A 39-unit manufactured home community in Rifle that a California real estate investment firm purchased in December is part of a portfolio of seven Western Slope parks consisting of more than 700 homesites and recently acquired by the company.
The other six, all located in the Grand Valley, account for roughly one-fourth of Mesa County’s total number of manufactured home lots.
Primrose Real Estate, through individual limited liability companies that it controls tied to each property, last month closed on the purchase of the 102-unit Vineyards and the 119-unit Picture Ranch communities, both in Clifton, for about $8.82 million and $9.89 million, respectively. That brought the total value of the company’s acquisitions in Mesa and Garfield counties since December to nearly $70 million. The other acquisitions consisted of the 100-unit Garfield Estates, for $8.87 million; the 253-unit Paradise Park, for $27.45 million; the 86-unit Rose Park, for $5.12 million; and the 59-unit Westlake Park for $5.79 million, all of which are in Grand Junction, and the Lamplighter park in Rifle, which Primrose acquired for about $3.63 million.
Each of the seven parks was sold by Impact Communities, a Cedaredge-based company founded by Dave and Terri Reynolds. The company, according to its website, owns and/or operates mobile home communities in 20 states. Impact Communities bought the parks sold to Primrose between 2018 and 2022 and, on average, sold them for nearly twice what it paid.
Primrose president Mark Leary confirmed the purchases to Aspen Journalism but declined further comment regarding the company’s plans for these communities. According to the company’s website, Leary has been investing in multifamily developments since 1998. He founded Primrose in 2014, according to a California business filing, and the company currently owns 11 multifamily properties, most of which are in the Pacific Northwest. In addition to multifamily properties, the firm, which lists three employees, owns 14 mobile home communities across the country, including eight parks in the Pacific Northwest, that were all acquired in the past five years.
According to Primrose’s website, the San Francisco-based company’s acquisition strategy targets “middle income” neighborhoods: “We do not want to be in the most expensive, hot new neighborhoods where we would compete with newly built product. We also do not want to buy in blighted areas where low rents can pull ours down.”
The website adds that the firm’s focus is on providing its investors passive cash flow while improving the lives of the residents in the communities they invest in. “We buy assets where we can upgrade the units, add common-area improvements, improve management and expand resident services,” the website says. “We do not buy to flip. We are not market timers. We buy with the intent of holding each asset long-term in markets with lasting value.”
In addition to the new ownership, each of these parks got a new park-management company, Idaho-based Breaking Ground Property Management, which has declined to comment.
Colorado law requires that residents of manufactured home communities be notified when their communities are listed for sale within 14 days of listing and that when a current owner receives a viable offer, the community’s residents have 120 days to submit their own purchase proposal that must be considered in good faith.
Tim Townsend, director of Thistle Community Housing, a Colorado affiliate of the nonprofit ROC USA that helps manufactured home parks transition to resident-owned communities (ROCs), said Thistle organized several information sessions with residents from all seven communities now owned by Primrose to see if any of them were interested in pursuing a resident-owned community.
“Picture Ranch was the only one who pushed to see if the entire community would want to do it, and unfortunately, they were not met with the engagement needed to pursue the ROC acquisition process,” Townsend said.
Justin Holman, Thistle ROC senior manager, said attendance at Thistle-led informational meetings about becoming a ROC didn’t meet the 80% threshold that Thistle requires to move forward. “Without broad community buy-in, the work that needs to be completed falls to just a few residents, which doesn’t lead to a successful community.”
Officials with the Grand Junction Housing Authority and Housing Resources of Western Colorado said they had not heard anything about the buyer’s plans but they were aware of the sales.
Shannon Gray, communications director for the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, told Aspen Journalism that the agency is aware of the purchases and that Impact Communities had sent the state’s Mobile Home Park Oversight Program notices of intent to accept sale offers regarding these sales prior to the closing dates.
“It is not required to provide a reason for a property sale,” she said. “Regarding plans, the statute only requires notice if the owner intends to change the property’s land use from a mobile home park, and our office has not received any such notice.”
The city of Rifle has not heard anything from the new owner about their plans. Zach Higgins, director of Rifle Community Development, told Aspen Journalism that he was not aware of the sale and hadn’t spoken with the new owner regarding their intentions.
Two other mobile home communities are for sale in Rifle — Westside, owned by real estate firm Berkadia, and King’s Crown, owned by MHS Parks. In the Roaring Fork Valley, Horizon Land Co. is selling Cavern Springs in Glenwood, where residents are attempting to cobble together a $23 million matching offer. The family-owned Roaring Fork Trailer Park in Glenwood Springs is also for sale. The family-owned Shady Rest Mobile Home Park is the only manufactured home community being on the market in Mesa County.
Holman said Thistle briefly connected last year with some residents at Westside, “but there wasn’t much follow-up there.”
Editor’s note: Unit counts are based on DOLA records (“Total Rented Mobile Home Lots and Mobile Homes”) and may differ from other counts.