Can you get a HELOC on a manufactured or mobile home?

What counts as manufactured housing

A manufactured home is built in a factory to the federal HUD code and transported to the site. A mobile home is the same thing built before June 1976, when the HUD code took effect. A modular home is also factory-built but to the same state and local building codes as a site-built house, and once it is permanently installed it is generally treated as real property.

The dividing line that matters to lenders is not how the home was built but how it is titled. A manufactured home can be registered as personal property — essentially titled like a vehicle through California’s Housing and Community Development department — or it can be converted to real property by recording an HCD form 433A once it is permanently affixed to land you own. Many owners never make the conversion.

Why it is excluded here

The line we place is secured by real property and takes a recorded lien against it. Housing titled as personal property cannot carry that lien in the ordinary way, and a home sitting on rented space in a park adds the ground-lease problem on top — the lender’s security would sit on land the borrower does not own and a lease that may expire first.

Rather than run those files through a process that will decline them, the product excludes the type outright. The eligible list is short and specific: single-family residence, townhome, planned unit development, condominium, duplex, 3–4 unit property, as a primary residence, second home, investment property.

Where manufactured-home owners actually go

• Chattel lenders write loans against manufactured homes titled as personal property. Rates are typically higher than mortgage rates and terms are shorter.
• FHA Title I covers manufactured homes and lots, including homes on leased sites meeting program requirements.
• Credit unions in California frequently lend on manufactured housing where national lenders will not, especially to existing members.
• Converting to real property. If the home is permanently affixed to land you own, recording an HCD 433A changes its legal character and opens conventional financing. It is a process involving the county and HCD, not a form you file alone.

If you own both a manufactured home and other real property — a rental, a second home — the equity in that other property may be a route, and that is a conversation worth having.

If you are not sure which you own

Check your title documents. Real property shows up as a grant deed recorded with the county recorder and appears on a county property tax bill. Personal property shows a certificate of title or registration through HCD, often with annual registration rather than property tax. If you hold an HCD registration, the home has not been converted.

A preliminary title report will settle it, and your county assessor can tell you how the home is currently assessed.