Are FHA Mortgage Loans Assumable?

You can assume an existing FHA-insured loan, or, if you are the one deciding to sell, allow a buyer to assume yours. Assuming a loan can be very beneficial, since the process is streamlined and less expensive compared to that for a new loan. You must demonstrate that you have enough income to support the mortgage loan. In this way, qualifying to assume a loan is similar to the qualification requirements for a new mortgage loan. After closing, you will then be responsible for an annual premium - paid monthly - if your mortgage is over 15 years or if you have a 15-year loan with an LTV greater than 90%.

Here is how assumable FHA loans benefit the buyer:

The benefits are two fold. The buyer may get an interest rate that is much lower than the current interest rate they could get from a bank AND they have an accelerated pay off schedule because there are less years remaining on the note!

The FHA mortgage is one of the most expensive when it comes to closing costs, although the costs can be financed. To counter that cost, it helps to remember that your FHA mortgage is assumable. When you sell your property you will have an edge over your competition because of the assumable financing you can offer.

The value of assumability is as high as it is ever likely to be because of the broad consensus that interest rates in future years will be higher than they are now.

Loans insured by the FHA are assumable; conventional loans, with a few exceptions, are not. That means that a home buyer who finances the purchase with an FHA-insured loan and who sells the house later, when interest rates are higher, will be able to offer a potential buyer the right to assume his low-rate FHA loan.

After approval of the buyer by the FHA, the buyer would assume all the obligations of the mortgage upon the sale of the property, and the seller would be relieved of liability, provided the loan being assumed was originated after December 14, 1989. It will be just as if the loan had been made to the buyer.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Wind-down!

In February 2011, the Treasury department unveiled its plan to wind down GSE’s Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Treasury also wants to see 10% down payments from potential borrowers.
This has sparked concern within the real estate industry and among those who recognize the importance of a healthy real estate market to the nation’s economic recovery.
Perception that these changes will take place overnight are unfounded.
Treasury Secretary Geithner has predicted a 5 to 7 year timeline for implementation.
Federal Reserve Chairman Lacker has declared that any near-term moves could be too destructive to the housing sector.
On February 9th, 2011 the House Financial Services Subcommittee held a hearing on GSE’s.
Meanwhile, on another front, Republican legislators have released 8 bills intended to accelerate the process of winding down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and increase oversight, promising more to follow.
These include H.R.1859, which would schedule a reduction of portfolio retained from over 700 billion currently to 250 billion in 5 years, and require a 20% down payment 1st mortgage (allowing a 10% seller-carry-back second). The bill calls for the eventual complete replacement of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with ”housing financing guaranty associations”. Another bill aims to end all affordable housing goals set by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. A hearing was held in the Financial Services Subcommittee on May 25th. The Subcommittee is likely to hold a markup of the bills sometime in June (except H.R. 1859, for which no promise to hold a future hearing or markup was made).

Adjustable-rate mortgages are making a comeback

Hybrid ARMs, some of which have rates significantly lower than 30-year fixed-rate mortgage alternatives, are growing in popularity.

After years of virtual exile from the home loan arena, is the adjustable-rate mortgage staging a quiet comeback? Could an ARM be on your shopping list the next time you need to buy a house or refinance?

You might be surprised.

A new survey of 112 lenders by mortgage giant Freddie Mac found that ARMs are starting to attract applicants again. Adjustables accounted for just 3% of new home loans in early 2009 but are projected to be picked by nearly 1 out of 10 borrowers in 2011. In the jumbo and super-jumbo segments, the share will be even larger, according to Freddie Mac chief economist Frank Nothaft.

How could this be, with fixed 30-year rates at half-century lows, hovering just under 5%? Isn't it axiomatic that it's always smarter to lock in a low fixed rate for as long as possible rather than gamble on a loan whose rate might bounce around in the years ahead?

That logic still holds up for most people, but not for everybody. Here's why. The boom-era models of the ARM have pretty much disappeared — there are no more of the two-year adjustables that hooked record numbers of consumers in 2003 and 2004 with teaser rates that needed to be refinanced with heavy fees within 24 months. No more "pick-a-pay" ARMs that were mass-marketed with loosey-goosey underwriting and the potential for negative amortization.

The most popular ARM in the market today, according to the Freddie Mac survey, is the 5-1 hybrid. Its rate is fixed for the first five years of the loan, then adjusts annually for as much as the next 25 years, with rate caps to cushion payment shocks if rates suddenly soar. There are also 7-1 and 3-1 hybrids. The antique one-year ARM still is available but doesn't get a lot of takers.

The real key to the growing popularity of hybrid ARMs is in their pricing. