Financing Earthships

If you've read the closing chapter of Earthship Volume II, you know our stance on banks and most money-lending institutions. We've seen a number of clients waste hours, weeks, even months trying to convince a bank to invest in them. Investing that much effort in yourself and your own saving program can yield much more rewarding results.

We recommend trying smaller, shorter term loans: personal loans, small business loans, and lines of credit if you must borrow money - any OTHER kind of creative financing.

Above all, don't bite off more than you can chew. Build a little with the money you have, move in and start saving on living expenses. Use the money you're not spending on rent to add on as it's possible.

We've never seen it take as long as the 20-30 year mortgage for the Earthship owner to get comfortable.

If you just can't save or wait or sacrifice, go to the bank. A mortgaged Earthship is better than no Earthship at all. But, while getting bank financing for any home is a lot of work, getting financing for an Earthship can seem an almost insurmountable task in locations where the building technique is unfamiliar.
We've asked all our clients to keep us posted on financing possibilities and have recently come up with some great new opportunities.

Banks & Credit Unions with experience lending on earthships..

Volume II excerpt: financing earthships
Unconventional Housing: Energy Efficient homes offer loan prospects.

Arizona Financial Incentives for solar and wind generated electricity.

Banks provide both construction and long-term loans. However, they often have more difficult underwriting guidelines and more policies regarding owner builders than credit unions and mortgage brokers.

Credit Unions provide competitive long-term loans and in some cases construction loans also. They often provide a construction to permanent loan which reduces the loan fees by combining the loans into a package loan.

Mortgage brokers can usually get very competitive rates for long-term mortgages,however they often don't provide construction loans.

Private financing for owner builders is common for a construction loan because formal lending institutions often restrict such loans to those who are licensed and insured contractors. However, this usually means higher interest rates.

Savings/IRA-Savings are an important aspect when building a house. The more money that you have at your disposal the more favorable in the eyes of the bank.

Collateral such as property that you own or equity in your existing home, can be used for a construction loan.

Family/relatives can also be a source construction money...

Another thing to keep in mind is that the cost of building Earthships themselves is likely to go down, not up. This is simple economics: as long as something isn't mass-produced it will be expensive, but the more people become "pioneers" and invest in the concept, the cheaper it will eventually become. The same will probably NOT be true about land.

So my advice to anyone who dreams of an Earthship is: buy your land now, and build the Earthship later if you must. Find some cheap land even if it is far away from you, and hoard it against your future. It won't cost you much per month and you can make up the difference by sacrificing something else. Trust that meanwhile prices of things like solar systems will continue to come down, and new innovations be made, and eventually you'll be able to build that Earthship. Start collecting tires and cans meanwhile. Do what you can.