The short answer to what does lot rent include is: the ground, the roads, the common areas, and whatever else that particular park decided to bundle. There is no national standard, which is exactly why the question is hard to answer and easy to get wrong when you are comparing two communities.
What follows is the shape of it, the charges that arrive separately, and the state rules that decide how fast any of it can rise.
What you are actually paying for
National average asking lot rent reached $772 a month in 2025, up 6.0 percent year over year, according to Northmarq’s manufactured housing report. Growth by region: West 7.4 percent, Midwest 7.2, South 6.8.
That is an average across an enormous spread. Coastal and premium Florida communities run past $900; rural Midwest parks sit under $400.
What does lot rent include, usually
Typically bundled:
- Use of the site itself
- Road maintenance within the community
- Common area and amenity upkeep — clubhouse, pool, green space
- Trash collection
- Lawn or snow service in some communities
- Sometimes water, and occasionally cable or internet
“Sometimes” is doing real work in that list. Water in particular varies more than anything else, and it is the line item most likely to change how two quotes compare.
What gets billed on top
- Your own metered utilities. Electricity is almost always separate. Gas usually is.
- Property tax on the home. In most states the home is taxed to you, not to the park.
- Insurance on the structure.
- Your loan on the home, if you have one — usually a chattel loan rather than a mortgage.
- Pass-through charges, which deserve their own section.
Utility pass-throughs and RUBS
Many parks have a single master meter and divide the bill among residents. The common mechanism is a Ratio Utility Billing System, or RUBS, which allocates by unit count, occupancy or square footage rather than by what you actually used.
It is the most contested billing practice in the industry, and legislatures have started moving:
- Minnesota banned RUBS outright for electricity from 1 January 2025. Water and gas billing now follows mandated formulas with no administrative markup. State law also caps utility pass-throughs at actual billed cost (Minn. Stat. §327C.04 subd. 3).
- Colorado’s HB 25-1090 (2025) permits RUBS only on existing properties under narrow, documented conditions, and requires individual metering for gas, electricity and water on new construction after 1 July 2027.
- Washington requires utilities passed to tenants to be itemised in the lease, forbids charging more than the utility’s actual charge, and requires rent to drop if utility costs fall.
- Arizona’s Attorney General issued a consumer alert in August 2025 on submetering and billing obligations, warning of consumer-fraud exposure for overbilling.
If your bill shows a utility charge that is not tied to a meter reading, that is RUBS, and whether it is legal depends on your state.
The fees
Outside a handful of states, extra fees are essentially unregulated: pet fees, guest fees, extra-occupant fees, storage, application and screening fees, and lease-transfer or “home sale” fees when you sell in place.
Minnesota is the clearest example of a state that legislated them. Under Minn. Stat. §327C.03 and §327C.07, summarised in the state Attorney General’s mobile home park handbook, the park may not charge entrance or transfer fees at all, pet fees are capped at $4 per month per pet, buyer application or screening fees at $25, security deposits at two months’ rent, and guest and per-occupant fees are banned.
Nothing like that applies in most states. Read the rules attached to your lease and ask what each line means before you sign.
Rent increases: notice and caps
This is where the state you live in matters most.
| State | Notice | Cap |
|---|---|---|
| California | 90 days (Civil Code §798.39) | None statewide; some local ordinances |
| Colorado | 60 days | No cap, but only one increase per resident per 12 months |
| Washington | 90 days | 5 % a year for manufactured home lots (HB 1217, from 7 May 2025) |
| New York | — | 3 % above current rent, up to 6 % if justified (RPL §233-B) |
Washington’s cap is lower than its general residential cap and, unlike other parts of that bill, has no sunset date. New York’s allows a homeowner 90 days to contest an increase.
Most states have no cap at all.
Selling the home in place
Your buyer takes over the lot rent obligation — assuming the home has a title to transfer. Whether the park can refuse them is a state question.
Under California’s Mobilehome Residency Law, a park may withhold approval only on two grounds: the buyer’s inability to pay rent and charges, or prior conduct showing they cannot comply with the rules. Not an arbitrary no.
Minnesota separately bars transfer fees when a home is sold in place.
Why rents have moved
Institutional and private-equity buyers now account for a meaningful share of park purchases. The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy estimated that roughly one fifth of US mobile home parks — around 800,000 homes — changed hands to institutional investors over eight years, and more recent reporting puts private equity at around 23 percent of community purchases, with 15 firms owning 1,500-plus parks.
The documented case studies are stark: a Montana resident’s lot rent rising from $117 to nearly $400 over 20 months, an Iowa park up 87 percent between 2017 and 2020. Those are examples, not averages — but they are why New York’s 3 percent cap exists.
Common questions
Is lot rent negotiable?
Rarely on the rate. Sometimes on the term, or on what is bundled, particularly when a park has vacancies.
Does lot rent include property tax?
The park’s tax on the land, yes, implicitly. The tax on your home, no — that is billed to you in most states.
Can the park raise rent whenever it likes?
It depends entirely on your state. Notice requirements are common; caps are rare.
What happens if I stop paying lot rent?
Eviction from the site, which is a different and often faster process than residential eviction, and it can end with a home you cannot afford to move. Get state-specific advice early rather than late.