A sign outside Crescent Village in Sandy, Utah advertises affordable housing, but residents who own their manufactured homes there say the land beneath those homes is getting harder to afford every year. One homeowner, identified only as Sunny, expects her lot rent to climb to $1,354 a month starting in January 2027, according to KUTV, part of a wave of increases hitting residents across the community.
Sunny moved to Crescent Village in August 2024, when her lot rent was about $1,100 a month, according to KUTV. She wanted to downsize from a larger rental home in Sandy. With her mortgage and expected lot rent combined, she anticipates paying roughly $2,600 a month for her three-bedroom, two-bathroom home, compared with about $2,300 a month for the six-bedroom single-family home she previously rented.
The smaller home has not delivered the lower overall costs Sunny expected. KUTV reported that she anticipated lower utility bills, but the smaller home is expected to cost roughly $350 more per month than her previous rental. She told the station that the money could instead go toward medication, medical care, gas or food, and said she no longer considers any home in the community truly affordable.
Leaving Can Be Difficult for Homeowners
The rent pressure extends beyond Sunny. Another Crescent Village resident told KUTV she pays about $1,200 a month in lot rent and expects an increase of roughly $79 in January 2027. She said that after the increase, more than half her income would go toward the land lease; she has considered taking a weekend job and said she would need to borrow money if the lease became unaffordable.
Residents have started a small food pantry, KUTV reported, as some neighbors have had to choose between rent and groceries. The station also reported that one resident's neighbor spent about a year and a half trying to sell his manufactured home while continuing to pay lot rent.
The land-lease arrangement can also complicate a move. Sunny told KUTV that finding a buyer willing to take on both the home and the lot rent is difficult, while much of her money is tied up in the property. The station reported that moving a manufactured home can be expensive or impractical, particularly for older units, leaving some owners needing to sell before they can relocate.
Residents Also Raise Maintenance Concerns
Residents have also raised maintenance and infrastructure concerns. Sunny told KUTV she contacted RFP Properties about dead or dying trees and past drinking-water problems that led to boil-water notices. She said she received no clear response and had seen no visible infrastructure upgrades or new amenities alongside the higher rents.
KUTV reported that it contacted RFP Properties through the company's website to ask why rents were increasing and how additional funds would be used. The company had not responded by the time the station published its report.
What Utah Law Requires in Some Cases
Utah's Mobile Home Park Residency Act requires a park owner to give residents at least nine months' notice before they must vacate because of a planned land-use change or condemnation, according to the Utah Code. That provision addresses notice before displacement in those circumstances; it does not set out a cap on lot-rent increases.
How Other State Law Addresses Rent Increases
Oregon’s statutes separately include a section titled “Increases in rent; limitations; notice; meeting with tenants; effect of failure to meet,” according to the Oregon Legislature. The section title identifies topics covered, but does not by itself establish the specific limits or exceptions.
A Statewide Affordability Gap
The pressure at Crescent Village mirrors a broader affordability crunch across Utah. A University of Utah Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute study found that roughly 91% of renters statewide could not afford the estimated monthly payment on a median-priced home in the first quarter of 2026, as reported by University of Utah. The institute estimates Utah's median home price at approximately $520,000, requiring an annual household income of nearly $147,000 to comfortably afford it.
Rents have been climbing too: from March 2024 to March 2026, average asking rents across Utah's five most populous counties rose 8.5% for single-family homes and 8.3% for townhomes, even as apartment asking rents actually declined 2.3%, according to the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. For manufactured-home owners like those at Crescent Village, that squeeze lands on top of a model where residents own their homes but lease the land underneath them; Sunny expects to pay a mortgage as well as lot rent.
A Pattern Playing Out Nationwide
Similar fights over land-lease hikes are unfolding well beyond Sandy. In New Hanover County, North Carolina, residents of Port O' Pines Mobile Home Park also own their homes but lease the land beneath them, and were recently notified that monthly lot rent would jump from $460 to $610 — a nearly 33% increase affecting close to 150 households, according to WWAYTV3. One resident there said moving a mobile home can cost up to $10,000 and take 30 to 60 days.
In Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, residents of several manufactured-home communities have watched lot rents climb alongside utilities and property taxes, The Morning Call reports. At Red Maple Acres in Lower Macungie Township, some lot rents rose from about $440 to nearly $900 over three years, and an advocate quoted by the paper said relocating a manufactured home can cost thousands of dollars, sometimes forcing residents to cut medical expenses just to cover lot fees. Pennsylvania has an estimated 2,288 mobile-home communities and roughly 55,900 households living in them, per a 2023 Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia report cited by The Citizens' Voice. In rural Centre County, one couple's monthly lot rent rose from $405 to $535 after a private company bought their community and added new trash and sewer charges, with the wife quoted $6,000 just to move her home less than a mile away.
Some communities have pushed back through local policy. Voters in eight Maine municipalities approved measures this year to stabilize mobile-home lot rents, according to Yahoo News, with towns like Augusta, Eliot, and Standish capping annual increases at the lower of 3% or inflation, Oakland setting a 5% cap, and Wiscasset approving a temporary 180-day freeze on increases above 3%. No comparable local action has emerged yet for Crescent Village. KUTV reported that a review of seven rent-increase notices for the coming January showed an average hike of $72 a month, or $864 a year.
