When my husband and I purchased our manufactured home, we had not sold our previous home yet. But because of my husbands job situation we had to move across state and move quickly. So when we purchased our manufactured home it was with the expectation of refinancing the manufactured home once our other home sold.
We knew we would probably take a loss by buying the manufactured home without a down payment, but we had to save money to be able to keep paying the mortgage on the home waiting for sale. Once the home sold we would have enough equity left to almost payoff the manufactured home.
We were lucky to have our home across state sell relatively quick. After all the closing costs and realtor costs we did not have quite as much as we had hoped, but at least we were not making the $2000 a month in mortgage payments any more. Now we could refinance our manufactured home.
Refinancing the manufactured home was much like refinancing a conventional home loan.
The manufactured home refinance was fairly simple. We had good credit so everything was pretty much cut a dried. We decided to put 50% down from what was left on our existing manufactured home loan and refinance the remainder. This would drop our payments down considerably and we could shorten the length of the loan. We were also able to get a lower interest rate at this time.
As with the original manufactured home loan there was closing cost again. Any refinance is treated just like a first time finance. For us we were able to cover the closing costs, but for those that are short on cash the closing costs can be added into the total loan package. We have had to do this on other homes that we had purchased prior and it had worked out well for us.
After the refinancing, our payments are so low. With the lot rent and the loan payment we are left with fewer than five hundred a month in payments. This is cheaper than if we wanted to rent a place to live in.
With the current housing conditions it may be tougher to refinance a manufactured home, but it is still probably doable. Just do some searching for manufactured home refinancing in your area or on the internet and I am sure you will be able to find someone willing to work with you.