FHA just released mortgagee letter 09-52, which lays out the guidelines under which borrowers who have previously completed a short sale of a property can qualify for a new mortgage using FHA financing. Read the rest of this entry »

In testimony before Congress today, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan announced plans to reduce the risk that FHA is exposed to in its loan insurance operations; these plans, however, will make FHA loans much less appealing to many borrowers, and may slow down the nascent recovery in the housing market. Read the rest of this entry »

FHA has issued their official loan amount limits for 2010. As previously announced, the overall cap was left at $729,750, but individual areas faced the possibility of having their limits set below that cap; with the new announcement, many of those higher-cost areas (including DC) can rest easy knowing that their local limits will not be decreasing. Read the rest of this entry »

Many borrowers have been trained to avoid adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs), especially after misuse of those loans got so many borrowers into trouble during the last boom market, but ARMs issued through government programs such as FHA or VA have certain safeguards built in to them that protect borrowers from the biggest hazards that normally go along with having an adjustable rate, making them nearly as safe as fixed-rate mortgages while still giving borrowers better interest rates. Read the rest of this entry »

Although the loan limits on high-balance conforming mortgage loans may be decreasing significantly in coming months, FHA mortgages should not be affected by those changes. Read the rest of this entry »

Buyers using FHA financing (and agents working with those buyers) may want to check where their funding is coming from, as the 3rd largest FHA wholesale lender, Taylor, Bean, & Whitaker (TBW,) was just suspended by the FHA from making new FHA loans as part of what appears to be a fraud investigation. Read the rest of this entry »

The guidelines for FHA loans have changed quite a bit over the last few years, so we thought we’d put together a quick overview of the major points that buyers and agents should know about FHA loans. Read the rest of this entry »