident Owned Communities U.S.A., co-ops are a stable option; as of 2024, none of the resident-owned communities in its network had reverted to private or corporate ownership.
Bethany Cartledge, executive director St. Vincent De Paul, says she is a “big fan of co-ops and the resident-owned communities model.” The nonprofit has been buying mobile home parks for the past 15 years to combat the frequent sales and rising rents that come with private ownership. Cartledge says that, since then, St. Vinnies has seen many out-of-area developers buying such parks and raising rents to a point that residents were forced to move.
Oregon law caps annual rent increases for manufactured dwellings (mobile homes) at 6 percent as of 2025. According to Sweeper, Lakewood has raised rents year over year at 4 to 5 percent per year.
Most tenants at the park are on fixed income and even this increase has been untenable. Miller says her rent started at around $500 a month when she first moved in six years ago. Now it is over $800. “My Social Security for this year went up $40, and my rent went up $44,” she says. “So right there I lost money.” She relies on Social Security and SNAP benefits to get by and lives with a housemate to help her afford rent. Her SNAP benefits were reduced recently due to federal cuts.
After receiving the notice of sale, Sweeper got in contact with nonprofit Community and Shelter Assistance of Oregon, which assists tenants with the formation and organization of co-ops and acts as their real estate agent for the sale.
On April 7, over 80 Lakewood Vista tenants gathered in the community center to vote on forming a tenant co-op to try to buy the park. The vote was almost unanimous, with all but one voting in favor of the co-op. Sweeper was again appointed to the five-person tenant committee board.
Now that the letter of intent has been sent, Commonwealth must share and discuss the financials with Casa of Oregon so the residents can make their offer. The selling price six years ago was $20 million.
“It would have to all be loans,” Sweeper says. “Unless we find an angel that wants to give us $20 million. We have a couple of people working on that.”
Under Oregon law, the tenants do not have the “right of first refusal,” so they would still have to compete with third parties to buy the park. The law does, however, mandate that their offer be considered “in good faith,” says Bill Miner, the lawyer representing Commonwealth.
“The advantage that the tenants have is that once they receive the financial information, they then have a statutory right of 45 days to come up with an offer,” Miner says. “Which is a long time in the world of commercial real estate.”
While optimistic, Sweeper is worried about what may happen should it go to another private owner. “It’s very scary,” she says. “I won’t be able to afford my place, certainly not in 10 years, probably not in five.”
Miller is on the waiting list for two other retirement communities in Eugene with wait times ranging from nine months to two years. Even then, she would have to sell her home at Lakewood, which she also tried to do last year. “It was on the market for four months, and I was paying both rents,” she says. “I couldn’t afford that for very long, so I gave up and moved back.”