Big news folks! The USDA 502 Pilot Direct Financing program has been approved for California and Ohio, one Cincinnati Ohio neighborhood is rehabilitating a section of their community with modular housing, and the New York Affordable Housing Agency is seeking $600,000 to replace their aging units with newer manufactured homes.

It’s Monday, December 5, 2016, and those are just some of last week’s interesting manufactured housing headlines. Grab your coffee, get comfortable … and let’s see what’s going in the world of prefabricated housing.

Call and ask about your USDA 502 financing options today

USDA 502 Financing for CA & OH

Thanks to the passage of the USDA 502 Pilot Direct Financing program, today’s hard-working Americans struggling to get by have a new option … USDA guaranteed home loans. Where available, these financing products offer a great  option for individuals looking to purchase a home in rural areas. Helping America’s very low-income households break the bondage of the renting cycle, the USDA 502 Pilot Direct loans are currently available in a limited number of states. The USDA Pilot 502 direct finance program introduced in California and Ohio are based upon the same principals but the implementation is adjusted to each state’s specific approved program. Starting with California and followed by Ohio, we will address the reported key features individually for each state, as they relate to their respective Pilot 502 Programs. 

USDA 502 Pilot Financing Approved for California –

USDA 502 Financing

California’s housing crisis has been well documented and conjures images of San Francisco and Silicon Valley, or Los Angeles and coastal communities. Conversations about the crisis often exclude rural California and manufactured housing communities. In California, at least 1 million people live in more than 5,000 registered manufactured home communities, or mobile home parks. Even more, Californians live in unregistered manufactured housing communities, in individual manufactured homes on private land or in American Indian Tribal communities. These homes represent over 4% of all housing across the state and are making a more concerted in rural areas. While the price of homes, lot and land vary widely across communities, manufactured homes make up a significant portion of California’s limited affordable housing stock. Good news for manufactured home buyers locating into land-lease communities.The California Office of USDA Rural Development announced that California will join previously approved New Hampshire and Vermont in entering into a two-year USDA 502 pilot program for financing energy efficient manufactured homes and modular housing sited in  land-lease communities. The program became effective 11-1-2016, according to a report by Washington, D.C. nonprofit, Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED). Per Alicia Sebastian, the Director of California Housing and Community Development Programs for Rural Housing, this pilot will allow low- and moderate-income home buyers to get USDA mortgages on residents of manufactured home communities owned by a non-profit, cooperative or tribal community. It is the first program of its kind for residents of manufactured home communities, where financing options are typically higher cost and shorter term than a traditional 30-year mortgage. For information about qualifying for USDA 502 loans, visit this link.

USDA 502 Pilot Financing Approved for Ohio –

USDA Financing Eligibility Areas

OHIO USDA 502 PILOT PROGRAM FOR EXISTING MANUFACTURED HOMES: According to the Barnesville, Ohio Enterprise, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development (USDA) has announced that Ohio is one of the states chosen to implement a 24-month pilot program to finance existing manufactured homes through its 502 direct homeownership program. The existing manufactured home pilot program combined with the agency’s historically low-interest rate of 2.85 percent for home mortgage should make the dream of homeownership a reality for many American families. Features of this direct finance program includes no down payment and long-term (30 years), fixed interest rate financing. This program applies only to homes built after January 1, 2006, and already be classified and taxed as real estate. Applicants may call your local USDA office at (740)-373-7113 to determine if you are eligible to purchase a home. Also, you can access rural eligibility requirements and or area income limits in your county by visiting the following link.

Modular Housing Helps Rehab Cincinnati Neighborhood –

The Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority, in partnership with the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation, is rehabilitating three historic vacant homes as well as putting six factory built homes, the first of their kind in Cincinnati, in the Peeples corner section of the neighborhood, according to the Cincinnati Business Courier. Renovation of the existing homes began on Tuesday and the first of the manufactured homes – known as “Unibilt” – was delivered. The port’s   REACH program – Rehab Across Cincinnati and Hamilton County – is investing $1.5 million in the site from the Hamilton County Land and Revitalization Corp; the Land Bank the port manages. The port razed an existing, blighted industrial property to clear a site on Morgan Street for the Unibilt Homes, which will be either 1400 or 1600 square feet with three bedroom and three bathrooms and a list price of between $163,000 and $174,000. The homes will be family friendly and marketed to people who want to live an urban, diverse neighborhood and value walkability and community. All of the homes – new modular and rehabbed – will be available in early next year. 

New York Seeks $600k Grant For New MHUs –

Affordable housing agency RUPCO is applying for grant funding of up to $600,000 to replace aging mobile homes with new manufactured homes in Ulster County, reports the Kingston, New York Daily Freeman. RUPCO is identifying is potential applicants with low-to-moderate incomes in need of home placement. The program, if funded by the state Office of Housing and Community Renewal, would allow the complete replacement of six owner-occupied homes on personally owned properties. Homeowners interested in replacing their existing, outdated manufactured home with energy-efficient new homes should contact Sally Dolan, by December 6, at sdolan@rupco.org or (845) 331-9860 to request a “letter of interest: Form applicants must own, occupy and have title to a manufactured home or mobile home and must own the land upon which the home is located; the deed must include the name of at least one household member. Homes in parks are ineligible. Properties must be up to date on taxes and applicants must meet income requirements. Priority will be given to mobile homes built prior to 1976, but homeowners with manufactured homes built after that date are also encouraged to apply.

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