FHA and VA -- Max of 2 acres? (financing, property, guidelines)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Talking with a lender about the manufactured home we are trying to buy, and he told me that for FHA or VA financing on a mfg home, it can't be on more than 2 acres. Home we want is on 2.1 acres and he said we'd get turned down.
Definitely no acreage maximum for VA or FHA, just needs to be typical for the area and the appraisal must also have comps with similar acreage.
The 2 acre limit is the guideline of the lender you were talking to, they were passing it off as an FHA & VA guideline so you don't think lesser of their bank/company.
Hmmm. Very interesting. I've done a bunch of checking out both FHA and VA rules about manufactured homes and was sure I'd never seen anything about a limit on acreage size, but thought I could have missed something.
This fella specializes in doing mortgages on manufactured homes. Says so on his company profile, too. He also told me that our former broker had totally led us down the garden path because she certainly knew or should have known that FHA would never lend to us on a property above 2 acres. Said we'd wasted our money up to this point pursuing FHA with a 3.5% down.
Yup, so much misinformation out there that it's tough to know who to believe. Fortunately it is possible to still find the real information if you are good enough with search engine's.
Here is a thread about appraiser's discussing acreage limitation on FHA appraisals.
Gregory Boyd, an FHA appraiser in Hopland, CA, states:
FHA does not have any size limitations but appraisers and lenders are to be careful regarding excess land (land in excess of what is required to support the primary highest and best use.) The protocol for excess land can be found in the HUD Handbook 4150.2 at section 4-4. If there is excess land which exceeds what is typical for the market and it is readily marketable the appraiser is to describe it but not include it in the value. This would require the use of a hypothetical condition and a survey of the portion not valued. In my experience (and I do a lot of FHA appraisals with acreage) is that this almost never happens.
Thanks much -- this is such an excellent place to come for answers to those questions that puzzle buyers
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
