Park homes - why wouldn't I buy one?

[MozzarellaFitzgerald]

Looking at Rightmove, and there are lots of lovely looking park homes, why don't people buy them? Is it because of snobbery about trailer parks? Is the build quality no good? Do they depreciate in the way that houses don't?

All of that, plus lack of a proper garden, and many of them have either dodgy planning permission, or permission only for it to be a second home. Eg one my dad was very keen to move to (no idea why, he has a perfectly lovely bungalow) it turned out that the council had allowed them all to be built and sold, then decided that they shouldn't be lived in all year! They are currently threatening to pull them all down from what I can gather!!!

Very cold.

Often not all year round plots (very often you need to move out for 1-2 months as not licensed for year round residency).

Mortgage issues due to limited lifespan of buildings.

Often retirement communities (possibly off putting) or holidaymakers/weekenders so not a permanent community.

I think there are strict rules about how much of the year you are permitted to live in one IIRC.

My parents have one on a nature park and they only is it it between march and October I believe.

Resale issues as limited market.

Specialist home insurance.

I haven't got one but visit lots in my professional life.

There's often a lot of park rules e.g no caravans over 10 years old.

I keep looking at them as we've no hope of buying and am desperate for some stability. But they are still over £200,000.

Some have no children rules as well

can't get a mortgage - you have to borrow from specialist lenders

The majority of responses here are referring to holiday caravan sites and not Park Home sites and there's a very important difference.

Holiday parks are generally open for 10/11 months of the year and you cannot live in them. They also are self - regulated so you have no protection and your purchase will certainly lose value over time (quite quickly in fact). Park homes are build to a different specification and can be comfortably lived in all year round.

Park home sites do have their own rules, so some allow pets, some don't, some are for 50+ or 65+ but equally, lots allow any age and therefore children. Park home sites are also protected by specific laws, unlike caravan or holiday sites.

You can get a 'mortgage' on such homes but these are not conventional mortgages as with houses and interest rates are generally higher. There are lending firms specifically for this type of borrowing.

They do keep up with the housing market to some degree so it's not necessarily a waste of money! There are some very lovely park home sites around the country, but also some particularly horrible and scruffy ones, so you need to do your research.

I thought of buying a park home 15 years ago for £700 on a run down site but bought a house instead. The site the park home was on got sold to another firm which made everyone who had a old unit replace it with a new unit which could only be bought from them for £40k! or move off site which would have been a bit of a shock but has paid off for those that did as they are now on the market for £100+

What is a park home? A caravan?

There are, as Manopaws illustrates, a lot of crooks very ruthless people running some of the sites. If you ever read personal finance pages of newspapers or listen to You and Yours, you will be aware of some real horror stories regarding the rip-offs that some of the site owners have performed. I believe in some cases, pensioners have been hounded off sites and been left homeless.

Even the law-abiding sites have the potential to go wrong as quite often there seems to be quite a lot of factionalisation.