Mobile Home Loans

It's important to note that mobile homes and manufactured homes are not the same thing. They're often talked about as though they are, but they're not. A mobile home is a prefabricated home structure constructed on a permanent chassis that was manufactured prior to June 15, 1976. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) set new safety standards into effect for mobile homes and changed the name going forward to “manufactured” homes rather than “mobile.” It's also important to note that mobile homes were often intended to be easily movable, but many manufactured homes are not built to move after they are assembled.

Mobile homes, or manufactured homes, aren't typically considered to be eligible for a traditional home mortgage. A mortgage on a typical house has a structure that is permanently affixed to a foundation and the land it sits on is owned by the home owner. If the homeowner fails to pay on the mortgage, the lender has the ability to take possession of the property and do what they need to do to mitigate their loss.

Because mobile homes are, well, mobile, they can create a greater risk for a lender. A mobile home loan is going to have attributes that are a mix of a traditional mortgage, and a vehicle loan. Some lenders may offer options, in-house, that are like a traditional mortgage. This may require the mobile home to be affixed to a permanent foundation and on land owned by the mortgagor.

If you’re curious on how payments are calculated on a mobile home, it’s not much different than an auto loan or home mortgage, depending on the situation you’re in. Different terms on a loan will come to play to determine the monthly payment on a mobile home. These factors can be if you own the land the home is on, what your credit score is, loan rates, age of the home, down payment, purchase price, life of the loan, etc. There are a number of calculators on this site to accommodate different factors. If you browse through these calculators, you may find tips to change your circumstance to make your monthly payments more affordable.

As times change, so do rates. As rates go down, there may be an opportunity to refinance your mobile home to either get some extra cash, or to lower your payments. The payment you’re making on your mobile home loan is going to be based a lot on the interest rate when you closed on the loan. If market rates go down, you can make a decision to get a new loan, or modify your exiting loan to take advantage of the lower interest rate.

When you close on refinancing your mobile home loan, you can choose to keep the same monthly payments and perhaps shorten the life of the loan, so you pay it off sooner. You can keep the monthly payment the same and the life of the loan the same, but get some cash. This is called a cash-out refinance on your mobile home. Or, you can leave the life of the loan the same, take no cash out, and lower your monthly payments.

These options for refinancing your mobile home, either to lower payments, or to do a cash out refinance, are also going to be different based on if you own the land that the mobile home sits on. Obtaining a cash-out refinance with land, or a cash-out refinance without land, are very different to mobile home lenders.

There are articles and calculators on this website to help out with refinancing mobile homes, manufactured homes, trailer homes, and modular homes.

It’s become very popular for homeowners to take advantage of the equity they’ve built up over the years of payments they’ve made on a mortgage, or home loan. If the value of the home is more than the amount owed, that equity can be tapped to get a line of credit, or cash.

There are some common terms for options to tap into a home’s equity. A HELOC, or home equity line of credit, is a credit account at a financial institution that is based on the amount of equity you have in your property. A cash-out home equity loan is an actual loan to you from your lender, based on the equity in your home.

There are articles and calculators on this website to help guide you with options for a cash-out home equity loan on your mobile home and home equity line of credit on your mobile home, manufactured home, modular home, or trailer home.