The Department of Housing and Urban Development has revised guidance to lenders for calculating monthly student-loan payments for debt-to-income ratio purposes. The change is aimed at helping more borrowers with student-loan obligations to qualify for an FHA-insured mortgage. Currently, the FHA requires lenders to calculate a monthly payment for deferred student loans based on 2.0 percent of the outstanding balance, and include it in the borrower’s DTI for qualifying purposes. The disadvantage of the current method of calculation is that it makes it harder for the borrower to qualify for an FHA loan, according to Marc Savitt, president of The Mortgage Center, an exclusively FHA/VA lender in Martinsburg, WV. Under the revised guidance, regardless of the borrower’s payment status, the lender must use: (a) the greater of 1.0 percent (a 50 percent reduction from the current 2.0 percent) of the ...