Valle Vista in Santa Rosa: Nice land/home park, but hardly no lenders

Today, I received another call from a real estate agent with a buyer interested in Valle Vista in Santa Rosa. Valle Vista is a "land/home" community. It's an HOA, 100% manufactured homes, each with owned lot. All homeowners own their own home and lot, hence the term "land/home", vs. "home only".

The trouble with getting financing in Valle Vista is that most of the homes in this community are the original homes when the park was developed in the early 70's. "Pre-hud" homes is what they're called by people in the industry. I have a lender for pre-Hud mobiles from the early 70's, but they are a chattel lender, or "home only", and won't lend on anything with owned land. Furthermore, most of the older mobiles in this community do not have any recorded foundations (433's). There are some local credit unions that loan in Valle Vista, but they require a 433.

It seems ironic to most agents that I have a lender for the older pre-Hud mobiles in parks where you rent the lot, but the same lender won't loan on anything that comes with owned land. They are a niche lender, and they require the mobile home to be in a park on leased land.

The only way that a buyer can obtain financing in Valle Vista is to buy a post-Hud manufactured home with a 433 (recorded foundation). But due to the lot sizes in Valle Vista, which average 3200 sq feet per lot, there is a very short list of lenders. In fact, only one that I am sure of. This lender offers a 20-year loan which re-sets in five years. No 30-year fixed products for Valle Vista at this time, unfortunately. And this is very surprising to many buyers and agents, but due to the "turbulence" in the manufactured home lending arena, that's just the way it is at this time.