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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This study examines the impact of rent control of mobile home parks in seven counties of California between 1983 and 2003. Sales of mobile homes on rent - controlled pads are hypothesized to sell at prices higher than identical models sold in mobile home parks without rent control. Our statistical tests corroborated this expectation. The number of rent -controlled jurisdictions of California has increased over the last twenty years as has the share of the number, value and square footage of coaches subject to rent control. We find that the nature of the rent control regime differentially impacts mobile home prices: a rigid regime, rent control without vacancy decontrol, where rents cannot be raised to market when a tenant vacates, leads to higher growth rates in resale prices, while a flexible regime, or rent control with vacancy decontrol, results in lower growth rates in resale prices; growth rates are also higher after 1993 a date coincident with the beginnings of the economic recovery in the California real estate market and a significant change in the California legal -regulatory environment.' We assembled an extensive and timely data set and thus, were able to employ more carefully specified econometric models than had been employed in prior studies of California mobile -home rent control. Using pooled data from seven counties in California, before 1993, a flexible rent control regime results in real growth rates in prices 1.69 percentage points less than overall growth rates, while a rigid regime yields real growth rates in prices 0.19 percentage points less; after 1993, a flexible regime results in real growth rates in prices 0.57 percentage points less than overall growth rates, while a rigid regime yields average real growth rates in prices 1.11 percentage points greater (for example, amounting to almost $4,000 for the average coach in this sample, after ten years). After 1993, for communities with rigid regimes, the rates of real price increases for coaches was positive and significant in six of the seven counties included in our data set. In general, rates of price increase were lower before 1993 and in communities with flexible rent control regimes. 'U.S. Supreme Court, Yee v. City of Escondido, April, 1992 3 One seminal study of rent control in New York City estimated that the costs to property owners are two times the benefits to renters (Olsen, 1972).