A real estate investment firm bought three manufactured housing communities in eastern North Carolina, with plans to make improvements and encourage renters to become homeowners.
Nashville-based Realm said in a statement that it acquired properties in the town of Clayton, the city of Havelock and in Dudley, an unincorporated area near the city of Goldsboro. Clayton is a half-hour southeast of the state capital, Raleigh, while Havelock is near the Atlantic coast and adjacent to Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point.
Realm is expanding its interest in manufactured housing, with plans to assemble a portfolio of more than 1,000 home sites across the Southeast in the next three years, according to the statement.
The company intends to upgrade infrastructure — such as roads, street lighting and landscaping — and enhance community amenities. In two of the three neighborhoods, where most of the residents currently rent their homes, Realm wants to help them become homeowners through cash sales, a rent-to-own program or third-party financing, according to the statement. The company would continue to own the land underneath the houses.
“When residents own their homes, they often have stronger ties to the community,” Realm CEO Travis King told Homes.com. “Owning provides pride of ownership, including the ability to personalize and maintain their homes.”
Moreover, he said, with ownership, many residents would pay less monthly than they do in rent.
Realm bought each of the three neighborhoods from individuals or families who were based in those areas, King said. The prior owners were not large national operators.
All three of the neighborhoods are in high-growth areas, Realm said. For example, Clayton is growing due to its proximity to Raleigh; the manufactured homes there are adjacent to new subdivisions by national builder D.R. Horton.
The neighborhood in Havelock is close to an entrance to the Marine Corps base; more than 38,000 people make up the population at the facility and in the area, according to the base’s website, including active-duty and retired Marines, civilians and their families.