Rocket Mortgage Introduces Conventional Home Financing Program, “Getting Folks into Manufactured Homes”
Source: MPA (Mortgage Professionals America) – Mike Fawaz has been tapped as executive VP, leading the arm of Rocket Mortgage that serves mortgage brokers and correspondent lenders.
In what might be seen as a sign of the times in light of a softened single-family market, Fawaz has announced that Rocket Mortgage has introduced a conventional loan option for borrowers in purchasing or refinancing a manufactured home.
Manufactured homes are built at indoor facilities in accordance with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)s Manufactured Home Standards, company officials noted in describing the new loan offering similarity to a loan for a traditional single-family home. Once the home arrives on site and is placed on a permanent foundation, it becomes real property and is able to be financed through a mortgage.
This housing option offers a cost-effective choice for homebuyers as evidenced by a recent report from the Manufactured Housing Institute showing manufactured homes are about one-third of the cost, on average, of a site-built home. The Insitute also stated that 22 million Americans currently live in manufactured homes and this building type accounts for 9% of new home construction, company officials noted.
In a prepared statement, Rocket Mortgage CEO Bob Waters explained what prompted the offering: “After revolutionizing the home loan experience for traditional site-built homes, we are proud to bring the technology and expert guidance Rocket is known for to those who are purchasing manufactured homes. It’s our hope that, through this new option, more Americans can realize their dream of homeownership.”
“The times, they are a-changing”
Fawaz echoed the sentiment: “In an effort to bring opportunity to the broker community and bring product to the broker community, one of those products was manufactured homes. There’s a need out there, and our brokers, know where the market is and know that we need to provide our brokers’ optionality. It was important for us to give that product because we want to make sure we deliver to our brokers, especially in times when the market is a little challenging.”
In his 12 years in the business Fawaz hadn’t envisioned the manufactured home’s option, he acknowledged: “It was never a product that we never thought about rolling out.” ‘But the times, they are a-changin’
