Speaking at the Five Star Default Servicing Conference in Dallas this week, Amy Crews Cutts, the deputy chief economist with Freddie Mac, gave a terrific presentation looking at the state of the mortgage finance.

Cutts argued that the foreclosure rate was bad today read more

The FHA Book has an interesting and thoughtful post:

“I’m going to be honest here. FHA loans are for those who could usually not get a decent loan. If you cannot qualify for an FHA loan you should not be buying a house! Or should at least read more

Speaking in Jackson Hole, WY, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke had some interesting remarks about the FHA and its history.

It’s sometimes forgotten that the FHA program was a by-product of the Depression, one which radically changed real estate financing by popularizing long-term mortgages instead of 5-year terms loans which were then common. read more

It is natural and reasonable to want to know how much a loan costs, whether FHA or not. Savvy borrowers know that the interest rate is not the full cost of the loan — there’s a difference between a loan at 6.75 percent at 6.6 percent plus 2 points — the “higher” rate may actually be the cheaper read more

Did you ever think about the differences between FHA loans and conventional financing?

Let’s look at what the conventional market has offered in the past few years. There have been interest-only loans and option ARMs. There have been stated income loan applications and mortgages where you don’t need to show any income.

No doubt about read more

When it comes to write out a sale offer some sellers have a stipulation: No FHA financing.

They worry that an FHA appraisal will be to strict and will require a bunch of nit-picky repairs and upgrades to qualify the home for an FHA loan — repairs and upgrades for which the seller will have read more

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported today that foreclosure rates have reached record levels.

This, of course, is awful news for enormous numbers of homeowners nationwide.

“There is a clear divergence in performance between fixed rate and adjustable rate mortgages due to the impact of rate resets,” says Doug Duncan, MBA’s Chief Economist and Senior read more

Federal regulators have issued new guidelines for loan servicers to ease loan modifications and encourage the use of FHA mortgages.

The real purpose of the statement – and a series of other government edicts in recent weeks – has been to reduce the liability of servicers. By saying that the rules allow servicers to readily read more

The guidelines for the FHASecure program have now been posted.

Of particular interest, under the FHASecure program HUD will allow lenders to write-off some of the old loan to help borrowers save the property, qualifying rations remain 31/43 (liberal by most standards), and in some circumstances second mortgages read more

HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson has sent a public letter to Capitol Hill saying that in addition to the 500,000 homeowners who might be helped over two years by the FHASecure program, another 200,000 could be assisted if Congress would pass the FHA modernization bill.

Whether the FHA modernization bill would produce the results claimed by Jackson is read more

If you have an FHA loan you can marvel at how the rest of the financial world does business.

The FHA has a large foreclosure prevention program, and now federal regulators are trying to get the private sector to follow suit.

The five major federal regulators read more

As much as the next presidential election will focus on the war in Iraq, it will increasingly be determined by economic issues.

An August study from the National Association for Business Economics found that “the combined threat of subprime loan defaults and excessive indebtedness has supplanted terrorism and the Middle East as the biggest short-term read more

The Philadelphia Inquirer has published a powerful letter that needs to be repeated.

We often see government-backed financing as something designed to help entry-level homebuyers, especially minority purchasers. In fact, the early history of government programs reflected the social values of the time, values which we now see as repulsive.

Bill Brooks of Newark, DE read more