Residents purchase Deering manufactured-home park
by Steve Varnum
on March 29, 2024
New Hampshire Community Loan Fund helps homeowners organize and purchase Longwoods Mobile Home Park.
Homeowners in Longwoods Mobile Home Park in Deering recently purchased their 98-unit park, making it New Hampshire’s 149th resident-owned manufactured-home community (ROC).
With training and technical assistance from the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund’s ROC-NH™ program, residents organized and formed Contoocook River Cooperative last October after being notified that the park owner had received an offer to purchase.
The cooperative matched the offer and bought their community for $5 million with financing from the Community Loan Fund.
“It was a lot of work to get here, but we’re super excited to be in control of our destiny,” said Janette Lochmandy, secretary of the co-op’s board of directors. “This process brought all of us closer together as neighbors and we’re all looking forward to the future of our park.”
Contoocook River Cooperative is Hillsborough County’s 16th ROC. In total, these communities contain 1,183 permanently affordable homes.
Contoocook River Cooperative is located off Long Woods Road in Deering, just over the river from downtown Hillsboro and the Angus Lea Golf Course. The residents, many of whom have lived there for decades, knew that purchasing their park was the only way to preserve their community.
Affordable homeownership is a major problem for employers and families in N.H. A recent report highlighting the state’s housing crisis found N.H. currently needs an additional 60,000 homes before 2030, and the median rental rate for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,584 per month.
By helping homeowners convert their parks to ROCs, the Community Loan Fund is preserving what has become the state’s most-affordable source of housing. And by helping ROCs place new homes on their vacant lots, it is adding to N.H.’s most-needed housing stock.
For 40 years, the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund has worked in towns and cities across N.H. to connect people and families with the loans, training, and advice that allow them to have affordable homes, secure jobs, and quality child care, and become economically stable.
The nearly-9,000 homeowners in N.H.’s ROCs have access to fair home financing, as well as management guidance and a host of online and in-person trainings.
See a full list of ROCs in N.H.