Residents of a mobile home park in Bangor will be the second group in the state to purchase their community under a new Maine law.
Residents of the Cedar Falls Mobile Home Park voted over the weekend to purchase their community for $8 million, using grants from Maine Housing and the city of Bangor, as well as loans from the Genesis Community Fund and a group of non-profits and banks led by Bangor Savings Bank.
Nora Gosselin, director of resident acquisitions for the non-profit Cooperative Development Institute, which helped residents purchase their park, said the deal will allow for the preservation of affordable housing for nearly 130 households.
The Cedar Falls cooperative will also have the chance to develop existing vacant lots on the property, and potentially add nearly 80 new homes, Gosselin added.
Cedar Falls residents are expected to close on the deal within the next month.
The governor's proposed two-year budget plan includes $3 million in new funds to help mobile home park residents in Maine purchase their parks when they come up for sale.
Earlier this year, a group of residents at what was then named the Linnhaven Mobile Home Center in Brunswick successfully formed a cooperative and purchased their community for more than $26 million. They were the first residents to successfully use a 2023 Maine law requiring that mobile home residents be given advance notice of a park sale. The law also allows them a chance to bid on and try to purchase the property themselves.
Residents at other mobile home parks throughout the state have not been as successful over the last year, as mobile home park owners around Maine have increasingly fielded multi-million dollar purchase offers from large investment firms.
A resident-offer to buy two mobile home parks in Old Orchard Beach for a total of nearly $40 million was rejected in favor of a bid from Follett USA.
And this winter, residents at Country Lane Estates and Stetson Brook Estates in Lewiston learned that their parks would be sold for a total of nearly $22 million.
An anonymous buyer offered $26 million for the Brunswick park. And Cedar Falls residents successfully competed against Flintstone Capital Properties, a Canadian-based investment firm, to purchase the park in Bangor.