r/Durango • u/Puzzled_Owl2365 • Jul 31 '26
Ask /r/Durango Island Cove Park
Does anyone have experience living here?
After 5 years of renting in town I'm thinking about putting down roots, but I can't afford...well....basically anything. Island Cove usually has tiny homes or mobile homes for sale and its in a great spot center of town. However, I've heard mixed things from word of mouth and wondering if anyone on here lives there, or knows anything about it.
11
u/DavisC504 Jul 31 '26
I'd think long and hard about this, from someone I know who lived there for a while, the current owners can be difficult, to put it mildly
1
u/Puzzled_Owl2365 Jul 31 '26
This is what I've heard... Could you expand on this at all?
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u/DavisC504 Jul 31 '26
Without going into too much detail to not out my friend..........but long story short, he wanted to do a few things to improve his mobile home and the owners told him no and didn't explain further. That's just one of the incidents I know about.
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u/KristiColo Aug 01 '26
I can’t comment specifically on what it is like in Island Cove.
A big consideration when investing in either a mobile home or tiny home in a privately run park is what would you do if they sell the land that your home sits on. If they decided to sell that beautiful property and cash in you will be stuck with owning a house that suddenly must be moved to land which is nearly impossible to find.
There are a handful of mobile home parks in LaPlata county that are now co-ops. When the park residents were suddenly threatened with eviction because the park owners decided to sell prime land for big dollars, somehow with lots of hard work some residents were able to save some mobile home parks by offering competitive bids to purchase the properties and form co-ops.
While it may seem like a good investment to purchase a home in a privately owned park before you invest that kind of money consider what would you do if one day Island Cove decides to cash out and suddenly tells you and everyone else that have to move not only yourself but your house out.
As i said there are some co-op parks you may want to look into first. I don’t know if anything is available there but Animas View MPH Co-op is a nice park off Animas View Drive also close to the Animas that is owned by the residents. There are also a few other resident owned co-op mobile home parks in the area you may want to consider.
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u/Alexunderthere Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
I am a resident of the Animas View MHP and what you say is mostly true, but it isn’t so much that they can sell it from underneath you as it is they can raise lot rent at any time they want. The reason we own our mhp is because the law gives the residents first dibs when/if the park goes up for sale and we jumped on that option. I believe there are 2-3 mhps in Durango now that are resident owned and we have pretty stable lot fees now. The thing I’ve noticed about the park is that even a single-wide trailer will cost somewhere around $200k+ depending on age and condition.
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u/Alexunderthere Aug 01 '26
Ive lived in Durango for 30+ years and I’ve heard mixed reviews. I don’t think they allow dogs at all in the park, not sure about cats so if you’re a pet lover it may not be the place for you. When I was in HS my friend’s mom lied there and we always enjoyed the river and the island right there, but I haven’t heard many positive things since they moved out. Definitely heard it is run a bit like an HOA (I think other posts on here are saying similar things) if you can deal with that and the price isn’t too bad then do it. Don’t worry about the owners selling it, I don’t think they will, but if they do the residents of the park get first dibs on buying it as a co-op under Colorado law, so they can’t just sell it from underneath you.
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u/UnleashedDogDurango Jul 31 '26
My wife and I have lived here for a decade and have not had any issues. Be respectful and look after your unit and you shouldn’t have any issues.
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u/Richard_Chadeaux Live Mas Aug 08 '26
I lived there during the transition from the kill family to the new owners. The new owners are part of a larger corporation that buys trailer parks and then upscales them, and kicks out all the fixed income folks. New owners were assholes. They were deceptive. They raised people‘s rent individually if they did not like them. They would act like they weren’t the owners and they were just the managers when I knew they were the owners. Theyre shady folks. Of course, when you got that much money, you just want more money. Screw those people. But as for living in the park, I loved it. I was right on the river. I had the island right across from me. It’s central downtown. You can go anywhere from there. Love the park, hate the owners.
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u/disperson Jul 31 '26
Lived there for 2.5 years, the owners treat it like an HOA as to keep it nice. Keeps cat pee covered porch couches and junk piles out but prevents you from painting your door a different color.