Property without Prosperity: Subjective Valuation, Financial Citizenship, and Negotiating Moral Personhood among Manufactured Homeowners

Although an estimated twenty-two million Americans occupy manufactured homes (MHs), less than one-quarter of MH owners title their homes as real estate. Instead, most title their homes as personal property, which offers fewer legal protections against sudden eviction or unit repossession. Drawing from five years of anthropological research conducted within urban MH Communities (MHCs) in Lincoln (Nebraska) and Boulder (Colorado), this article details the many complicating factors MH owners in land-lease MHCs consider before deciding to occupy depreciating assets titled as "chattel." MH owners in Lincoln, for example, tend to emphasize the cost-saving features of their manufactured homes, in particular the lower tax rate and maintenance costs. By contrast, Boulder MH owners typically describe their homes as investments, and resist efforts to restrict or limit (mobile) home sales even when located in land-lease MHCs. Together, these case studies illustrate differing perspectives, motivations, and sociolegal contexts in which MHC owners claim respectability as well as citizens' rights through "landless" homeownership.