When Zack Eckles read the 2025 Pew report recommending that state change title policies to make more manufactured home buyers eligible for mortgages and ensure reasonable consumer protections in contract financing, he saw the possibility for legislation that could be politically achievable in Ohio. 

Caitlyn McDaniels, senior attorney at LASCO and chair of the Mobile Home Workgroup, shared the Pew study on manufactured home financing with the group last summer. The study found that most states title manufactured homes as personal property rather than real estate, which makes many manufactured home buyers ineligible for mortgages and dependent on risky contract financing, including retail installment contracts - seller-financed home purchase transactions where the buyer makes payments directly to the seller, and the seller does not transfer the title to the buyer until the house has been paid in full. 

“Legislation that would allow manufactured homes on rented lots to be titled as real estate and therefore eligible for traditional mortgage options could win support from tenant advocates due to the increased consumer protections and the manufactured home industry if it would help them sell more homes,” Eckles said. 

Members of the Mobile Home Workgroup agreed to work with Eckles to review the existing code and see what manufactured home titling and financing inequities could be solved by legislation. Next steps will be to shop their ideas around with obvious allies – other affordable housing advocates and consumer protection advocates. Then they will move on to questionable allies, and finally – once they have a coalition of support – they will look for an effective pair of legislators willing to co-sponsor and champion the bill. 

“If we can get better financing options, which would benefit buyers and sellers, we may be able to pair it with  statute reforms that curb predatory lending,” Eckles said. 



The process won’t be quick, but the group is poised with members who are experts on retail installment contracts and mobile home financing, including  Peggy Lee, Kacie Philpot, Caitlyn McDaniel, Mike Lawson, and Patrick Maloney of LASCO; Luke Condon and Mike Hamper of The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland; and Ryan Maxwell of Community Legal Aid.