Cart

Inside FHA/VA Lending

April 16, 2010

View Archived Issues

FHA Eases Rule on Higher Net Worth

Recent changes to lender net worth requirements should help to increase the quality of FHA originations, industry experts said, and keep risk in the hands of responsible lenders who can appropriately manage it. While the Department of Housing and Urban Development lowered the new net worth requirements for approved lenders from the levels proposed earlier, the agency went ahead with provisions that... Read More

FHA Official Leaves Post for Position with GSE Regulator

Meg Burns, the director of FHA’s Office of Single-Family Program Development, will leave the Department of Housing and Urban Development next week to take a new senior-level communications position at the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Burns has a strong single-family background and pioneered the FHA’s TOTAL Scorecard, which evaluates... Read More

Ginnie to Allow Daily Pooling of Single Loans

Ginnie Mae will soon allow lenders to pool single loans into multi-issuer mortgage-backed securities on a daily basis, which will help small FHA lenders be more competitive and give them more flexibility, Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said at an industry conference this week. The change will occur in July, Donovan said, and it will allow lenders to pool any number of... Read More

Watchdog Panel Questions FHA Loss Mit Programs

The Congressional Oversight Panel expressed concern over whether FHA programs like and the forthcoming “short refi” initiative will make any progress in helping the housing recovery in a report released this week. The Obama administration in March announced a number of changes to its foreclosure mitigation efforts, including an FHA refinance option, which offers HAMP incentive payments to encourage... Read More

FHA Originations Drop as Purchases Fall

FHA lending in February hit the lowest monthly total since late 2008 thanks to a huge decline in purchase-money lending, and unlike the trend at the government-sponsored enterprises, the drop wasn’t offset by an increase in FHA refinances. Lenders originated only $24.4 billion in FHA-insured mortgages in February, down 9.6 percent from the $27.0 billion in January and off 29.3 percent from the $34.5... Read More

Housing Boom Tactics Allowed Risky FHA Loans

A former official at CitiMortgage said a large number of mortgages insured by the FHA and Department of Veterans Affairs were sold into Ginnie Mae pools even though they may never have qualified for government backing in the first place, just one of a litany of oversights identified by industry experts at a hearing before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission last week. Ex-Congressmen and... Read More

FHA to Allow e-Signatures on Third-Party Docs

The FHA announced last week that it began accepting electronic signatures on third-party documents included in loan files, finally getting the program up to speed with many other market participants that have been using the technology for more than five years. The process must be in accordance with electronic signatures provisions in the Global and National Commerce Act and the Uniform Electronic... Read More

FHA Briefs

The final round of FHA policy changes announced in January is under review at the Office of Management and Budget, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development could be less than a month away from issuing the regulations. The rule change will reduce seller concessions, a percentage of the negotiated sale price the seller may put toward closing costs or home upgrades, from 6 percent to 3... Read More

Latest Imf News

More Imf News

Featured Data

More Featured Data

Featured Reports

More Latest Reports

Featured Poll

As homeowner equity continues to build, more and more lenders are launching home equity lending products. Are you thinking of joining this market?

View Results