Manufactured home loans in IdahoIn Idaho, a manufactured home can become real property. Which loans are open depends on whether it has.

Most people asking about a manufactured home loan in Idaho want to know whether FHA, VA, USDA or a conventional loan will cover it. The answer turns on one fact before any other: whether the home is still personal property, titled like a vehicle, or has been made part of the land it sits on.

Idaho lets an owner make that change, and the change decides which loans are open. I write loans on manufactured homes and on older mobile homes, home-only and land-and-home, through the lenders I work with. This page covers how Idaho's rule works, which programmes want which kind of home, and what the market commonly asks.

The Idaho rule

Idaho starts every manufactured home as personal property

A manufactured home in Idaho starts out with a certificate of title from the Idaho Transportation Department, much the way a car does. Idaho law lets it become real property when the running gear has come off and two more things are true. The home is permanently affixed to a foundation on land its owner owns or is buying. And the owner records a statement of intent with the county recorder in the county where the home sits.

That statement is a sworn form the State Tax Commission prescribes, and it carries more signatures than the owner's. A building official confirms the running gear is off and the home is fixed to its foundation. The county assessor confirms the same people own the home and the land. Any lender with a lien on the home consents to its title being cancelled. The Idaho Transportation Department then cancels the title.

From then on the county assesses the home like a site-built house, and Idaho law lets lenders treat it as real property. The order of the steps, and where the title goes, differs from one county to the next, so ask the assessor in the county where the home sits.

On leased land. The same law lets a home on leased land be declared real property, but only when it is financed under Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, USDA or similar guidelines. Those programmes put conditions of their own on a leased site, so it is a narrower door than it sounds, and I'd check the lease against the lender's rules before counting on it.

It can be undone. Once declared, the home counts as a fixture of the land. It can't be moved off without the consent of everyone with an interest in that land and written notice to the assessor ahead of time, and once it is titled again it goes back to being personal property for financing.

Whether your home meets the foundation standard, or whether the county will accept the statement, is for the building official and the assessor to say, not me. What I can tell you is which loans each answer opens.

Which loans are open

Real property opens the most loans

FHA Title II, the FHA mortgage most people mean, wants the home and its site to be one real estate entity under state law, on a permanent foundation, with the hitch and running gear removed.

Fannie Mae, including its MH Advantage homes, wants the home and the land classified as real property, and the loan secured by both.

Freddie Mac, including its CHOICEHome standard, wants the home titled as real property and permanently affixed to a foundation.

USDA's guaranteed loan takes one real estate mortgage over the home and the site, on a permanent foundation. It is written mostly for new homes; an existing manufactured home qualifies only in a few narrow cases.

VA has two routes. A home permanently affixed to a lot the veteran owns or is buying, and treated as real property under state law, is financed like any other house. VA also guarantees a separate manufactured home loan for a home that is not permanently affixed.

FHA Title I is the agency programme built to lend on a home that keeps its vehicle title. It can lend on one that has become real property, too.

That is why the Idaho declaration matters. Without it, the routes left are the ones that lend on the home alone.

If you already own the land, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both let its value count toward your down payment, on their conditions.

Home-only loans

A home that keeps its title is financed on its own

A loan on the home alone, with no land in it, is called a chattel loan: the home is the security, as personal property. It is the usual route for a home in a community where the ground is leased, and for one that hasn't been declared real property. Owning the land doesn't rule it out, either. The CFPB found that many buyers who owned their land financed the home alone anyway.

Chattel loans commonly carry a higher rate and a shorter term than a mortgage on the home and land together, and the shorter term tends to make the payment higher. How long they run and what they cost are the numbers I leave off this page. They vary by lender, and the place for them is the estimate on your own loan.

Leased land narrows the real-property loans more than it closes them. Fannie Mae accepts a leased site only inside an approved condominium or planned-unit project, and Freddie Mac wants to approve a leasehold in writing first. FHA Title I sets rules for the lease on a site in a community. Whether FHA's Title II mortgage will take a leased lot in a community is something the sources I read disagree on, so I'd settle it on the specific lease rather than assume either way.

Down payment

What lenders commonly ask for down

On a home-only loan, lenders commonly ask for about 5–20% down. Some lenders that specialise in manufactured homes go lower for some buyers, and some ask for more when credit is thin.

On a loan that covers the home and the land as real property, the conventional and FHA programmes commonly start at about 3–5% down, and VA and USDA often ask for none. Land you already own can count toward it, as above.

Most of those figures come from national sources. Read them as where the conversation starts, not as a term I'm offering and not as a bar you have to clear. They move with the home, the land and the lender.

Mobile homes

A mobile home was built before June 15, 1976, and fewer loans reach it

"Mobile home" is what people call a factory-built home made before the federal manufactured home code took effect on June 15, 1976. The date that counts is when the home went into production, not when it was sold.

FHA calls a home built before that date ineligible for insured financing. Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's rules are written for homes built to the code, and Freddie Mac says a pre-1976 mobile home isn't a manufactured home under its definition at all. So the agency programmes on this page don't reach one.

That narrows the options. It doesn't end them. Older homes are usually financed home-only, through lenders that specialise in them, and at least one of those lends on some homes built before the cutoff. If yours is one, send me what you know about it and I'll tell you who is still in the conversation.

Homes built after the cutoff have other lines to meet. The programmes treat new and existing homes differently, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac take a single-wide only as a principal residence, and several programmes set a minimum floor area.