Permanent foundations for mobile homes: what lenders look for

What permanent means to a lender, not just a builder

HUD's Permanent Foundations Guide for Manufactured Housing sets the technical bar: durable materials, built on site instead of at the factory, and engineered to hold the home in place for good.

Engineers, lenders and appraisers all work from that same guide when they're deciding whether a given foundation counts. So a foundation can be well-built and still fall short of "permanent" in the way a loan application means it, if it wasn't built and documented to that specific standard.

The engineer's certification a lender actually asks for

What actually satisfies a lender is a professional engineer's certification, not a receipt for the concrete or a builder's word that the job was done right. HUD's guide calls for that certification to come from a professional engineer or a registered architect, specific to the site, stating plainly that the foundation meets the guide's requirements. Ask your lender to confirm that's still what its checklist wants before you start.

We pour the foundation to the engineer's plans. The certification comes from the engineer's office.

Why FHA and Fannie Mae both point to the same guide

FHA-backed loans on manufactured homes have required that certification on file before closing, tied back to HUD's guide as the technical standard. Fannie Mae's rules run in the same direction from the lending side.

For a lender to sell the loan to Fannie Mae, the home has to be attached to a permanent foundation system. It also has to comply with state and local rules for making that attachment permanent.

Does a permanent foundation change the title on the home?

Not by itself. Turning a manufactured home from personal property into real property is a separate legal step that state law controls, and Fannie Mae's own guidance describes it as complicated, since every state handles titling its own way.

A permanent foundation is usually part of what a state looks for before it allows that change. The paperwork, the surrendered title and the lender's sign-off go through your closing agent and your county, not through us.

Does a permanent foundation have to be a full slab?

No. HUD's guide recognizes more than one system, as long as it's built from durable, site-built materials and an engineer certifies it meets the standard.

The list runs from a full slab, to a perimeter foundation wall closer to what a crawl space uses on a house, to an engineered pier and footing system built to the guide's own loading tables. Our mobile home foundation guide walks through those everyday options in more depth.

A permanent foundation just holds all of them to a higher, documented bar than a standard setup needs to clear.

The concrete side of a permanent foundation

The engineer's plans and certification are a separate cost on top of the pour, and the pour itself varies a lot by system: an engineered pier and footing setup uses far less concrete than a slab or a perimeter wall.

Our guide to house foundation types covers how that compares with a foundation built for a site-built home instead of a manufactured one, and our home foundations page covers the concrete work itself.

Whether a lender is involved yet or not, telling us about the home and the site is a fine place to start.