CMHC Prefab Plus: What It Means If You're Thinking About Building a Good Way Home
Building a home is one of the biggest decisions most people make. Financing it has always been one of the most complicated parts — especially for a factory-built home, where the construction process doesn't fit neatly into the way traditional mortgages work.
That changed in May 2026.
CMHC — Canada's federal housing corporation — launched a program called Prefab Plus, designed from the ground up to make financing a prefabricated or factory-built home work the way it actually should. If you've been thinking about a Good Way home, this is worth understanding.
Why the Old System Didn't Work for Prefab
When a bank finances conventional construction, it advances money in stages tied to physical milestones on the job site — foundation poured, walls framed, roof closed in. The logic makes sense for stick-built homes. But prefab works differently. Most of the build happens at the factory before anything arrives on your lot. That meant buyers often had to fund the factory phase out of pocket or arrange expensive bridge financing — a barrier that quietly made prefab harder to access than it should have been.
Prefab Plus addresses this directly. Funds can now be advanced in up to four staged draws as construction milestones are met — covering land acquisition, site preparation, factory delivery, and installation — rather than in a single lump sum. The structure is designed to reflect how prefabricated homes are actually built and delivered. Yahoo Finance
CMHC president and CEO Coleen Volk described the intent clearly: "By offering mortgage loan insurance for the financing of prefabricated homes and multi-unit modular construction, CMHC is committed to expanding access to homeownership and supporting the development of rental supply. We continue to use every tool at our disposal to deliver commercial products and results for Canadians." Insurance Business Canada
The Four Stages of a Prefab Plus Draw
The draw structure is built around four verifiable milestones:
— Stage 1: Property acquisition and site preparation
— Stage 2: Foundation work and utility connections
— Stage 3: Factory-built home delivery and crane installation
— Stage 4: Final assembly, finishing, and occupancy
For a buyer, this means your financing moves in step with your build. You're not carrying the full factory cost in advance, and there's no gap between when the work happens and when funds are available.
The Energy Efficiency Bonus
Here's where Good Way homes have a built-in advantage.
CMHC's Eco Plus program offers a 25% refund on your mortgage insurance premium if your newly built home is already energy efficient. Every Good Way home — including both the Fernwood and the Model 201 — is designed to Net Zero Ready standards, with airtightness of 0.6 ACH or better and climate zone-appropriate R-values achieved through dense-pack cellulose insulation and passive house wall assemblies. CMHC
Eligibility is assessed using the Natural Resources Canada EnerGuide Rating System. Because our homes are built to genuine Net Zero Ready performance levels, they are well-positioned to meet this threshold — meaning buyers may be able to claim the 25% premium refund simply by choosing a high-performance factory-built home. That's not a coincidence. It's what building to a real standard, rather than minimum code, makes possible. CMHC
Scenario 1 — The Fernwood as a Backyard Suite
Meet the Fernwood.
It's our 560 SF, one-bedroom carriage house — 14' x 40', Net Zero Ready, and move-in ready in three months from order. Designed for exactly the kind of backyard suite that BC's housing policy is actively trying to unlock: compact, high-quality, energy-efficient, and fast to build.
Base price: $150,000. Sitework — foundation, services, and excavation — is additional and site-specific.
Here's how Prefab Plus changes the picture for a homeowner considering the Fernwood as an ADU. Under the old financing model, covering the factory payment before the home arrived on site was often a sticking point. With Prefab Plus's staged draw structure, the financing sequences alongside the build — a draw at site prep, a draw at delivery. The homeowner isn't carrying the full cost in advance.
And because the Fernwood meets Net Zero Ready standards, the buyer may qualify for CMHC's Eco Plus 25% premium refund. As an illustrative example: on a $500,000 home with a 10% down payment, the CMHC insurance premium would be approximately $13,950 — and a 25% Eco Plus refund would return around $3,487 to the buyer. (Figures provided for illustrative purposes only — actual amounts depend on your purchase price, loan-to-value ratio, and CMHC eligibility. Confirm with your lender.)
The Fernwood is also well-positioned for CMHC's ADU insured refinance program, for homeowners using existing equity to fund a secondary suite. Talk to your lender about how these programs can be combined for your specific situation.
Scenario 2 — The Model 201 as a Primary Residence
The Model 201 is our two-storey primary residence — 1,249 SF of livable space across two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a flex room, and a roof deck. Built on an 18' x 40' footprint, with Net Zero Ready energy specs, passive house wall assemblies, high-performance windows and doors, and high-quality membranes and tapes throughout.
Base price: $550,000. Sitework is additional.
For a buyer purchasing the Model 201, Prefab Plus and Eco Plus work together meaningfully. On a $550,000 home with 10% down, the financed amount is $495,000. At a CMHC insurance premium rate of approximately 3.1%, the premium is roughly $15,345. A 25% Eco Plus refund — available because the 201 is Net Zero Ready — would return approximately $3,836 to the buyer. (Figures provided for illustrative purposes only — actual amounts depend on your loan-to-value ratio and CMHC eligibility. Confirm with your lender.)
Beyond the financing math, the Model 201 delivers something conventional construction rarely can: schedule certainty. From order to move-in is typically three to four months. No weather delays on wall panels, no site variability in insulation quality, no blower door surprises. The performance is built in at the factory, and the timeline is one you can actually plan around.
What to Do Next
If you're considering a Good Way home and want to understand how Prefab Plus applies to your situation, the first step is a conversation with a CMHC-approved lender who is set up for the milestone-draw structure. It's a new product, and not every lender has activated it yet — so it's worth asking directly. Note once the order hits the manufacturing line you can generally anticipate 3-4 months for the Fernwood and 4-6 months for Model 201.
From our side, we're happy to walk you through what's included in your model price, what to budget for sitework, and what a realistic timeline looks like from first conversation to move-in day.
Your legacy starts now.
