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Harmony Communities Founder Matthew Davies Shares the Ins and Outs of Acquiring and Operating Manufacturing Housing Communities With Multi-Housing News
February 25, 2021
Last month, Harmony Communities announced it had acquired The Garlic Farm RV Park in Gilroy, CA. The park contains 158 spaces, which will be converted to at least 100 affordable, attractive tiny home lots over the next three years with the first set of tiny homes scheduled for delivery to The Garlic Farm RV Park in the first quarter of 2021.
This acquisition takes a big step in fulfilling Harmony Communities’ mission to provide the opportunity for homeownership to people who otherwise could not afford it in this costly area and “will bring the largest influx of affordable homes the area has seen in the last twenty years,” says Harmony Communities’ president and founder Matthew Davies.
Here’s how:
- According to a study by McKinsey Global Institute, the state of California needs to increase its housing supply by 3.5 million homes by the year 2025. Nationwide, our country has a shortage of 7.2 million affordable and available homes for families in need.
- The median home price is over $600,000 in California and over $800,000 in the Bay Area, a home price that is unaffordable for most families. By contrast, a tiny home in The Garlic Farm RV Park has a target starting price of $89,950.
- About one-quarter of Garlic Farm RV Park’s residents work in the garlic industry and Gilroy, California is known as “the Garlic Capital of the World,” producing a large portion of the nation’s garlic and home to the annual Garlic Festival each summer. The Garlic Farm RV Park provides an affordable place for these workers to live.
- Teachers, firefighters, skilled tradesmen and women, and commuters priced out of San Jose also call The Garlic Farm RV Park home. The park is located twenty-five miles from San Jose Proper, a reasonable driving distance from the city.
Tiny home communities maximize available land to provide housing for more people. Whereas a typical single-family home subdivision requires on average about an acre for every 4-5 homes, a community of tiny homes holds up to 25 or even 30 residences per acre.
Furthermore, Harmony Communities is working to cut costs and benefit the environment by installing solar power to the park by the end of 2021. The new solar system will supply 95 percent of the energy that the park’s residents require.
Harmony Communities began installing solar panels in its California communities in 2012, eight years before the enactment of state legislation requiring solar panels on newly constructed homes. While the legislation doesn’t apply to manufactured homes, Davies has seen firsthand the benefits of installing solar panels in terms of saving money and helping the environment – a move he calls a “win-win.”
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At Harmony Communities, we feel strongly that each resident has a sense of home. That they come home from work and feel pride in their environment and in their place in the greater community. That families are comfortable raising children in our neighborhoods, and that couples and singles know that they belong to something bigger than their four walls. In other words, we seek to create harmony within each community, making our communities not just passable, but peaceful, safe, functional, and beautiful.
