Financing a Mobile Home Park: What Actually Works

Financing an MHP is different from financing apartments, retail, or industrial. The lender pool is smaller, the underwriting is more specialized, and the wrong product can sink an otherwise good deal.

Here’s the working landscape.

Agency loans: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac MHC

The workhorse for stabilized parks at $1M and up. Non-recourse, long amortization, competitive pricing, the best long-term financing available for this asset class.

The qualifiers:

Fannie Mae MHC requires a minimum of 50 pad sites and a Quality Level 3, 4, or 5 community. The percentage of tenant-occupied homes (park-owned homes rented to residents) generally may not exceed 35%. Loan terms run 5 to 30 years; amortizations up to 30 years.

Freddie Mac MHC starts at $1 million, offers LTVs up to 80%, and has 5-, 7-, and 10-year terms with amortizations up to 30 years. Freddie generally expects the borrower to have at least two years of MHC operating experience and to currently own at least one other MHC.

That last point matters for first-time buyers. If this is your first park, Freddie Mac may not work for you directly. You can solve it by bringing in a minority partner with prior MHC experience, by running the deal through a bridge or local-bank execution first while you build the track record, or by routing it through Fannie which is somewhat more flexible on the experience question.

Both agencies require third-party reports: appraisal, Phase I, property condition assessment. Both require an ALTA survey at closing. Both run non-recourse with standard “bad act” carve-outs for fraud, misrepresentation, and bankruptcy.

For 2026, the FHFA set multifamily loan purchase caps at $88 billion per Enterprise, with at least 50% required to be mission-driven affordable housing. Manufactured housing community loans typically qualify as mission-driven, which means the agencies actively want this business.

Bridge debt: for value-add deals

If the park is below 85% occupancy, has heavy POH concentration, needs infrastructure work, or has a sponsor without prior MHC experience, the deal doesn’t pencil for agency on day one. That’s bridge territory.

Bridge lenders underwrite the business plan, not just the trailing income. They’ll finance the acquisition, hold back capital for improvements, release the holdback as work completes, and price the deal accordingly. Typical structure: 12–36 month term, interest-only, recourse, higher rate than agency.

The plan with bridge debt is always to stabilize the park and refinance into agency debt within two to three years. You should be modeling the exit refi the day you sign the bridge term sheet.

Local banks and credit unions

For smaller parks in the $500K to $5M range, a regional bank or credit union with a relationship to you can sometimes close faster and with less friction than agency. The trade-offs:

Typically recourse (personal guarantee)
20–25% down
5–7 year balloon terms
Faster underwriting than agency
The right bank already understands MHPs; the wrong one will spend 90 days asking what a “pad” is

The best local bank financings I see are where the buyer already has a banking relationship — depository accounts, lines of credit, prior commercial loans — at a regional bank that’s done a few park deals before.

Seller financing

Underrated and incredibly common in this asset class. A meaningful share of small-park deals close with seller-carried paper, especially when the seller is a mom-and-pop who’s been operating for twenty years and doesn’t want the full tax hit at closing.

A well-structured seller note can:

Reduce the buyer’s required down payment
Provide the seller an income stream they want
Defer the seller’s capital gains across multiple years
Close faster than a bank-only structure

Watch out for one thing: if you’re stacking seller financing behind agency debt, the agency lender will require the seller note to be on a long standby — often the full life of the senior loan. That’s negotiable with the seller but needs to be on the table up front.

What’s not on this list

SBA loans. Mobile home parks are explicitly excluded from SBA financing per SOP 50 10 8. If you’ve been quoted an SBA loan on an MHP acquisition, that quote is wrong. (RV parks and campgrounds are SBA-eligible — don’t conflate the two.)

How to pick

Three questions point most deals toward the right structure:

Is the park stabilized? (85%+ occupancy, professional management, clean POH ratio, no major infrastructure issues.) If yes, agency is the target. If no, bridge.

How big is the deal? Under $1M, you’re shopping conventional bank or seller financing. $1–5M, the broadest competition zone with agency available for stabilized deals. $5–10M+, agency dominates with CMBS as an alternative on stabilized institutional product.

What’s the sponsor profile? First-time buyer with strong financials and a co-sponsor with MHC experience: agency is possible. First-time buyer alone: probably bridge or local bank first, then refi to agency. Experienced operator with multiple parks: agency is the default.

The typical first-time deal

For most first-time buyers in the $1M–$5M deal range, the structure that actually closes looks like:

25–30% down
A senior loan (often local bank or bridge for the first transaction)
Sometimes a seller carryback covering part of the down payment
A two-to-three year plan to stabilize and refinance into agency debt

That’s not a glamorous structure, but it’s the one that closes. The buyers who insist on agency on their first deal, without a co-sponsor and with thin sponsor financials, usually don’t close.

What to do next

Send me the address and the rent roll. I’ll come back within a business day with a realistic financing picture: which lender category fits, likely terms, what your sponsor file looks like to a lender’s eye, and what the path to permanent debt looks like if you’re starting on bridge.

That conversation costs nothing and saves you from chasing the wrong lender for two months.

Amy Brown · NMLS #2310281 · NEXA Lending. Commercial financing available nationwide; residential licensure in MD and FL. Educational guidance only; not a commitment to lend. Terms, rates, and program availability subject to change.