Committee hears widespread support for bill allowing manufactured-home park residents first chance to buy communities

House Bill 426, a proposed law giving residents of manufactured-home parks an opportunity to purchase their community when the owner intends to accept a sale offer, drew extensive testimony and broad public support at the House Commerce & Economic Development Committee hearing.

The sponsor told the committee the bill creates a right-of-first-opportunity framework designed to help homeowners who own their manufactured homes but not the underlying land. Under the committee substitute discussed at the hearing, when a park owner receives an offer they intend to accept, the owner must notify residents; residents then have 75 days to organize and an additional 90 days to secure financing, the sponsor said. The substitute shortens several originally longer time intervals and clarifies that a new offer that the owner intends to accept restarts the process.

Resident testimony described long-term investment in communities and concerns about private-equity purchases. Joanne DeMichael, a homeowner who testified in support, said her community of 31 homes had seen home values that, in her words, “are three times the value of the land,” and described tight social supports among neighbors. Maria Grego, director of economic equity at the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, told the committee the stock of manufactured housing is unusually large in New Mexico and described investor purchases, rent hikes and service reductions that threaten residents’ stability: “Nearly 17% of our affordable housing stock consists of manufactured homes,” she said.

Mary O’Hara of ROC USA, a national nonprofit that assists resident-owned community conversions, described the process and financing that nonprofit partners can provide. ROC USA told the committee it has assisted more than 340 resident-owned communities and that its lender has made more than $500 million in loans to help homeowners buy their parks.

Supporters included AARP New Mexico and Albuquerque Healthcare for the Homeless, which emphasized the bill’s potential to preserve housing for seniors and people with low incomes. Several residents and advocates recounted experiences where outward investment raised lot rents, reduced maintenance and threatened displacement.

Opposition testimony came from the New Mexico Association of Realtors and some small park owners. Realtors’ registered lobbyist Brent Moore said substitutes arrived late and cited two drafting concerns that his group still wanted to address: the meaning of “substantially equivalent offer” and the total time required for the resident process. A longtime “mom and pop” park owner, Doug Ottersberg, said the measure could limit an owner’s right to sell and impose a prolonged sale process; he told the committee the bill “restricts an owner's right to freely sell their property.” The Manufactured Housing Institute’s CEO also testified in opposition, urging meetings with the sponsor to refine provisions that could affect preservation of infrastructure and clarify ownership outcomes for residents.

Committee members asked detailed questions about scale and timing. The sponsor said the state has about 35,000 residents living in manufactured homes, roughly 25,000 manufactured-home units and about 380 communities statewide; the sponsor said park size varies widely and that the substitute’s timing—75 days to organize and 90 days for financing—reflects typical underwriting timelines for commercial transactions and resident-organizing experience. ROC USA’s representative said in practice a typical contract-to-closing period can be about 90 to 120 days and that when homeowners sign a contract they close roughly 98% of the time.

No final committee vote was taken on HB 426 during the hearing. The sponsor requested to “roll” the bill for further work with stakeholders.