In three years I have refinanced my mobile home twice. After five years of making a mortgage payment to Vanderbilt, I refinanced with Taylor Bean and Whitaker. Five months later they filed for bankruptcy and sold my loan to Bank of America in the midst of the mortgage crisis. I paid Vanderbilt Mortgage $400 bi-weekly on an ARM with an interest rate of 8.5% for an $80,000 loan. When I bought my home at twenty two years of age these numbers meant nothing to me other than it seemed doable at the time. Later when I tried to get a grasp on the money I was spending, I made my first priority to refinance.
Refinancing a house is not the simple process you hear about on TV and a manufactured home can be twice as hard. For example, I started with a streamline refinance that became a full docs cash-out refinance which finally ended up becoming a consolidation loan with $5000 cash-out at closing. Due to the lowest appraisal of the four I have had, after thousands of dollars of improvements at my house, I ended up owing $3000 at closing. I changed homeowners insurance, because they wanted more coverage and that affected my car insurance. Also, I borrowed $3000 from my brother which had to be documented as a gift. Last, because my house was in my brothers name and his in mine and his name and both FHA loans, they said it was required that he also refinance. This turned out not to be true, but we still went thru with both since, by the time I was able to prove this, we had done all the work and appraisals. I made my first call on December 15, 2010 with Bank of America and on March 8, 2011 I closed my home with American Financial Resources.
If you plan to refinance any home, I would suggest that you learn the process completely. Not one of the fifty plus companies I have talked to agreed 100% on FHA guidelines and they all have their own specific rules with their company. Skip online applications and call them directly. They are going to ask all the questions again and you will receive phone calls from companies that don’t refinance mobile homes. If someone does call, stop them and ask the first question, “Do you refinance manufactured homes ?”. One thing you can do to make the process easier is to get your foundation certified as permanent. It involves very little, although they won’t tell you that. I basically dug around each footer and put two 80lb bags of cement in. You should call a FHA certified engineer and make sure first, because you will pay him about $300-$400 for this certification which you will have to send copies of to the mortgage companies. Make sure you keep it in a safe place with your other important documents.
Have them work the loan before the appraisal. Make sure they approve your credit, income, work history and all other red flags before setting up the appraisal. Mortgage companies rush you into the appraisal that cost you about $525 on mobile homes and once you get it, you’re committed to that loan. It is good for 30 days, so if the loan fails you rarely have time to start over without getting another. The appraiser might also cause you additional problems: low appraisal, challenge your foundation certificate, include remarks about the condition of the property, ect;.
If you find an online company be prepared to fax or scan and email documents. I keep all my mortgage files in a folder on the computer, because many times they ask for the same items over. Lenders expect a higher credit score on mobile homes also, so avoid extra inquiries and pay off or dispute what you can early.
Last get a copy of the appraisal and your credit report. You paid for it! Refinancing my home was a challenging reward both times when I signed those 100 plus sheets on that final day.
