The White House is out with a new housing plan, but not everyone is thrilled. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) thinks the program is history, bad history.
“We’ve done this at least four times where there’s a new government program to help homeowners who have trouble with their mortgages,” said Boehner.
Is the FHA really in peril? The American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank, apparently thinks so.
“No serious observer of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) believes its financial future is bright,” writes Peter J. Wallison and Edward J. Pinto in a recent market outlook titled, “Bet the house: why the FHA is going (for) broke.” Read the rest of this entry »
Would no mortgage payments for a year help if you were unemployed? You bet. And now the government has two such programs, including one announced just last week.
While the FHA has had a concrete forbearance program in place for some time, last Friday Freddie Mac announced that servicers now “must” assist borrowers who are suffering financial hardships due to their unemployment. Furthermore, Freddie’s program can be extended for as long as one year. Read the rest of this entry »
The FHA has declared that the flips must go on. The mortgage insurer recently announced that it would extend a reprieve of its anti-flipping law through 2012.
The exception to their anti-flipping law was originally enacted in 2010 and set to expire this month. The rule states that the FHA will not insure loans that are bought and sold within 90 days. Allowing house flippers to continue to operate via FHA loans is considered by proponents as a way to help remove excess foreclosures and stabilize home prices. Read the rest of this entry »
Someone got a half a loaf on Capitol Hill last week with the passage of higher loan limits for FHA-backed mortgages. They also lost half a loaf with the failure to increase loan limits for conventional mortgages bought by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The result of the final compromises looks like this: Read the rest of this entry »
The FHA is making headlines again with worries that the entire program is mired in financial trouble. The title of this post is the same title of a study supported by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, which argues that the federal home insurance program could need more than $50 billion in taxpayer money to maintain needed reserves.
Alternatively, despite the worst real estate market in decades, the latest FHA annual report shows with real numbers and results that the program is actually doing fairly well: Read the rest of this entry »
The decision to reduce mortgage loan limits has set off a spectacular level of negative reaction. But a look at the facts and the numbers tells us there’s little cause for concern.
Claim: FHA will suffer…
According to the Las-Vegas Review Journal, a lot of condo owners in Nevada are fairly sore with the FHA. As the paper explains:
Thanks to high numbers of investors and association dues deadbeats, the majority of Clark County’s 90,000 condos are now or could soon be off-limits to most buyers, setting up a vicious cycle that could depress prices even more. Adding insult to injury, condo owners with some federally backed loans are no longer eligible for refinancing.
It was back in 2000 when the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act was passed, allowing many contracts to be signed with electronic signatures.
Are “e-signatures” a good idea for FHA mortgages?
For the last few years, it has been the FHA which has kept the mortgage marketplace afloat. FHA loans have consistently offered financing with little down, market mortgage rates and no gotcha clauses.
Now, however, some see doom ahead for the FHA program.
HSH.com's daily blog focuses on the latest developments in the mortgage and housing markets. Our mission is to relate how changes in mortgage rates and housing policy, as well as the latest financial news, impacts consumers, homebuyers and industry insiders alike. Our 30-plus years of experience in the mortgage industry gives us an edge as we break down the latest changes in an ever-changing market.
