Manufactured / alternative housing financing and considerations

[Maribel Manibo]

I'm looking to container housing / log cabin housing (kit) as STR/MTR/LTR and am curious how the process, permitting, zoning and financing differs from "normal" stickbuilt construction. What department(s) do I contact in the city/county? Is the land financing separate or can they be including with the house purchase & delivery. Is this a construction loan? Can I use conventional? Could I buy a property that has a lot of acreage and build / add a few of these or would I have to parcel? If it is rural land, can USDA be used?

[Cory J Thornton]

@Maribel Manibo - Ill try to answer as many of these as I can. I love the container home idea. This is becoming more of a thing, so eventually it will be easier to get the approval during planning /  inspection. There is an entire container home community being built in Raleigh by a group called Nomad. The first NC planned community of 3D printed homes is also about to be developed near Littleton ... the world is slowly embracing non typical construction. 

- First, speaking from experience, be careful with log cabins. If the materials used in construction make it difficult to find similar comparison properties, appraisers may not give them the proper value or banks may refuse to lend on them at all. If you are going with the cabin rout, just be sure you talk to a lender and they know the materials before issuing a letter. I imagine the same thing may be true for container housing. One way to get around the oddity factor is to break with traditional financing and pursue commercial loan options (right now the terms are better on the commercial side anyways). 

- If there is a plan to develop a parcel, then you should be able to get a construction loan to fund the land and construction. When the construction has been finished you would then refinance the property onto another, longer term, debt option. 

- How many dwellings fit on how many acres is driven by zoning and improved road access. This will change by town, and county. If you are looking for rural and multiple acres, then the short answer is yes, you should be able to put multiple dwellings. There will be limitations based on zoning and the land may limit you based on how many good build sites there are. 

Best of luck on your learning and investing journey. Feel free to give me a shout if there is anything I can do to help.