A Good Place to Park
Mitch Klapow was not enthusiastic when his mother handed him an ad for the Oakridge Mobile Home Park in Sylmar, where he would eventually buy his first home.
It was late 2000, and Klapow, 30, was searching for a condominium to rent. Looking at the mobile homes in the real estate magazine that contained the ad, he thought: “There’s no way I’m living in a trailer.”
With the rent on his apartment increasing to more than $1,000 a month, he decided to lease a condo, figuring he could pay $1,100 to $1,200 a month.
A condo rental in Granada Hills, near where he and his mother operate two laundries and a small publishing company, would be a step up from the various apartments he had rented since he left home at 18.
Buying a place had not occurred to him. “I think of myself as a renter.”
His mind changed when he toured Oakridge, a gated, 600-unit park tucked against the San Gabriel Mountains in the far northern reaches of the San Fernando Valley. With winding streets of well-kept factory-manufactured homes that seem more like cottages than trailers, the park offers a 15,000-square-foot clubhouse, two Jacuzzis, a pool, tennis court and billiards room with five tables. A family park, it is open to children, but the average age is 50.
The prices appealed to Klapow. “You could lock one up for $47,000,” he said. “It’s a joke. It’s ridiculous.”
While he would still pay rent for the lot (space rents range from $520 to $720 a month, the current cap), he would also reap the tax and equity-building advantages of owning a home.
The higher-priced units sell for about $150,000, while a recent open house featured a 2,500-square-foot home with Corian counters, a built-in Jenn-Air range and a butler’s pantry. At $189,000, it is the park’s highest asking price so far. The next phase breaks ground this year for 68 homes starting at $125,000.
Another feature that appealed to Klapow was the attentive on-site management, led by park manager and real estate agent Ginny Harmon, who moved to the park 23 years ago, two months after it opened. As Klapow was to find out for himself, the park’s tidiness is largely Harmon’s doing.
“If you have chipped paint, you get a note from Ginny,” he said. “She’s hard-core, and I like it.”
From early in 2001 to the close of escrow on Sept. 10, Klapow looked at dozens of mobile homes in the park.
“I drove those ladies crazy,” he said of Harmon and the two other licensed real estate agents who live and work in the park. The newer homes Klapow declared “too white” with their neutral shades, while the older ones were too brown with their prolific wood paneling. Finally, he decided to buy an older “coach” and do an extensive remodel.
Klapow, who described himself as a “guy who likes to shop,” knew it would cost $25,000 for a remodel that would give him the slate floors and upscale doors and fixtures he wanted. With the goal of a monthly house payment/space rent total of about $1,200, he decided that he would borrow a total of $90,000, leaving about $65,000 to purchase a home.
Through much of 2001, Klapow shopped for a suitable mobile home and the features he wanted in a remodel. Even a year later, park manager Harmon recalls Klapow’s priorities: privacy, a garage and a garden.
It took months to find the right unit, but he finally made an offer on a 1982 yellow-and-white, two-bedroom, two-bathroom home with 1,288 square feet, an added sun room and a two-car garage to hold his pristine Corvette.
Ending up with a carport instead of a garage would have been disappointing to Klapow. “To me, that was the point of having a house,” he said. “I wanted a garage door. I wanted my own trash cans.”
By the end of escrow, Klapow had lined up the materials and workers to pull off the eight-week remodel. The biggest project was pulling up the gray carpeting and replacing it with a new subfloor and 1,200 square feet of slate flooring. To make sure the jacks holding up the coach could handle the added weight, he called in a contractor knowledgeable in mobile homes who suggested more jacks for support.
Another big project was cutting open the wall opposite the kitchen, and adding sliding French doors that open to the side garden. In a “privacy lot” such as this one, park rules prohibit the owner of the adjacent unit installing windows that would overlook Klapow’s modest yard. Likewise, he cannot add windows that would overlook the garden of the neighbor on the other side.
A set of French doors was also added from the sun room at the back of the coach connecting to the master bedroom. Thick moldings were added around both doors to complement the crown moldings added throughout the home.
While Klapow got much of what he wanted in his coach, he did not get “big luscious bathrooms.” To approximate those, he added slate in both bathrooms, along with a 6-foot-wide shower in one, and a deep tub in the other. Much of the budget was spent on pricey Baldwin hardware and Newport Brass fixtures.
To give him the feeling of a luxurious home, Klapow tried to upgrade all the things he would be touching--”counters, doors, hardware and fixtures”--while leaving many of the existing kitchen and bathroom cabinets in place. “There are certain issues where budget takes over,” he said.
To bring color into the home, he painted the ceilings--a skill he said he’s “king of,” calling it “decorator tip No. 1”--the same dark tan as the walls in the living room/dining room/kitchen. The library adjacent to the living room is green, and the master bathroom is “where taupe meets gray.” All trim is Navajo white. Lamps and accessories came from Fabby and Zipper, both in Los Angeles, and Restoration Hardware in Woodland Hills.
Before the project was finished, the budget was used up. Klapow still wants to add concrete steps from the sliding French door to the garden, and to replace the old stove with a stainless-steel one. But he feels he’s got the features that make him feel he is living in a luxury home.
“How do I know that I’m 23 inches off the ground, that there are jacks under there?” he asked. “You forget about it.”
But the house comes with a downside. “It makes me nervous living in it. I’m afraid I’ll break something,” he said. “I’ve never had this good of stuff of my own.”
While Klapow suggests the mobile home park to others, he does so with a caveat. “They would be turned off by these places [as they are],” he said. “You have to move in with the idea of redoing it.”
From his experience, Klapow said he has discovered “how to buy your first home, how it can be fabulous and be under $100,000. People can do it.”
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At a Glance
Strategy: Buy a mobile home as a way to purchase a first home, with the goal to remodel it
Location: Oakridge Mobile Home Park, Sylmar
Purchase price: $67,000
Remodel cost: $25,000
Monthly mortgage payment: $640 (Note: Money was obtained when the buyer’s mother refinanced her home, so the interest rate is 7%. Interest rates on mobile homes typically range from 9% to 10%.)
Space rent: $520 (increases 3% a year until it reaches the cap)
Real estate agent: Ginny Harmon, Oakridge Mobile Home Park, (818) 367-1128
Owner-builder-decorator: Mitch Klapow, (818) 364-9457
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Kathy Price-Robinson writes about homes. She can be contacted at www.kathyprice.com.
