CBRE, as exclusive advisor, is pleased to present Solara Estates, an 80-unit (79 MH sites and 1 studio) manufactured housing community on ±8.5 acres at 1599 N. Norma Street in Ridgecrest, California (Kern County), offered at $2,750,000, Solara Estates is a rare turnkey fill story: current ownership has completed the heavy lift of a comprehensive repositioning across infrastructure, home inventory, and tenant base, leaving the next owner a clean, de-risked path to value creation through lease-up of the remaining vacant sites in a market with no local rent control.
Ownership’s capital program touched nearly every system in the community. Water lines were re-piped, asphalt repaved, new electrical hookups installed, trash service converted to individual bins, and the office, laundry, playground, signage, and streetscape fully uplifted, with solar lighting installation completed. In parallel, ownership renovated and sold off much of the park’s legacy home inventory and installed four new 2024 Clayton Tempo Series homes (two double-wides, two single-wides) on previously vacant sites, ready for the next owner to sell or lease at their discretion. The tenant base was rebuilt alongside the physical plant: delinquent and problem tenants were removed and application standards tightened, deliberately trading short-term occupancy for durable credit quality.
That strategy is now proving out. The community is achieving among the highest lot rents in the Ridgecrest market ($595 on new leases) and occupancy has rebuilt to ±65% (52 of 80 sites) with steady lease-up momentum. In-place income remains well below potential: roughly three-quarters of existing tenants sit below the $595 market rate even after the most recent ~9.3% rent increase, and the 28 vacant sites represent ±$180,000 of incremental annual rental income at market. Underwritten NOI grows from ±$179,000 normalized in-place (~6.5% cap on the asking price) to ±$341,000 at market stabilization, a 12%+ stabilized cap. Utilities are efficiently structured, with city water sub-metered, flat-rate sewer ($23.44) and trash ($40.03) recapture, and electric and gas direct-billed by SoCal Edison and SoCal Gas.
Demand is anchored by Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, less than five minutes from the community. The Navy’s single largest landholding at over 1.1 million acres, China Lake is the region’s dominant employer with nearly 8,000 government civilians, active-duty personnel, and defense contractors, and drives consistent secondary employment across healthcare, education, and retail. This deep, recession-resistant workforce base creates reliable demand for quality affordable housing, precisely the product Solara Estates delivers.