October Research, LLC welcomed Teresa Payne, administrator for HUD’s Office of Manufactured Housing, Office of Housing, and Esther Yamashiro, housing program officer of the Santa Ana Homeownership Center, Federal Housing Administration (FHA), to discuss the benefits of manufactured housing.

“[Manufactured housing] is such a critical piece to the affordable housing crisis, and a potential keystone of all HUD’s housing programs,” Payne said.

Payne discussed how manufactured housing has increased over the decades, starting in 1976. To exhibit the demand for this type of home, she reviewed the production numbers for fiscal years 2021 and 2022. Despite the pandemic and related plant closures, the recent numbers continue to increase, with 2022 on track to surpass 2021’s production for manufactured housing.

She also highlighted the actions HUD took during the pandemic to support the production of manufactured housing, the agency’s oversight responsibilities, how new products and building styles can be used to revitalize urban neighborhoods, and the elements of a proposed rule about to be finalized.

Yamashiro provided information on what the FHA is doing to help promote affordable homeownership by providing loans for the purchase of manufactured homes.

“FHA is probably known most for its flexible qualifying guidance, and I think the most notable of that is the lower minimum FICO requirement, which is 580 for maximum financing,” she said. “That equates to a minimum down payment of only 3.5 percent. We allow gifts for 100 percent of the down payment and closing costs, and what that means is a borrower can purchase a home with zero of their own personal funds.”

Yamashiro highlighted FHA’s reverse mortgage offerings, disaster recovery mortgage program, build-on-own-land loans, and construction-to-permanent loans. She reviewed what information and documents are required to take advantage of FHA loan programs to finance manufactured homes.