Take the MH Advantage Challenge – Can You Tell the Difference?

Most people wouldn't recognize today's factory-built homes. The manufactured housing industry has diversified and enhanced the models available so they can blend seamlessly into traditional neighborhoods of site-built homes, offering comparable amenities and curb appeal. At Fannie Mae, we're enhancing our mortgage financing options to keep pace with these important changes.

This trend toward modern designs is a smart way to meet demand from growing segments of buyers, including millennials, downsizing baby boomers, and first-time homebuyers. These buyers and others are looking to manufactured housing as an affordable option providing quality and value in a market where the supply of site-built housing is low and prices are high. Quite simply, manufactured housing is a key opportunity to address our growing affordable housing crisis.

That's why we introduced MH Advantage^™ mortgage, an affordable financing option that recognizes the similarity of many manufactured homes to traditional site-built homes by offering the same conventional mortgage financing – including down payments as low as 3%, lower interest rates than most traditional manufactured home loans, and cancellable mortgage insurance.

Homes that are eligible for MH Advantage have features that make them look more like traditional site-built homes including eaves and higher roof pitches, lower profile foundations, garages or carports, porches, dormers, upgraded interiors, and more.

These homes are now easily identified by a new MH Advantage "Mortgage Financing Notice" applied by participating manufacturers. This MH Advantage "sticker" makes it easy for retailers, shoppers, lenders, and others involved in the mortgage process to identify eligible homes when they’re bought, sold, or refinanced. It's something interested buyers should look for and ask about.

We believe MH Advantage is an innovation whose time has come, but we remain committed to traditional manufactured homes, manufactured housing communities, and their important role as sources of affordable housing. In fact, Fannie Mae provided more than $9 billion in financing for manufactured housing in the past two years. And we'll continue working with our partners to expand access to high-quality home rental and ownership opportunities in every market, every day.

Sarah Edelman
Director of Duty to Serve, Single-Family Mortgage Business

June 5, 2018