The quick read: A stabilized manufactured housing community refinances through a Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae agency loan, a CMBS conduit, or a bank or credit union, and every one of them re-tests the community before sizing proceeds: occupancy history, the park-owned-home share, pad density, who owns the water and sewer systems, operator experience, and current third-party appraisal and engineering reports. Freddie Mac's Optigo Manufactured Housing Community loan and Fannie Mae's Manufactured Housing Communities term sheet (2020) both cap conventional leverage at 80% loan-to-value with a 1.25x minimum debt coverage ratio, the same grid whether the loan is closing a purchase or a refinance, and a bank or a CMBS conduit can still beat agency execution on a community an agency program will not take.
Is refinancing a manufactured housing community the same as refinancing a manufactured home?
No, refinancing a manufactured housing community is a commercial real estate loan secured by the land, the roads, the utility systems and the pads of the community as a whole, while refinancing a single manufactured home is a separate consumer or chattel transaction governed by HUD-code and Title I or Title II mortgage rules.
The two products share a name and nothing else: a community refinance is underwritten on the property's net operating income, occupancy and sponsor experience, not on one homeowner's credit file.
That distinction matters here because a search on this topic mixes single-family manufactured-home mortgage pages with the multifamily community term sheet, and the rules do not transfer between them. This guide covers only the community-level loan — the land, the common infrastructure and the pads a borrower owns and leases to residents or operates as a rental community. A community still converting park-owned rental homes to resident ownership, or still mid-renovation, usually finances through a bridge loan first; see how do you finance a value-add mobile home park for that stage, and come back here once the community is stabilized and ready to refinance that bridge loan out. For the product mechanics of the permanent loan itself, see the manufactured housing community loan overview, and for how the same lender types price a purchase instead of a refinance, see manufactured housing community loans compared.
What do Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac test before refinancing a stabilized manufactured housing community?
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both re-underwrite a manufactured housing community at refinance against six tests: trailing occupancy and rent-collection history, the share of homes the community itself owns and rents out, pad density, whether the water, sewer and road systems are public utilities or privately maintained, the sponsor's operating experience, and current third-party appraisal, engineering and environmental reports.
Passing the acquisition-era underwriting once does not carry forward; the file is rebuilt from the community's current performance.
Park-owned-home cap (Freddie Mac): homes owned by a borrower affiliate or third-party investor cannot exceed 25% of homes in aggregate, per Freddie Mac's Optigo Manufactured Housing Community product sheet (4/26).
Park-owned-home cap (Fannie Mae): the percentage of tenant-occupied, park-owned homes generally may not exceed 25%, per Fannie Mae's Manufactured Housing Communities term sheet (2020).
Density cap (Fannie Mae): generally no more than 12 manufactured homes per acre for an existing community and 7 per acre for a new one; Freddie Mac's product sheet does not publish a density ceiling.
Minimum pad sites: five for Freddie Mac's Optigo MHC loan; 50 for Fannie Mae's program, which also requires the community to be a Quality Level 3, 4 or 5 property with at least one Key Principal experienced in operating an MHC.
Infrastructure: Freddie Mac allows private wells and septic systems 'with considerations' rather than requiring public utility connections, and prefers homes that conform to the Federal Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974 (HUD Code Standards).
Fannie Mae separately states that financing is available for loans secured by government-, nonprofit-, and resident-owned manufactured housing communities, and that it is expanding financing opportunities for MHCs that offer protections to homeowners who lease their lots, per its Duty to Serve manufactured housing page.
How does refinance leverage compare across lender types for a manufactured housing community?
Refinance leverage on a manufactured housing community runs from an 80% loan-to-value, 1.25x debt-coverage-ratio ceiling on the two agency programs down to a deal-specific number on a CMBS conduit or a bank, because only Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae publish a dated leverage grid; conduits and banks price every community on its own file.
Compare the four lender types on the same four lines before picking one.
Table: Manufactured housing community refinance terms by lender type
| Lender type | Refinance leverage | Recourse | Prepayment | Assumability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Freddie Mac Optigo MHC (agency) | Up to 80% LTV / 1.25x DCR on a 7-year-or-longer amortizing or partial interest-only loan; 65%-70% LTV on full-term interest-only | Non-recourse except standard carve-outs | Yield maintenance until securitized, then a 2-year lock-out and defeasance, with no prepayment premium in the final 90 days, per Freddie Mac's Fixed-Rate Loan term sheet | Reviewed against the new sponsor's experience, net worth, liquidity and cash equity (generally no more than 70%-80% LTV), per Freddie Mac's approach to loan assumption requests |
| Fannie Mae MHC (agency) | Up to 80% LTV / 1.25x DSCR, per its 2020 term sheet | Non-recourse except standard carve-outs | Yield maintenance for fixed-rate loans; graduated prepayment for variable-rate loans | Typically assumable, subject to review and approval of the new borrower's financial capacity and experience |
| CMBS conduit | Set loan by loan against appraised value and trailing income; no published grid | Securitized, with recourse carve-outs set in the loan documents | Defeasance or yield maintenance set in the loan agreement; ask the conduit lender its lock-out period | Ask the servicer; conduit assumption is a case-by-case servicing decision |
| Bank / credit union | Internal policy set against the 85% supervisory loan-to-value limit for improved property (12 CFR part 34), which allows loan-by-loan exceptions; ask for the lender's own refinance limit | Often full or partial recourse | Set in the bank's own note; ask before signing a term sheet | A relationship decision at the bank's discretion, not a published policy |
Only the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae rows carry a dated, published figure; the CMBS and bank rows describe what to ask, because no dated public source states a loan-type leverage, recourse, prepayment or assumption figure for either lender type on a manufactured housing community. The non-recourse column is the clearest agency advantage on this table, and the yield maintenance and defeasance prepayment structure is the trade-off most borrowers underweight until they try to sell or refinance early.
