FHA “modernization” has passed in the House but has hit a brick wall in the Senate — until now. The Hill, an independent paper that tracks events in political Washington, says that talks are underway to pass some form of FHA changes, but instead of “modernization” the new buzzword is “reform.”

One major read more

The last two weeks of July went remarkably well for the FHA. While the mortgage marketplace was largely in shambles, the FHA program saw applications soar 49.1 percent.

Applications to purchase were up 6 percent while refinances grew by 82.6 percent as borrowers sought to dump toxic loans.

Year-to-date, loan applications are up 12.8 percent, refinance activity has grown 24.3 read more

Figures for the first quarter of 2007 from the Mortgage Bankers Association say that while 1.28 percent of all loans were in the process of foreclosure, the subprime sector had a 5.1 percent foreclosure rate while the FHA loan program was at 2.19 percent.

At first it may seem odd — safe and stable FHA mortgages, loans originated with read more

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) has come out in favor of FHA modernization.

This is important, or not important, for two reasons:

First, Dodd is chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. He has substantial clout if not the controlling voice in FHA reform.

Second, we don’t have the specifics of what Dodd read more

Should your FHA loan be delayed?

Blogger and loan officer Jeff Belonger at The FHA Expert.com makes an interesting point, the idea that loans should actually close on time and with promised terms and conditions.

He explains in fundamental read more

The world of FHA financing has been somewhat curdled by the notion that perhaps we don’t need FHA reform.

Gee, who would say such a thing?

Well, actually, I would.

In my Tuesday column for Realty Times entitled Why The Market Is Rejecting FHA Reform, I read more

Writing in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, an excellent newspaper, columnist Bill Virgin says “a report from the Mortgage Bankers Association, showing that the average age of all types of housing loans (prime, subprime, FHA and VA, fixed and adjustable) was, as of the fourth quarter of 2005, read more

Al heavens, a real estate columnist with the Philadelphia Inquirer, says reverse mortgages “haven’t yet tapped the home-equity wealth of Americans age 62 and older, an estimated $4.3 trillion, according to the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association/Hollister Reverse Mortgage Market Index.

“In the last five years, data from the index show, slightly more than 300,000 reverse mortgages read more

Okay, say you want to buy a bread and breakfast. A place in the country with fresh air, warm breakfasts and lots of dogs and antiques.

It is a nice vision, but could you finance such a property with an FHA loan?

It used to be that FHA financing was the program of choice for read more

The FHA program continues to hum along with great success.

Figures for the first half of July show that the FHA loan applications are up nearly 11 percent. That’s pretty good when you consider the longer and longer list of lenders who are reporting massive losses and closing their doors.

Among the goodies for the first 15 read more

The idea of the Internet long ago was that it was, in part, a place where people simply helped other people. You couldn’t get a better or more gracious example of this concept than the offer of blogger Moe Bedard to share the list of lender contacts.

In addition to Moe’s list, let’s add a read more

For all the support in the lending community, not everyone on Capitol Hill is equally thrilled.

Last week we mentioned the reservations expressed by Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-AL), who worried that taxpayers could be left holding the bill if a reformed FHA also produced a massive read more

HUD — the governmental parent of the FHA — continues to issue foreclosure prevention guidelines. These guidelines were sent out earlier, and now are being packaged for televisions.

“For those people who are first time homebuyers and even those who are buying a second home,” says HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson, ”one of the things that read more