City of Arcata unveils mobile home mortgage assistance program

The City of Arcata introduced a mortgage assistance program for first time homeowners of Mobile Homes. 

“The way it works is that it picks up the gap between what people can afford with traditional financing and the house that they want to buy. So for mobile homes, they go to a primary lender, they get a pre-approved, then they come back to us and we’re able to pick up to 40% of the purchase price”, says Nick Brichta, Community Development Specialist. 

Despite being a third of the cost of traditional homes, mobile home units have much higher mortgage rates. And this program is for those on a limited income. 

“Yeah. So it’s restricted to people under 80% of both area and median income. And right now that’s around about $50,000 for a household of one. And it scales up depending on the household size. Then they also have to be first time homebuyers, which in our terms, that’s, within the past three years, they kind of own the home”, he says. 

In order to qualify you need to be at one of Arcata’s six mobile home parks and have not owned a home in the last three years. 

“We actually applied for a larger amount of this grant. And we were like a portion that was for traditional homes. but that was oversubscribed. So we were only awarded a smaller amount.  But I mean, it’s about $200,000 to be able to help a few people purchase a home. And I think it’s a good foot in the door for this funding source to be able to apply in future years for larger amounts of money and get bigger programs, because there’s been just like a massive response to this, you know”, Brichta says. 

To learn more you can email Nick Brichta at nbrichta@cityofarcata.org and find the application form here