Financing considerations for your buyer

Your buyer's ability to borrow determines your buyer pool, and several of the factors are things you can influence or at least document. This is the chapter where sellers most often leave money on the table by treating financing as entirely the buyer's problem.

What lenders scrutinise on the home itself: the year built and whether it is post-HUD-Code; whether the HUD label is present and its number verifiable; whether the home is on a permanent foundation; whether the anchoring meets the current standard for the wind zone; the roof condition; and whether the title is clean and matches the serial numbers on the frame.

Several of those are things you can prepare. Locating the HUD label number, obtaining a letter of label verification if the plate is missing, having anchoring inspected and brought up to standard, and clearing every title defect all directly widen the pool of lenders who will write on your home. Each removes a reason for a loan to be declined.

If your home is on land you own and has never been converted to real property, it is worth understanding whether conversion is feasible before you list. A home eligible for mortgage financing reaches a substantially larger buyer pool than one that can only be bought with a chattel loan or cash. Conversion requirements vary by state and it is not always practical, but it is worth investigating.

Be realistic where the constraint is genuinely fixed. A pre-1976 home will be a cash or specialist-lender sale in most markets, and pricing and marketing should reflect that rather than hoping otherwise.