Manufactured-home park in Bridgewater purchased by residents
by Steve Varnum
on April 27, 2023
Homeowners in Newfound Acres Mobile Home Park recently purchased their 21-unit park, making it New Hampshire’s 146th resident-owned manufactured-home community (ROC).
With training and technical assistance from the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund’s ROC-NH™ program, residents organized and formed Newfound Acres Cooperative last November after being notified that park owners Gary Watts and Glenn Raiche had received an offer to sell.
The cooperative matched the offer and bought their community for $945,000 with financing from the Community Loan Fund.
Newfound Acres is Grafton County’s 17th ROC. Those communities contain 605 permanently affordable homes.
Affordable homeownership is a major problem for employers and families in N.H. A recent report highlighting the state’s housing crisis found N.H. currently needs an additional 60,000 homes before 2030, and the median rental rate for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,584 per month.
By helping homeowners convert their parks to ROCs, the Community Loan Fund is preserving what has become the state’s most-affordable source of housing. And by helping ROCs place new homes on their vacant lots, it is adding to N.H.’s most-needed housing stock.
Newfound Acres is located about a quarter mile from the southern tip of Newfound Lake’s Pasquaney Bay, making it a very attractive spot for development. Cooperative members feared losing their affordable homes.
“We were pretty sure the park would be closed, or people forced out of the older homes so they could be replaced and sold to people who can afford a lot more,” said cooperative president Will Truitt. “In this area near the lake, it would be a no-brainer for any investor.”
“Where can you go in this state to rent a two-bedroom apartment for less than $1,000 or $1,200?” said co-op secretary Sue Lowry. “Buying this park for ourselves was the only decision that made sense.”
For 40 years, the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund has worked in towns and cities across N.H. to connect people and families with the loans, training, and advice that allow them to have affordable homes, secure jobs and quality childcare, and become economically stable.
The more-than-8,800 homeowners in N.H.’s ROCs have access to fair home financing, as well as management guidance and a host of online and in-person trainings.
View the full list of ROCs in N.H.