We’re Moving to California!

Just when everyone is leaving.

Seriously, since 2015 CA has lost about 100,000 more people each year than it has gained, but not everyone is happy to have the emigrants.

Anyway, we’re moving to Idle Wheels Senior Mobile Home Park in Mariposa, CA.

Idle Wheels is a 111-unit 55+ mobile home park just north of Mariposa. Our home is a 1440 square foot double-wide manufactured home. While we own the home, the park owns the land. This is the same as our Crazy Horse park model. With one major difference . . .

Idle Wheels is a resident-owned community. The park residents elect a 5-member board who manage the park and set the monthly HOA fees (currently at $90/month compared to $719/month for Crazy Horse). Idle Wheels is a domestic stock corporation with the residents as the stockholders. The park was incorporated in 1990 so it has a 30-year track record of success.

What really impressed us was the large solar array the park recently installed.

The park manager told us that the solar array has lowered PG&E electric rates of 25 cents per KWh to 19 cents per KWh.

Besides all that, there is free on-site RV storage and a fire station is within walking distance of the park.

CALIFORNIA HOUSE CLOSING

CA does escrow closings which were not used to and the whole process seems a lot slower than other homes we’ve purchased. C’est la vie.

However, the amount of cover-your-ass paperwork is truly epic. For example, here are some of the hazards on the Natural Hazard Disclosure Statement:

• Special Flood Hazard Area
• Potential Flooding Shown on a Dam Failure Map
• Very High Fire Zone (I thought that was the whole state?)
• Earthquake Fault
• Seismic Hazard
• Landslide Hazard
• Liquefaction Hazard
• FEMA Floodway
• Tree Mortality Fire Threat
• Shallow Groundwater
• Mine Sites
• Volcanic Hazards
• . . .