Virginia Housing Finances Virginia’s First Resident-Owned Manufactured Home Community

In most manufactured home communities, residents own their home while leasing the land. At Crestview Cooperative in Buena Vista, residents now hold collective ownership of the land their homes sit on, paying into a shared fund to cover the purchase and the cost of ongoing upkeep of the 71-lot property. Virginia Housing is proud to have partnered with the residents and ROC USA to finance a portion of the Crestview residents’ purchase.

Virginia Housing provided a $2 million low-interest loan to go toward the $3.95 million purchase. Before making the loan, Virginia Housing also provided a Community Impact Grant to ROC USA, an organization that works to make resident ownership possible in manufactured home communities across the U.S. and served as the lead on Crestview’s transition to being resident owned.

ROC USA assists communities with organizing and gauging project viability, purchasing and maintaining properties, and crucially, financing their purchases. ROC USA used the grant from Virginia Housing to fund community engagement efforts and property assessments at Crestwood, both of which were important aspects of the organization’s first project in the Commonwealth.

Manufactured housing is an excellent tool for bringing safe, affordable housing to communities across Virginia. Because it is built in a factory prior to being delivered, construction costs are lower and it takes less time to build, largely because it is not subject to weather delays and requires fewer workers at individual sites.

Crestview Cooperative is an exciting development in Virginia’s manufactured housing community that will serve as a model for others across the Commonwealth. You can read ROC USA’s article about Crestview here.