FHA Mortgage Guide

Home prices showed significant erosion during the past year, according to the latest report from the Office of Federal Housing Oversight, the federal regulator that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

In a news release that is a monument to confusing numbers, OFHEO read more

The FHA has restructured its loan modification policies to assure that foreclosure fees and attorney charges can be financed.

This may seem like a fairly-obscure action and one of little consequence, but it’s a good example of how a little tweak in the rule-book can potentially benefit troubled FHA mortgage borrowers and cut foreclosure rates read more

The Center for American Progress argues that it’s the 1930s again, at least in terms of real estate.

The statement below makes you wonder: Wasn’t the FHA mortgage program supposed to mitigate the foreclosure mess — not end it, not help everyone, but just read more

If you were Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac how would you answer the various news stories which question your financial health?

FHALoanPros.com has obtained the letter below. It’s a response by Peter Federico, Freddie Mac’s senior vice president of asset and liability management, to recent news coverage in the Wall Street Journal and offers read more

For the past few days Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been taking a beating on Wall Street. The drop in value since the start of the year has been astonishing for both companies, and it is a matter which should concern anyone who has hopes of financing or refinancing a home.read more

While the trend should come as no surprise, the actual numbers are amazing:

The Mortgage Bankers Association reports that of the “mortgage applications accepted during the month of July 2008, 29.1 percent were for government-insured loans (consisting of mostly FHA loans) compared to 8.4 percent in July 2007.”

Given read more

The story is hard to beat: Donald Trump will buy Ed McMahon’s Beverly Hills mansion — a property facing foreclosure — and then rent it back to the 85-year-old entertainer.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Trump will pay off the existing $4.8 million debt, acquire the property, and then lease it back to the long-time read more

If you want to increase the use of FHA mortgages here’s the way to do it: Freddie Mac has announced that it will stop buying subprime loans in New York state after September 1st.

The reason? A new law which could make mortgage investors liable if a loan has been improperly originated in read more

This being the Internet Era, the Nehemiah Corporation of America has created a new web site to get downpayment assistance programs (DPAs) re-instated for FHA mortgage borrowers.

The programs were eliminated under the FHA mortgage reform read more

The latest figures from RealtyTrac show that foreclosure numbers continue to mount.

In July, says the company, “foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were reported on 272,171 U.S. properties during the month, an 8 percent increase from the previous month and a 55 percent read more

What started out as an FHA mortgage reform measure has concluded with various additions. One of the best concerns foreclosure help for veterans — but help with both good news and bad news.

It used read more

I was reading a release from Lenders One Mortgage Cooperative, a self-described “national alliance of mortgage bankers.” According to the group they closed mortgages worth $3.4 billion in a 30-day period.

What was interesting to me was the composition of the loans they originated:

“More than 50 read more

Below is a news release from a Phoenix real estate broker predicting that local sales will soon fall another 10 percent.

You don’t usually see new releases from real estate brokers, and it’s surely unusual to see a release which suggests a decline in market activity. These reasons alone would make the release below stand out, read more

The National Association of Realtors is out with its pending home sale information and the numbers are up!

According to NAR, “the Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in June, rose 5.3 percent to 89.0 from a downwardly revised reading of 84.5 in May, but remains 12.3 percent below June 2007 when it stood at 101.4.

” read more

We have been a critic of the FHASecure program since HUD first began issuing news releases which claimed vast success in preventing foreclosures, claims not supported by HUD’s own figures — but claims gleefully repeated at the White House and various news outlets.

You could say that read more

The White House reported yesterday in a “fact sheet” that “last year, the President launched FHASecure, which has helped more than 290,000 families avoid foreclosure by refinancing into safe Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured mortgages.”

Unfortunately, and inconveniently, the read more

In response to an editorial by the Sacramento Bee, Scott Syphax, the president and CEO of Nehemiah Corporation of America, had some interesting things to say about downpayment assistance programs (DPAs)

“The Bee,” says Syphax, “chose to uncritically accept the Bush administration’s assertions that down payment assistance loans lead to unacceptably high foreclosure and claim read more

April writes about downpayment assistance plans (DPAs) with FHA loans and their exclusion under the FHA reform bill and says:

“I am a tax payer and I am not read more

The new Hope loan program created under the FHA reform measure has been variously described as a “bailout” and a “giveaway.” You wonder if the folks opposed to the FHA measure actually bothered to read read more

In the realm of non-news, we have various lenders now focusing on the joys of FHA lending and explaining how FHA mortgages are largely unknown to the public — thus the sudden need for the expertise of these lenders. This, of course, is difficult to believe.

The FHA program has been in place since 1934. More read more