New Hampshire is known for many firsts: the first to declare independence from England and its first-in-the-nation primary.

New Hampshire is also the first state where residents of a manufactured housing community purchased their park, forming a cooperative to retain control over bylaws, like lot rent, to maintain affordability within their community.

Derry Oak Village, a 27-home park, celebrated a milestone this week as the 150th resident-owned community in the state.

Owning a manufactured home can be a path to affordable homeownership – and a way for many to downsize – but purchasing a home in a park means that the resident owns the structure, not the land it sits on.

Across the country, investors are buying manufactured housing parks in droves, and squeezing cash out of those who live there. In Belmont, an investor purchasing a park forced a Vietnam war veteran to turn the keys over to the bank when he moved out of state. He could not find a prospective buyer due to his lot rent surpassing $1,000.

And while the idea of a “mobile home” may lead some to believe changing location is simple, it isn’t. Although manufactured and mobile homes are often used interchangeably, the latter is a misnomer. The cost of dismantling siding and moving a home can quickly surpass thousands of dollars.

Yet New Hampshire leads the nation in providing an affordable alternative to homeownership with these resident-owned communities. State law dictates that when a manufactured housing park is for sale, residents are required to receive a 60-day notice, which offers them the right of first refusal to purchase the park.

The New Hampshire Community Loan Fund helps residents navigate the process – providing training on how to form a cooperative, information about their rights under state law and financing assistance.

In Derry, residents of the Derry Oak Village Cooperative first learned their park would be sold in December 2022. The community loan fund helped them organize and purchase the park.

The milestone cooperative builds on a rich New Hampshire history that has evolved since 1984 when residents in Meredith purchased their park, forming the first-ever resident-owned community in the country.

Now, roughly 330 communities exist in 21 states – and vary in size from four homes to more than 400, according to ROC USA, the national arm that tracks these purchases. Homes in New Hampshire make up nearly half of this.

The trend of investors purchasing parks has also garnered the attention of federal legislators, with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development launching a program to help preserve manufactured housing, with $235 million in funding through the Preservation and Reinvestment Initiative for Community Enhancement program – providing grants to help repair and replace homes in parks.

Eligibility for the funding is restricted to resident-owned communities, tribal applicants, parks under non-profit or state ownership, and other qualifications that notably exclude private ownership.

The New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, in partnership with the New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority, applied for a $75 million award.

Since 2016, out-of-state investors have purchased at least 10 New Hampshire parks, home to nearly 3,000 units, for a total of $245 million, according to the application submitted by the community loan fund.

“Unfortunately, without low-cost financing, in most of these situations, low-income homeowners stand little chance,” they wrote in the application.

The funding would provide $60 million in infrastructure repair grants for 15 to 18 communities, which the fund estimates would help up to 1,650 homeowners in the state. The grants would include water, sewer and electric improvements for parks.

The request also outlines a $5 million preservation fund which would be used to help low-income parks compete with buyers when a park is for sale, $3 million in loan or gap financing and just over $600,000 for repairs on vacant lots.

All New Hampshire resident-owned communities would be eligible to apply for funding if the grant is awarded. The community loan fund expects to learn about awards in October.

Last year, U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen introduced legislation to make the funding a permanent fixture and has celebrated New Hampshire as a leader in the resident-owned model.

“We need to do all we can to preserve the affordable housing we have now, and resident-owned communities like Derry Oak Village Cooperative are helping to do just that,” she said in a statement. “New Hampshire has led the way in the resident-owned community movement for forty years and I hope residents of other states can benefit from its success.”