Can you get an SBA loan for a mobile home park?

No. SBA 7(a) and 504 loans can’t be used to buy, refinance or build a mobile home park. SBA’s lending rulebook, SOP 50 10 8.1, says it in one line: “Apartment buildings and mobile home parks are not eligible.” That version took effect on October 1, 2026.

If a lender, a course or a blog told you otherwise, they were probably thinking of RV parks, which follow a different rule. More on that below.

What the rule actually says

SBA doesn’t lend to “passive” businesses. The regulation, 13 CFR 120.110(c), makes ineligible any “passive businesses owned by developers and landlords that do not actively use or occupy the assets acquired or improved with the loan proceeds.” A park owner rents land to residents who live in their own homes. The owner doesn’t occupy the property; the residents do. That makes a park a landlord business in SBA’s eyes.

The SOP spells out the cases under that regulation. In Section A, Chapter 1, under Passive Businesses, it lists mobile home parks next to apartment buildings, and adds a broader line: businesses “primarily engaged in owning or purchasing real estate and leasing it for any purpose are not eligible.” Section A is the eligibility chapter for both 7(a) and 504, so neither program is open to a park.

Why RV parks are different

The same section carves out hotels, motels, RV parks, marinas and campgrounds. They’re eligible if more than 50% of the business’s revenue for the prior year came from “transients who stay for 30 days or less at a time,” and the business meets zoning and other legal requirements. A start-up has to show that split in its projections.

That’s a short-stay hospitality test, and a manufactured housing community fails it almost by definition: residents own their homes and stay for years. A mixed park with some RV sites and some long-term home sites only qualifies if the transient side brings in more than half of last year’s revenue, and the SBA lender will want the books to prove it.

The structure that doesn’t work either

SBA lets an Eligible Passive Company own real estate and lease 100% of it to an operating company that occupies it (13 CFR 120.111). That’s how a dentist buys her building. It doesn’t rescue a park, because the occupants are residents, not an operating business that the borrower controls.

What to use instead

If your park…	Look at
Has 50+ sites, 85% occupancy, few park-owned homes	Fannie Mae MHC (80% LTV, 1.25x)
Has 5 to 49 pads, 85% occupancy, and you already own another park	Freddie Mac MHC (75 to 80% LTV, 1.25x, $1 million minimum loan)
Is small, half-empty or heavy on park-owned homes	A local bank or credit union, often with a seller note
Is being bought by its residents, a nonprofit or a public body	HUD 223(f) MHC Program (90% LTV, 1.11x)

The loan sizer runs your numbers through each of these. The full rules are on the programs page.

Sources

• SBA, SOP 50 10 8.1, Section A, Ch. 1, Types of Ineligible Businesses, Passive Businesses. Effective October 1, 2026.
• 13 CFR 120.110 and 120.111, eCFR current to October 22, 2026.