Custom Modular Home Builders › Modular Home Financing

Financing Your Modular Home

With Turnkey Services From Yates Homes

Buying a new home, whether it be a modular home or a more traditional “stick-built” home, requires a lot of effort, and it is important to do your homework as thoroughly as possible to ensure the process goes as smoothly as possible. At Yates Homes, we strive to make the process as easy as possible, and we go out of our way to help guide you through it. Below, you will find key information regarding the home financing process: the Yates Homes guide to financing.

1. Get Your Finances in Order

Your specific financial situation will dictate how much money you can mortgage as well as how much money you will have for a down payment, fees, moving expenses, and more. It is absolutely critical for a prospective homeowner to assess their monthly income and expenses carefully to determine how much you can afford to spend on your new modular home.

While not all states require you to seek pre-approval from your lender, it is an excellent idea to get your pre-approval documents in order even if you’re not required to do so. Having pre-approval can be used as leverage when making a bid on a property, and it gives you a noticeable advantage over those who do not have a letter of prequalification.

Be sure to ask us about our preferred lenders if you require: we can provide a list for you to select from. We also handle your permitting and other legwork with the county to make the process as easy as possible.

Pre-Approval and Pre-Qualification

It is important to understand the distinction between preapproval and prequalification when it comes to securing a home loan.

Pre-qualification is achieved by submitting general information about yourself and your financial situation to your lender. Based on that information, your lender will issue a pre-qualification loan amount (which is not guaranteed) to help you get an idea of what you’re going to be able to afford. It is important not to mistake pre-qualification for a letter of approval for a specific loan amount.

With pre-approval, you submit more detailed information to your lender—including W-2s, bank statements, and pay stubs—and pay for a credit report. Once your lender reviews your credit report, they will choose to provide you with a specific interest rate for your loan in addition to a truth-in-lending statement. This statement outlines the exact cost of your loan and exactly what would be required to close the purchase. With pre-approval, you know exactly what your lender is going to do for you, and you can rest assured that your loan will be ready when the time comes.

2. Choose Your Location

The size, shape, topography, and utility considerations surrounding your property are all very important to consider. Yates Homes is capable of helping you find land in Pittsylvania County, VA, but we recommend talking with a realtor to find just the right property in the location you want. If your property will need site improvements, including land preparation, clearing, road cutting, paving, well and septic, foundation work, etc.: Yates Homes can handle it all as a Class A Contractor, saving you time, hassle, and money.

Zoning

We encourage you to check with your local authorities—be it at the city, county, and/or state level—to find out what zoning ordinances will apply to any property you’re considering and determine whether you can build the type of home you want there before committing to buy.

Easements

If you must drive across an adjoining parcel to access your land, you will need to obtain an easement. We recommend you find out who maintains the roads and what your prorata share might cost for upkeep. Also try to determine what rights your neighbors will have to cross your land and whether or not your boundaries are clearly marked. Obtaining title insurance will disclose easements and restrictive covenants or conditions. You may even want to order a survey of the land.

Utilities

All of your new home’s utilities must be considered: public sewer or septic system? public water or well? Is there a local electricity provider? How high is the water table? Is the ground mostly rock? Are there communications services providers in the area for telephone, TV, Internet, etc.? It is essential to have a plan for all of your utilities before you proceed.

Appraisal

It is advised that you obtain an independent appraisal on a property before you agree on a price with the seller, especially if you’re paying cash. If you are financing the land purchase through a lender, the lender will require an appraisal before giving approval.

3. Select Your Floor Plan and Personalize It

Once you have considered all the variables in terms of financing, property concerns, etc., you should visit and tour our model homes and meet with our expert consultants to determine the ideal floor plan for you and your property in addition to the options and customization you can afford. At this point, we will provide you with an estimate that will reflect the approximate cost of your new home.

Deposit, Property Inspection, & Secured Construction Quotes

After you have established the location where we will build your new modular home and you make a deposit, a property inspection is performed to determine how much land improvement work may be required to secure firm construction bids. Once this part of the process is out of the way, we will be able to provide you with a final quote with actual pricing for your modular home.

4. Construction

After you finalize your floor plan, style, and options and receive loan approval, we submit the plans for your new modular home to our factory. While the factory is producing the sections of your new home, we will work to prepare the land for construction, pour footers, and build your foundation or basement walls. Homes with basements generally have these floors poured after the house is delivered.

After your modular home is constructed on its foundation, we complete all of the exterior siding and/or brick work, hook up your utilities and plumbing, and then complete the needed work on your driveway and the sidewalk leading to your front porch. The last steps are to grade your yard, plant grass, and complete your landscaping.

5. Closing of Contract

Once your new modular home is completed, we secure all final inspections to ensure your new home receives a Certificate of Occupancy. Once this certificate is received, we consider your contract closed, and you are ready to move into your new custom modular home!

Get Pre-Qualified For a Modular Home Loan

If you’re ready to start the financing process, just fill out the short form below and one of our financing specialists will be in touch as soon as possible. Fields marked with an asterisk * are required.