Financing floating homes 2019 ! How to create a strategy for success is changing! Floating home financing will cost more to borrow money to purchase a floating home, and lenders will be much more resistant to financing float repairs via an escrow hold back.  Let’s talk about floating home financing, and how I can help you create a strategy for success. Just what does an escrow holdback mean in terms of floating home financing in 2019? Let’s say you find the perfect floating home that meets your budget and your dream; you proceed to have the inspections performed as required by your lender and your Realtor. Oops! A float repair is indicated on the float (foundation) of your dream home, and when you get bids on the work you find out that the repair work is expensive. The seller says they don’t have the funds to pay for this repair, and neither do you…..and why would you? The house isn’t your yet, and even more of a problem, the lender tells you that they won’t make a mortgage on the house until the float is repaired. 

Now what?  It used to be (as recently as 2018) that the lender would agree to ‘hold back’ the funds from the seller’s proceeds in an escrow account to pay for this repair. New in 2019 will be that they will consider this hold back value on a case by case basis, so not all repairs will be approved for a holdback.

What can be done? The best case would be for the seller to have the float inspection done as part of listing it for sale. Then, if a repair is indicated, they can get bids on the work from two or three contractors, so you all have this info.  There is a strategy for making this happen and each floating home is different. It takes some experience to put together the critical information and work together with buyer and seller, lender and contractor, to bring together the willing parties to the sale. Unfortunately, even dreams have practical realities that have to be addressed and this is one of them.