Mobile Home Loans for Purchase

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Mobile Home Loans
Loans for purchasing older homes

Mobile home loans are currently available for purchase and refinance (either cash out or debt consolidation).

This page will focus on the loan part of a mobile home purchase. For more general information about buying or
selling a mobile home, please visit our mobile home sales page by clicking here.

Getting loan on an older Mobile Home

Most lenders will not finance older homes, these are homes older than 1976 in most cases, however, in other cases it could be 1983 or even newer. Take this into consideration when buying an older unit - they can be hard to finance.

Really the best thing to do is to start calling lenders and ask them what they can finance. Make sure you tell them the date of manufacture of your home, and if it is a singlewide or doublewide.

Main points to know

Getting a loan for the purchase of a mobile or manufactured home can be time consuming and a lot of work. Here are the major things to know about the loan and process:

Down Payment - 20% down is almost always needed for older homes. Gift funds from family members are generally acceptable with a Gift Letter and proof of the funds coming from the gift donor. Also, borrowing from a 401(k) is usually fine.

Credit - Your credit is very important to the lender. This will show them what kind of a person you are in regards to your other creditors and if you pay them on time. Click here for more information if your credit is not the best. For normal financing, you should have a 660 or better, with the higher the score, the better the rate generally.

Income - Mobile Home loans require you to have some form of income. You will need to provide solid proof of the income, such as paystubs, tax returns, bank statements, and even Social Security or Pension and Retirement award letters. In some cases for self employed borrowers there may be a stated income loan available. A quick way to find out if you make enough money is to take your gross income and multiply it by 45%. This figure will tell you how much a lender will allow for all of your debts, the new loan, and the space rent.

Time - Usually, to get a loan funded there are many, many steps involved. It will take at least 3 weeks and up to 6 weeks to fund a mobile home loan, given normal
circumstances. Most of this time is due to the appraisal and title search for the property. Additionally, the lender has many other loans in process and cannot just work on your loan exclusively.

Park Approval - You will need to qualify for residency in the park. To do this you will need to fill out the park application and prove your income, etc. and even have your credit run. Some parks will do a back ground check! Ask lots of questions. This is actually a good thing because then you know that your neighbor must be somewhat of a decent person too.

Where to find Mobile Home Loans for purchase

Most Mobile Home Loans are funded by two types of lenders. The first type is a nation wide lender like MH Loans.

Another type of lender is a local bank or credit union like Community West Bank in California.

Click here for a list of Mobile Home lenders.

What to expect and look out for

First, you are a big part of the process. You must provide all the information to the lender in the form of documentation. That means copies of the following will be needed:

Two most recent Federal Tax Returns
Two or more most recent paystubs from all jobs
Social Security Award letters from the current year
Retirement/Pension/Annuity statements
Two or more most recent bank and asset statements
Photo ID
Rental agreements for any rental property
Proof of down payment money
Gift letter from family if applicable
Park approval letter
Park lease signed by all parties

The lender should mail to you a Truth-In-Lending and Itemization of Amount Financed disclosures which will provide you with the interest rate, APR (yes, these are different), fees, and terms. You will need to sign these and mail them back, however, all of these are estimates until the final loan documents are generated. Don't think you are done when you first get these in the mail. Just call your lender and have them walk you through the forms on the phone - you must NOT be confused about any of the numbers.