Solano Real Estate Scene: Jim Porter
Article By: Jim Porter – October 24, 2025
Freddie and Fannie talk a good game about their mission to expand homeownership and making the American Dream more accessible and affordable, but this week I ran into the dumbest underwriting guideline ever that crushes affordability.
My clients found the perfect 10-acre property and the seller accepted their offer for $1 million. The plan was to put down $200,000 and obtain a new 30-year fixed-rate loan of $800,000 at a 6% rate. The 50-year-old couple are going to live in one house, and their 75-year-old parents are going to live in the other home on the property.
My 780 FICO score clients are easily approved for this loan but only two of the 100 loan sources I have will touch this property with a 10-foot pole because there are two manufactured homes on the parcel.
One of the homes is a 1,700-square-foot double-wide that was built in 1995 and planted on the property on a permanent foundation with a 433-A recorded in that same year. The second house is 2,200 square feet and 20 years old. The county gave the sellers written permission and permits to add this home as an accessory dwelling unit in 2005.
Each house has its own well and septic system. The county told me this week that the zoning rules changed in 2017 and now the second home – the ADU – is limited to only 1,200 square feet but that because this was totally legal and approved 20 years ago, they would issue a “burn down letter,” which means that if one or both of the homes were to burn down, the owners could replace the two homes at the same size.
FHA will allow two manufactured homes on one lot but the FHA maximum loan amount in this county is only $524,000. A local regional bank agreed to do the loan with 30% to 35% down at a rate around 7%, but this bank does not cooperate with mortgage brokers so now I cannot do the loan for my long-term clients. The rate is higher, and now my clients need to find an extra $100,000 to $150,000 for the down payment.
Everyone will do a loan on a stick-built home with a manufactured ADU on the lot but pretty much no one, including credit unions, will do a loan on a property that has two manufactured homes on the land. This makes no sense to me or anyone that I have asked.
I remember doing a loan on a 5-year-old large manufactured home a few years ago that had a small 50-year-old stick-built house on the property. The new 2,800 square foot triple-wide manufactured home became the main house and the old original 1,100 square foot ranch style home became the legal ADU. I got that loan through Fannie somehow, but nowadays if you want a great rate and good terms, fuhgeddaboudit if the property has a manufactured home for you and one for your grandma out back.
FYI folks, a 433-A is what is recorded when a manufactured home is converted, with permits, from personal property to real estate property. Once the 433-A is recorded and the house is attached on a permanent foundation, the home is no longer considered chattel, and the taxing authority changes from the California Department of Housing and Community Development to the county tax assessor and collector.
In summary, this rule makes it almost impossible for two generations to live in two manufactured homes on one parcel. It makes no sense because manufactured homes today are built with the same quality as a site-built home. It is not riskier to Fannie and Freddie, as two homes are better than one.
Jim Porter, NMLS No. 276412, is the branch manager of Solano Mortgage, NMLS No. 1515497, a division of American Pacific Mortgage Corporation, NMLS No. 1850, licensed in California by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation under the CRMLA / Equal Housing Opportunity. Jim can be reached at 707-449-4777.
