Something significant happened in Washington recently, and if you own a mobile home park, you need to understand what it means for your business.

On April 22, 2026, FHFA Director William Pulte and HUD Secretary Scott Turner held a joint press conference to announce that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are immediately beginning to accept two new credit scoring models: VantageScore and FICO 10T.

The key difference between these models and traditional FICO 8? They count rental payment history and utility payments toward a borrower’s creditworthiness.

That sounds like a mortgage industry policy change. For manufactured housing operators, it’s a potential game changer — and here’s why it matters to your business directly.

The Financing Problem That’s Been Killing MHP Occupancy

If you’ve operated a mobile home park for any length of time, you’ve run into this situation: you find a great prospective resident. They’re employed, they’ve been paying rent reliably for years, they want to move into your community and buy a home. Then they get rejected by the chattel lender because their FICO 8 score is 589.

Why is their score 589? Because FICO 8 — the model that 99% of lenders used until now — doesn’t count rent payments. At all. A manufactured home resident who has paid lot rent and home rent perfectly for ten years has exactly zero credit history from those payments under the old model.

This is not a hypothetical edge case. An estimated 20.6 million Americans live in manufactured or mobile homes. The majority of them are renters or chattel borrowers who have spent years building payment history that the financial system was simply ignoring.

The result: a pool of would-be homebuyers who look risky on paper but are actually creditworthy people stuck in a broken system.

What Changed on April 22, 2026

Under the new FHFA framework, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will accept loan applications underwritten with VantageScore or FICO 10T. Both models factor in:

• Rental payment history
• Utility payment history (VantageScore includes this now; FICO 10T is in adoption phase)

This means a prospective manufactured home buyer who has paid lot rent on time for three years now gets credit for that history. Their score may look materially different — and better — under the new models.

FHFA Director Pulte put it plainly: “Effective immediately, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are accepting new, modern credit scores that give American homebuyers the credit they deserve for paying their rent. If you pay on time, you’re more likely to pay your mortgage on time.”

Cody Pearce, co-CEO of Triad Financial Services — one of the top chattel lenders in the manufactured housing space — endorsed the change: “For too long, responsible consumers who consistently pay their rent and utilities on time have been overlooked by traditional scoring systems. This change is a meaningful step toward expanding access to homeownership in a responsible way.”

What This Means for Mobile Home Park Operators

This policy change doesn’t instantly solve the chattel financing problem — 76% of manufactured homes are still titled as personal property, not real estate, and won’t qualify for conventional Fannie/Freddie mortgages regardless of credit score. But it creates real openings in a few specific ways:

A Larger Pool of Qualified Buyers

For homes that DO qualify for federally backed financing (multi-section homes on permanent foundations with real property titling), the new credit models could expand the buyer pool meaningfully. Some prospective residents who were turned away under FICO 8 may now qualify.

A Marketing Angle That Differentiates Your Community

Very few MHP operators know this change happened, let alone how to communicate it to prospective residents. If you’re out ahead of this — “our preferred lender uses credit scoring that counts your rent history” — you stand out. For residents who have been told no by lenders before, this message can be compelling.

A Signal of What’s Coming for Chattel Lending

This ruling is specifically for federally backed mortgages, not chattel loans. But the direction is clear: federal housing policy is moving toward recognizing the creditworthiness of manufactured housing residents. The next step — chattel loan reform, Fannie/Freddie MH Advantage expansion — is probably not far behind.

What Operators Should Do Right Now

Step 1: Brief your preferred lender. Contact whoever you use for resident financing — 21st Mortgage, Triad Financial, or a regional chattel lender — and ask specifically: are you incorporating VantageScore or FICO 10T into your underwriting? If they’re not yet, track when they plan to.

Step 2: Update your marketing for prospective residents. Add a simple line to your “how to apply” materials: “We work with lenders who use modern credit scoring that includes your rent payment history.” It’s accurate, it’s differentiated, and it speaks directly to a pain point that keeps people from even applying.

Step 3: Track applicant scores under both models. For residents who get a conventional FICO 8 pull and are borderline, ask your lender to also run a VantageScore. The difference can be significant. You may be able to approve residents you’d otherwise have to turn away.

Step 4: Consider owner financing for the gap population. Even with improved credit scoring, there will still be residents who don’t qualify for institutional chattel lending. Owner financing — where you sell a home on contract directly to the resident — fills this gap and creates an additional income stream alongside lot rent. Consult with a real estate attorney in your state on the proper structure.

The Bigger Picture

The manufactured housing industry is quietly having a moment. Lender interest has grown dramatically — one national commercial mortgage broker reports a 170% increase in MH transactions over the past five years. The MHI Congress and Expo in Las Vegas this April drew 1,500+ professionals, a 59% increase from 2019. New credit score models are being adopted. Federal housing officials are publicly prioritizing manufactured housing affordability.

This is not a story about charity or policy posturing. It’s about math: 103,314 manufactured homes shipped in 2024, up 161% from 2014. With stick-built home prices up significantly for five consecutive years, the affordability gap that makes manufactured housing attractive keeps widening.

For park operators, the opportunity is straightforward: understand the financing landscape, stay ahead of policy changes, and use every available tool to put qualified residents in your vacant lots. The operators who do this systematically will widen the gap between themselves and those who don’t.

For a complete due diligence system used on 50+ acquisitions, check out the MHP Due Diligence Playbook.

Andrew Keel is the founder of Keel Team, a manufactured housing community investment firm. He writes about the practical realities of buying, operating, and scaling mobile home park portfolios.