High fees on FHA mortgages have helped push FHA’s market of financing for home purchases to the lowest level since the financial crisis, according to the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey. FHA mortgages were used to finance 18.2 percent of home purchases in September, based on a three-month moving average. That was down from a 21.9 percent share in September 2013 and 36.6 percent in May 2010, the highest level for FHA financing in the five-year history of HousingPulse. From 2008 through 2013, the Department of Housing and Urban Development increased...
The FHA has been reviewing the insurance premiums it charges and will do so again later this year as well as in 2015, said a top agency official, but whether this will lead to a reduction is unclear. Speaking at the annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association in Las Vegas this week, FHA Deputy Commissioner Biniam Gebre said the agency is “not done” with the premium issue and may revisit it in the next couple of months or perhaps next year. Gebre will temporarily replace FHA Commissioner Carol Galante, who is scheduled to leave the agency at the end of the week to join the faculty at the University of California in Berkeley. Galante headed...
HUD's Castro noted that the VA program limits its loan guarantee to a maximum of 25 percent, leaving many lenders exposed and reluctant to offer VA-guaranteed loans.
In the second quarter REITs increased their investments in MBS by 9.7 percent on a sequential basis – the largest increase among any investor type tracked by IM&A.
Zandi and deRitis believe that the FHA is on track to be able to lower its mortgage insurance premiums by 50 basis points to an average of 120 basis points for total upfront and annual premiums.
A group of small and mid-sized lenders this week renewed their request to the Department of Housing and Urban Development to cut FHA’s annual premiums to improve borrower access to credit, a change that likely depends on the annual audit of the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. Sources expect the next annual audit report to show further improvement in the health of the MMI Fund, which had a negative economic value of $1.3 billion in September 2013, the end of the government’s 2013 fiscal year. Beyond getting back into the black, the MMIF still must reach a 2.0 percent statutory capital reserve requirement, which the last audit predicted would occur next year. The fiscal 2014 audit report is expected...
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