Buyer found for park - Investor set to buy mobile home village indebted to Brasota

A Wisconsin investor has agreed to purchase a troubled mobile home park that owes $1.3 million to bankrupt mortgage lender Brasota Mortgage Corp.

Michael Hickmann confirmed Wednesday that he planned to purchase the Try-Mor Mobile Home Park, 5624 14th St. W., for $575,000.

Hickmann said he will keep the property a mobile home park rather than develop it.

"We own other mobile home parks and this is an existing mobile home park, and it has the potential to be turned around and run well," Hickmann said by phone from Wisconsin. "We're not developers."

Though the sales price is far less than what was owed Brasota, Gerard McHale Jr., the mortgage company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy trustee, said the property has had its share of problems, which made it hard to sell.

Those problems include about $90,000 in outstanding code violations and a number of abandoned units, McHale said.

"I think $575,000 is a great price. It was so overfinanced I'm surprised they made it work," McHale said. "I don't know what the original deal was but I can pretty much guess it was not a deal a typical bank would have made. I've had that (property) on the market for two years and haven't had one offer."

McHale said the sale won't be finalized until a Nov. 21 hearing before a bankruptcy judge.

Brasota, which sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from its creditors in April of last year, owes roughly $137 million to 1,778 family trusts, retirement accounts and individuals who invested in the company.

Many of Brasota's loans were considered risky and the Office of Financial Regulation is investigating some of the company's past transactions.

Carol Kuebler, a Try-Mor resident who has served as secretary and treasurer for the park's homeowners association, said she was encouraged by Hickmann's plan to buy the property.

"They want to keep it a park and they're wanting to upgrade it and improve the roads," Kuebler said. "He seems very nice and I think he's going to do good for the park."

But Kuebler is upset that she and about 20 other residents who paid $13,000 apiece to buy shares in a park cooperative will likely be out their money. The cooperative was intended to prevent the park from being sold to outside developers.

Brasota filed foreclosure proceedings on Try-Mor after a park official missed a payment last year, Kuebler said.

"Those of us who are former shareholders are a little upset because we still have to pay those loans off," Kuebler said.

Although Hickmann said he wasn't clear on all the details of the past share-buying arrangement, he hopes residents can take comfort in having an improved park that will be affordable to live in.

"We believe, in terms of affordability, even with those obligations that they may have to pay, generally speaking, they'll have a much nicer place to live," he said. "And it will still be very affordable, based on the cost of living in Florida."

Hickmann, who said he owns other mobile home parks in southwest Florida but declined to name them, feels his Try-Mor LLC will have its work cut out in revamping the park.

He was traveling to Bradenton on Wednesday evening in order to meet with Bradenton code officials today to discuss remedying the existing problems at the park.

"There were a lot of abandoned homes and a lot of undesirable tenants," Hickmann said. "So it needs a lot of work and we're going to have to invest a substantial amount of money to get it back on track and turned around. The sooner we close, I think, the better it will be for residents."