Throughout Florida, developers are clamoring to buy mobile home parks and redevelop them. In response, residents of many parks are organizing to purchase the land and convert their parks to member-owned cooperatives.

“Many older parks are located in prime residential locations or along commercial arteries on land that would command a high price if a Wal-Mart or Home Depot wants that location,” says attorney David Bernstein, a partner in Ruden McClosky’s St. Petersburg office. In the past three years, Bernstein has assisted in 17 conversions totaling $300 million, including three so far in 2007 totaling $50 million. Currently, he is working with residents of Harbor Lights, a 300-unit family-owned park in Seminole north of St. Petersburg, which was recently purchased for $24.5 million by John Loder, managing member of Sunvista in Largo. Loder, who specializes in redeveloping mobile home parks, is giving residents, including his father, until January to meet that price. “If they buy it, I’ll just develop the park’s marina,” Loder says.

Residents of 300-unit Harbor Lights in Pinellas County have until next month to come up with $24.5 million to buy their property from developer John Loder.

Loder notes that institutional investors with long-term perspectives such as hedge funds and pension funds are eager to buy mobile home parks, even in today’s slower marketplace. “There is still a lot of demand from buyers who have a buy and hold strategy,” he says. “In developed areas like Pinellas County, mobile home parks are about the only place where you can find enough land for redevelopment.”

In fact, mobile home parks appear to be hot commodities throughout the state. One commercial broker’s website (Weis Group in Tampa, mobilehomeparkstore.com) recently listed more than 100 mobile home parks for sale.

With that kind of redevelopment pressure, it’s not surprising that about 700 of the state’s 5,000 mobile home parks have converted to member-owned cooperatives, says Bernstein.

Most Florida park conversions involve retirees, rather than working-age residents, because they intend to remain in their homes and typically have more purchasing power. And seniors are often able to leverage their assets to ensure they won’t have to move somewhere else in the future.

In Bernstein’s most recent transactions, residents typically paid $60,000 to $70,000 each, with a lender financing 70% to 80% of the purchase price. “Lenders are clamoring to make these loans because the default rate is non-existent,” says Bernstein. “But if commercial lending rates rise next year, I expect bond financing to become more attractive. Local governments want affordable housing, and it’s better policy to help keep current residents in place rather than displace them.”