Does refinance leverage differ from acquisition leverage on a manufactured housing community?
Published agency leverage does not change by transaction purpose: Freddie Mac's Optigo Manufactured Housing Community product sheet and Fannie Mae's Manufactured Housing Communities term sheet (2020) apply the identical loan-to-value and debt coverage ratio grid whether the loan is funding a purchase or a refinance, so the percentage itself is not the lever that moves between the two.
What changes is the value that percentage multiplies.
A refinance sizes against the community's current appraised value and trailing operating history, not the contract purchase price and the day-one pro forma an acquisition loan uses. A community that stabilized occupancy, converted park-owned homes to resident ownership, or pushed lot rent toward market since purchase can refinance into more loan dollars at the same 80% ceiling, because the appraised value grew; a community whose performance slipped can see proceeds fall even though the published percentage never moved. The one purpose-specific clause in Freddie Mac's grid is its Refinance Test: no Refinance Test is necessary if the loan carries an amortizing debt coverage ratio of 1.40x or greater and a loan-to-value ratio of 60% or less, per Freddie Mac's product sheet — a test of whether the loan can refinance itself at maturity, not a rule about today's refinance transaction.
When does a bank or credit union beat agency or CMBS execution on a refinance?
A bank or credit union beats agency or CMBS execution when the community cannot clear an agency program's eligibility tests — a park-owned-home share above the cap, a pad count below the agency minimum, an unresolved private-utility issue, or an operator without the required experience.
That is because a portfolio lender underwrites its own relationship and policy rather than a published national grid. Ask the bank directly what it needs instead of assuming the agency tests apply to it too.
Federal supervisory guidance sets an 85% supervisory loan-to-value limit for a bank's internal policy on improved property, above both agencies' 80%, according to the appendix to 12 CFR part 34, subpart D — but that is a supervisory limit, not a hard cap or a typical offer, and the guidelines allow loan-by-loan exceptions, with commercial and multifamily exceptions held within 30% of a bank's total capital. Most banks price a manufactured housing community refinance well under it with a local or regional sponsor requirement and a personal guaranty. A bank is also the lender most likely to refinance a community still converting park-owned homes to resident ownership, since that transition is exactly the story a relationship lender underwrites and a published agency or conduit grid does not.
What does an illustrative manufactured housing community refinance look like at the agency ceiling?
An illustrative refinance shows how the published agency grid actually sizes a loan once a current appraised value and a trailing net operating income exist, with every dollar figure below rounded and labeled illustrative rather than pulled from an actual file. Run both the loan-to-value and debt-coverage-ratio tests and take whichever produces the smaller loan.
Illustrative (our arithmetic): an appraised value of $10,000,000 at Freddie Mac's 80% ceiling caps proceeds at $8,000,000.
Illustrative (our arithmetic): trailing net operating income of $880,000 at a 1.25x minimum debt coverage ratio and an illustrative 6.00% debt constant caps proceeds at about $11,730,000, so in this example the 80% loan-to-value test, not the coverage test, sets the loan at $8,000,000.
Illustrative (our arithmetic): refinancing from an original $6,500,000 balance into an $8,000,000 loan releases roughly $1,500,000 of cash out, before escrows, any prepayment cost on the loan being retired, and new origination fees. For the general mechanics of pulling cash out at refinance, see our cash-out refinance guide.
How do you get lenders competing for a manufactured housing community refinance?
You get lenders competing for a manufactured housing community refinance by submitting one complete file to a brokerage that screens it against agency, bank and CMBS programs at once, rather than approaching each lender type separately and losing weeks between declines.
That file covers trailing occupancy and rent-collection history, the park-owned-home percentage, infrastructure ownership and condition, and a current appraisal or broker opinion of value.
YieldStack is a commercial mortgage brokerage, not a lender. The intake is a 5-minute submit, matched against 20,000+ loan programs, with a target of a median offer in under an hour, from an institutional lender. It costs Zero upfront to submit a deal and review offers; YieldStack's broker fee is 0.50–1.00% of the loan amount and is paid only at closing. Every credit decision is made by the lender; YieldStack arranges the introductions and negotiates on the borrower's side, and no loan, rate, or closing is guaranteed.
Submit your manufactured housing community refinance for lender review
The bottom line
Refinancing a stabilized manufactured housing community runs through the same two agency programs, a CMBS conduit, or a bank or credit union, and all of them re-test occupancy, the park-owned-home share, density, infrastructure ownership and operator experience before sizing proceeds. Freddie Mac's Optigo MHC loan and Fannie Mae's Manufactured Housing Communities term sheet (2020) both cap conventional leverage at 80% loan-to-value and a 1.25x debt coverage ratio, the same grid for a purchase or a refinance; what moves at refinance is the appraised value and operating history the percentage multiplies, not the percentage itself. A bank beats both when the community cannot clear an agency eligibility test, and a CMBS conduit prices whatever file it can securitize. Compare all three before choosing.