I don't understand park homes?

[salviapages]

Looking on zoopla, I live in the south east in an expensive area (where I rent and cannot afford to buy)

Zoopla has loads of park homes and this is a stupid question but do people live in them full time? Are they holiday homes? Are they warm in the winter?

Just don't understand who is buying all these park homes and why there are so many. No judgement just ignorance

Hi, yes people live in these full time, usually the over 50's. They have heating

I've seen some where we used to live (Cotswolds) where you could only live in them for 9 months of the year.

A lot of them have the condition you can only live there X months of the year, from what I've seen!

There’s some near us and it’s very much an over 60s development.

People live in them full time up here.

They are basically static caravans but a bit better. You can get central heating on a timer etc the way regular houses have.

They seem to be called park homes to distance them from their ‘common relations’ and to justify a higher price.

Yes some of them are lived in all year but some have restrictions.
People who can't afford a bricks and mortar home. They're not the best investment and you still have to pay site rent etc. But it suits some and is a more affordable housing solution than many.

It depends some are for over 50’s, residential, or holiday use. They are cheaper as they are usually leasehold, and non standard construction, you pay a ground rent and a maintenance charge, for keeping the communal grounds tidy etc. These charges can vary enormously, also if you can buy one that has a park home agreement, you have more legal protection, this is only for residential parks not holiday parks.

My aunt lives in one, she divorced late in life close to retirement, her share of the equity from the marital home wasn’t enough to buy anything, the park home a better option than renting I suppose. Apparently many of her neighbours are in a similar position; although a lot of them are also second homes for people who stay for weeks or months at a time but have a permanent home elsewhere, or rented out as holiday lets.

It’s nice inside, not much different to a proper build. Her site closes for four weeks of the year (most sites do) but she goes to stay with her sister for the month, which works for her but would be a problem for some people. Unlike bricks and mortar property, they depreciate in value, and some sites have a maximum age limit on homes which mean you may not be able to keep yours longer than e.g 20 years before being made to upgrade.

Interestingly, as an industry, park homes and their site operators are the subject of relatively few consumer complaints (I know this through work, I haven’t looked it up especially!) so despite the downsides they clearly do work well for many.

We are coastal Sth East and there are many park homes around us. Many are holiday homes for Londoners, but some are also lived in all year round. Most around here are for a max of 11mths a year though. Some homes are very expensive and luxurious- over £100,000! Double glazing, central heating, Jacuzzi on the balcony etc.

I too have heard about issues where you NEED to upgrade to a more modern van as deemed by the park management. Some parks apparently require people to only sell and buy the vans via them- at whatever fee they impose.