Can You Finance a Modular Home Like a Regular House? Meet CMHC Prefab Plus
One of the first questions people ask us about a factory-built home is not about floor plans or finishes. It is this: “Can I even get a normal mortgage for one of these?”
It is a fair question, and for years the honest answer had some asterisks attached. That changed in 2026. Canada’s national housing agency, CMHC, rolled out a mortgage loan insurance product built specifically for prefabricated, modular and manufactured homes. It is called Prefab Plus, and it puts factory-built homes on much firmer financing footing – the same insured-mortgage system most Canadians already use to buy a house. Here is what it actually means, and how it fits a Sunshine Coast build.
What CMHC Prefab Plus is, in simple terms
When you buy a home in Canada with less than 20% down, your lender almost always requires mortgage loan insurance. That insurance is what makes low-down-payment mortgages possible. For a long time, the standard insured-mortgage path was written with site-built homes in mind, which left modular buyers navigating around the edges.
Prefab Plus is CMHC’s answer to that. It is mortgage loan insurance designed around how a factory-built home actually comes together – ordered, built off-site, delivered, and set on a foundation. In other words, the financing finally matches the way the home gets built.
The headline: as little as 5% down
Under Prefab Plus, an owner-occupied home of one or two units can be financed up to 95% of the lending value. In practice that means a minimum down payment of 5% on the first $500,000 of value and 10% on the portion above that, the same structure that applies to a regular insured purchase. The maximum property value sits below $1.5 million, and standard amortization runs to 25 years.
The takeaway: a modular home is no longer a financing oddity. If you qualify for an insured mortgage on a conventional house, the same kind of math is now available for a factory-built one.
How the payments actually line up
Here is where the financing meets how a build actually works. Paying for an Eco Fab home is refreshingly simple: a 25% deposit confirms your order and books your home into the build schedule, and the remaining balance is due one week before completion – right before your home is delivered and set. That is it. No drip of payments through the build, and no large sum sitting at risk for months.
You might wonder how that squares with a 5% mortgage down payment. The two work together: your 5% is your own equity in the purchase, while the deposit and the balance are largely funded by your mortgage as it advances. Prefab Plus can release those funds in stages as you hit milestones rather than in one lump sum:
- An early advance for land acquisition and site preparation – excavation, foundation, and septic or well work.
- An advance as your home is delivered and ready to be installed.
- Further advances for post-installation and finishing.
In plain terms, the early draws help you get the lot ready and place your deposit, and the delivery draw lines up with the balance that is due just before your home is set. The money is released at roughly the same moments you actually need to pay for things, so you are not bridging a big gap out of pocket. (Exactly how your draws are structured is set with your lender – worth confirming early.)
Why this fits a Coast lot especially well
A couple of the eligibility details read like they were written for our region. To qualify, the home has to be suitable for full-time, year-round occupancy and the property needs year-round vehicular access – and CMHC specifically notes that access by a ferry counts for ferry access properties. For buyers on the Coast and the Gulf Islands, that is a meaningful confirmation, not a roadblock.
There is also a clean distinction worth knowing. A prefabricated home that is permanently affixed to the land on a permanent foundation is financed as a traditional mortgage. A home that stays movable and is not permanently affixed falls under CMHC’s chattel financing instead. The homes we supply are set on permanent foundations, which keeps you in the traditional-mortgage lane that most buyers want.
One more bonus for an efficient build: CMHC’s Eco products can offer a partial refund on the insurance premium when the home meets energy-efficiency standards. Modern factory-built homes are well positioned to qualify.
Where Eco Fab fits
Financing is one piece of a build, and it touches the parts we help with most: getting the lot ready, sequencing the work, and keeping the timeline honest. Those first-advance items – site prep, foundation, services – are exactly the coordination questions buyers find most daunting.
That is where our affiliated Project Management service comes in. Our project manager, Edgar, runs the moving parts on a flat fee with no markup on supplies or trades, which keeps your draw-by-draw budget transparent for you and your lender. Think of Eco Fab as your guide through the whole process: we supply and place the home, and we help you line up the local trades and the building permit that tie it together.
A quick FAQ
Is a modular home harder to finance than a regular house? Less than it used to be. With Prefab Plus, an insured mortgage for a factory-built home now follows much the same path as a conventional purchase, including the low-down-payment option.
How does paying for the home actually work? Simply. Our payment path is a 25% deposit to confirm your order, with the balance due one week before completion. On the mortgage side, Prefab Plus can release funds in milestone draws that line up with those two moments – so you are not floating large sums for months or paying everything up front.
Is the home treated like real estate or like a vehicle? If it is permanently affixed on a permanent foundation, it is financed as a traditional mortgage on real property. Movable units fall under chattel financing. Always confirm the specifics with your lender.
Before you talk to a lender, know what your lot allows
Financing answers “how do I pay for it.” The other half is “what can I actually build here.” Both matter, and the second one is cheaper to settle first.
Start with our free Zoning Lookup. Give us the address and we will do the desk research – zoning, overlays, and the servicing questions worth asking – and tell you in plain language what is likely possible on that lot. From there, the financing conversation is a lot easier to have.
Note: program terms are set by CMHC and lenders, and they can change. Confirm current details with CMHC and a mortgage professional before you rely on them.