01Financing
Six ways to pay for it.
Two of them are a mistake.
What a home costs you every month depends far more on how you finance it than on which one you pick. Here is how the two paths differ, and how to work out your own number.
Pre-qualify without touching your credit score.
Our pre-qualification is a soft credit check, and our in-house finance manager takes it from there. A+ credit, first-time buyer, past credit trouble, limited history, income that is hard to verify or an ITIN — let us see what we can do. Questions? Call (682) 703-2262.
02The six paths
Rates as of this quarter, plainly.
Ranges are what our buyers actually closed at in the last ninety days, not teaser rates. Your number depends on credit, term and how the home is titled.
Conventional
5% downFannie Mae's MH Advantage and Freddie's CHOICEHome both price manufactured homes at or near site-built rates when the home meets the eligibility criteria. Our CrossMod homes are built to that specification on purpose.
Owned land · permanent foundation · real-property title
FHA Title II
3.5% downThe most forgiving credit profile of any real-property option, and the lowest down payment. Requires an engineer's foundation certification, which we schedule as part of the set.
Owned land · permanent foundation · 400+ sq ft
VA
0% downNo down payment and no mortgage insurance. Fewer lenders write VA on manufactured homes, so the shortlist is short — we keep a current one.
Eligible service · owned land · permanent foundation
USDA Rural
0% downUSDA eligibility is drawn by tract rather than by town, and the map surprises people. Worth ten minutes with it before you assume you don't qualify — note that it applies to land you own, not a leased pad.
Eligible rural parcel · new home only · income limits
Chattel
5% downThe home is collateral, the land is not. Closes in two to three weeks instead of six, which genuinely matters if you are in a lease that ends. Costs roughly two points more for the life of the loan.
Leased pad · personal-property title
Cash / construction
—No lender, no appraisal and no rate to compare. Ask us for the deposit schedule in writing before you pay anything.
Any
03Run it yourself
Move the sliders. Watch the gap.
Put in the price you are working with, then switch between the two loan types with everything else held constant. That difference is the whole argument for buying the land.
What it actually costs a month
EstimateYou own the ground and the home sits on a permanent foundation, so it titles as real property. Conventional, FHA, VA and USDA all lend here.
Estimated monthly
$1,498/ mo
- Principal & interest
- $1,242
- Property tax
- $161
- Insurance
- $95
- Home + land
- $215,000
- Amount financed
- $193,500
- Interest over the term
- $253,693
- Total of payments
- $468,693
Illustrative only. Rates move, and your actual terms depend on credit, the community, and whether the home titles as real or personal property. We will put a real lender quote in front of you before you sign anything.
04Order of operations
Do these in this order and nothing goes wrong.
Almost every purchase that falls apart falls apart because somebody did step four before step one.
- 01
Land first, always
Before a lender, before a floor plan. Whether you own or lease decides which of the six paths above you are even eligible for, and it changes the monthly figure by hundreds of dollars. If you do not own land yet, the buyer's guide at /start-here walks through the three ways onto ground.
- 02
Pre-approval, not pre-qualification
A pre-qualification is a lender being polite. A pre-approval is underwriting having actually looked. Ask for the second one; it costs nothing and takes about four days.
- 03
Site check and cost-to-set
Access, utilities, setbacks, soil, permits. We produce a written number. This is the line item that surprises people, and it is the one nobody else will quote you up front.
- 04
Order and lock
Deposit holds a build slot. Colour and finish selections stay open until the build lock date, typically three weeks before the plant run.
- 05
Close at set, not at order
You do not start paying a mortgage on a home that is still a stack of lumber. Funding happens when the home is on its piers and the foundation certification is signed.
05Money questions
Asked and answered.
Real-property lending generally starts around 620, and FHA will go lower with compensating factors. Chattel lenders write down to about 575 at a price. If you are below 620 and can wait six months, the difference between fixing your score and not fixing it is usually larger than the difference between any two homes on this site.
No. We are not a licensed originator and we do not take a referral fee from the lenders on our list. We keep the list because a dealer who sends you to a lender that cannot close on a HUD-code home wastes six weeks of your life and one of ours.
Yes, and people do. It requires acquiring the land (or the community converting to resident ownership), installing a permanent foundation, and retiring the personal property title through your state's conversion process. It is paperwork, an engineer's certification and a refinance — not a rebuild.
On a prepared pad in one of our communities: $12,000–$19,000 for a double-section, including transport, crane-free set, marriage-line finish, anchoring, skirting and utility connections. On raw land, add site work — which can be anything from $8,000 to $60,000 depending on access, septic and power distance. This is exactly why we survey before you order.
Want a real number instead of an estimate?
Tell us the parcel or the community and we will put a lender quote and a written cost-to-set in front of you.