Buying a “trailer home” could cost you more.

We used to call them “trailer homes” or “mobile homes” but the more accurate phrase, one used in the NY Times is “manufactured homes.”  Simply defined they are factory-built structures that are transported to a leased or buyer-owned lot.  Unfortunately, as the Times reports, they

offer a realistic possibility of homeownership for many lower-income buyers. But financing options are limited and expensive, which has sparked calls for reform.

These homes cost less than half as much as the estimated $94-per-square-foot national average for new site-built housing, the report found. A new, single-section manufactured home sold for an average of $43,000 in the first half of 2014, excluding transport and siting costs.

According to the Times’ coverage of a report issued by the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau,

most owners of manufactured homes pay much higher loan rates. Loans for the purchase of these homes are concentrated among a handful of lenders, the largest of which are 21st Mortgage Corporation and Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance, both subsidiaries of Clayton Homes, a manufactured-housing provider and a division of Berkshire Hathaway.

Part of the difficulty financing a manufactured home arises from the fact that it located on a leased lot.  Think of obtaining a loan on a car.  That’s exactly the same with a manufactured home.  These loans are more expensive because the lender has a lien on something movable.  As the Times points out,

If they own the lot under the house, the property may be titled as real property, making it eligible for a mortgage.

Want to know more? the full article is here.

For your next commercial real estate transaction, house purchase, mortgage refinance, reverse mortgage, or home equity loan, contact us. We can help. Located in Fairfield, NJ, we are the title insurance agent that does it all for you.

For your next title order or

if you have questions about what you see here, contact

Stephen M. Flatow, Esq.

Vested Land Services LLC

165 Passaic Avenue, Suite 101

Fairfield, NJ 07004

Tel 973-808-6130 - Fax 973-227-0645

E-mail sflatow AT vested.com

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Cracking down on Illegal Mortgage Referrals - the first step

As a small family operated business we often run up against the big boys in the mortgage and real estate brokerage industries. Because of company tie-ins we are often shut out of the process and consumers then pay the price for shoddy services. An article from the New York Times about the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau shows that someone is looking out for the rights of consumers to shop around for services.

Last month, the bureau ordered RealtySouth, a major real estate company in Alabama, to pay a $500,000 penalty for failing to inform home buyers that they were under no obligation to use a title and closing service affiliate. RealtySouth consented to the terms of the order without admitting or denying the bureau’s findings.

Real estate companies are allowed to refer customers to affiliates like lenders and title services so long as they also provide a written disclosure that clearly explains that customers are not required to use the affiliate and have the right to shop around. In RealtySouth’s case, the firm’s printed purchase contracts explicitly directed buyers to its affiliate, TitleSouth, and buried the required disclosures in text about the benefits of its own services, according to the bureau.

What does that mean for the consumer? In our opinion the consumer is better served when there is competition for real estate related services. A service provider cannot have two masters. It is either the tied-in party or the consumer. Who would you choose?

Read the full article here.

For your next commercial real estate transaction, house purchase, mortgage refinance, reverse mortgage, or home equity loan, contact us. We can help. Located in Fairfield, NJ, we are the title insurance agent that does it all for you.

For your next title order or

if you have questions about what you see here, contact

Stephen M. Flatow, Esq.

Vested Land Services LLC

165 Passaic Avenue, Suite 101

Fairfield, NJ 07004

Tel 973-808-6130 - Fax 973-227-0645

E-mail sflatow AT vested.com

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