Carlyle Group, the US private equity firm in which Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Development Company owns a 7.5 percent stake, is to expand its portfolio of investments with plans to complete a deal to buy trailer parks in Florida, it was reported.
The Washington-based firm will this month sign off on a $30.8m deal to buy two Florida communities, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.
Analysts said this showed the profit possible from the growing demand for low-cost manufactured housing, mainly as a result of the credit crunch.
“Our customers have no alternative shot at homeownership, nor do they [normally] even have the credit scores and quality to seek anything better,” Frank Rolfe, vice president of MHP Funds, a private owner of about 9,000 individual lots in 82 communities nationwide, was quoted as saying of the attraction of investing in this type of housing.
“They never leave the park they are in, and the revenues are unbelievably stable as a result.”
The two communities that Carlyle is acquiring, Village of Ponce de Leon in Melbourne Beach and Sun Valley Estates in Tarpon Springs, are targeted at the over 55 retirement market, the report said.
Sun Valley has an occupancy rate of around 89 percent and average monthly rents of around $582. Village of Ponce de Leon has an average of 82 percent occupancy and rents start from around $681 per month.
Carlyle declined to comment on the report.
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