

They cant sell it on the open mortgage market.īank of America or some other global conglomerate would never buy our mortgage. Why? Since we weren’t applying for a traditional mortgage, we weren’t going to be a commodity.Ī “portfolio” mortgage is something that a bank chooses to take on at its own risk. So while I was cranky about the 1% interest rate penalty for a non-traditional mortgage, my husband was happy to pay the premium. If we wanted to finance off-grid property, we’d have to pay 1% above the going market rate. We heard that from every bank that was willing to talk to us. It seems that the standard practice is to charge a 1% penalty for a “non-conforming” mortgage. Since off-grid property doesn’t qualify for a traditional mortgage, it also doesn’t qualify for traditional interest rates. By all accounts, that’s the ideal time to finance anything.įinancing off-grid property is not quite so straightforward. We were buying when rates were absurdly low, around 3.5%. The biggest surprise trying to find mortgage financing for off-grid property was the interest rate. They’re worried that if you default, they’ll have trouble finding a buyer for something other than a cookie-cutter house in the suburbs.Īs a result, things aren’t quite as straightforward and it can be tricky to find a bank willing to finance.

You have to find a bank that’s willing to take your case on as part of a special risk portfolio.
#Cheap off grid land for sale in montana mac
In all our dreaming and scheming, we didn’t know about the particular difficulties of financing off-grid property.Īn off-grid home cannot qualify for a traditional mortgage, and the financing has to take place outside of the traditional fannie mae or freddy mac financing system. If we could find a way to make a stable, full-time income off-grid then we could change our lives and circumstances now, not 20 years from now. The only affordable properties were off the grid. We hadn’t planned on moving off the grid, but as we searched for property, we didn’t have much luck with traditional properties. Taking on debt is never an appealing prospect, and we’re both opposed to it in principle, but we were willing to make an exception for a mortgage.

We were in our 20’s and had no intention of waiting until we were middle-aged to start living the life we’d dreamed. When my husband and I found our forever homestead, we had saved a sizable nest egg, but nowhere near enough to purchase it outright.
