WASHINGTON, DC–At the beginning of the month Fannie Mae launched a program for manufactured housing that is specifically tailored to New Hampshire, following state legislation that allows residents to take ownership of a portion of the land that their manufactured homes sits on.

It is a significant departure from how the GSE usually lends on manufacturing housing stock because the state law allows Fannie Mae to treat the housing that sits on these resident-owned communities as a home and not as chattel or personal property, Fannie Mae's Patrick McCarthy tells GlobeSt.com. “We can now lend on that home just like any other 30-year mortgage,” he says. The end result is that New New Hampshire's affordable housing stock will expand and ultimately there will be more paper for Fannie Mae's manufacturing housing securities.

Manufactured housing is part of the GSE's affordability mandate; the housing category is not part of the GSE's cap, thus allowing the GSEs to underwrite large loans such as the $1 billion recap of the manufactured housing assets belonging to the Denver-based Yes! Communities last year.