Getting an FHA mortgage means avoiding the worst financing traps. Why? FHA loans require appraisals, real documentation and standardized terms. Still, there are unfair and unconscionable lenders out there, so it’s always wise for borrowers to beware.

The Federal Trade Commission has now read more

Speaking in Los Angeles on Monday, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson said FHA loans in that state had fallen 98 percent in seven years, from 131,000 FHA loans in 1999 to just 2,500 in 2006.

Quoting statistics from RealtyTrac.com, the read more

For a long time the Nehemiah program has helped large numbers of borrowers obtain a first home through the FHA program. With Nehemiah, a seller gives the nonprofit group a contribution of up to 6 percent of the sale price.

In addition, the seller pays a read more

An interesting new study from Campbell Communications in Washington, DC confirms what market watchers have suspected: It’s getting tougher and tougher to get financing with little down.

“The availability of high loan-to-value mortgages — even in the prime market — seems to be rapidly drying up in 2007,” says Campbell. “And it could take its toll read more

Members of ACORN met with last week with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Federal Reserve Gov. Randall Kroszner to ask that regulators finally use the power they have under the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act (HOEPA) to protect the public interest.

And what is it that the nationwide community organization wants the read more

If a lot of borrowers with toxic mortgages can be helped by refinancing with FHA loans — and they can — then where are you most-likely to find such borrowers?

The 500 ZIP codes with the highest foreclosure rates have now been assembled from RealtyTrac foreclosure data. Just look read more

If you have prequalified for an FHA mortgage or been pre-approved (there is no standard definition of either term) and not yet bought a home you might want to speak with your lender once again.

The problem?

Loan rates have had a stiff increase during the past month. According to Freddie Mac a typical 30-year read more

If you’re thinking of buying a new home this year you may have fewer choices.

It’s not something you did, but rather a growing uneasiness in the new home marketplace, A June survey of builders known as the “National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI)” shows a reading of 28, the read more

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the FHA delinquency rate dropped from 13.46 percent to 12.15 percent in the first quarter of 2007. For subprime loans, the delinquency rate was pegged at 13.77 percent, up .44 percent.

The FHA foreclosure rate held steady at 2.19 percent while the foreclosure rate for all loans was 1.28 percent, up from 1.19 percent.

What do such read more

Two days ago it was written here that interest rates were sure to rise. This view did not come from the use of either a crystal ball or a soothsayer. Instead, it was based on the movement of 10-year Treasury notes and, yes, they surely moved.

The read more

If you look through the FHA Handbook you can find an interesting omission: The term “credit score” does not appear.

What the FHA does want are credit reports. As the HUD explains, “the minimum credit report required by FHA is a “three repository merged” credit report (TRMCR). A Residential Mortgage Credit Report (RMCR) read more

The news from Wall Street yesterday was fairly brutal:

*The Dow finished down 129.95 and finished at 13295.01
*The Nasdaq dropped 22.38 and closed at 2549.77
*The S&P 500 was off 16.13 and end at 1492.99

Why did this happen? While there’s no single reason why stocks move one way or another, it surely read more

I get a lot of email from lenders who moo and mutter that I am unfair to their treasured little practices. For instance, I have long been loudly opposed to the widespread use of interest-only loans, option ARMs and the grand daddy of all bad ideas, the stated-income mortgage application.

None of these read more

Here are two numbers to keep in mind.

First, last year there were more than 1.2 million homes in the “process” of foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac.

Second, the FHA expects to refinance 100,000 conventional loans this read more

You might imagine that from time to time Borat Sagdiyev – the invented and fictitious commentator from Kazakhstan — has opinions and notions which may get him in trouble with local authorities. He’s not alone, a lot of people would like to leave (or might have to leave) their current country of origin and many read more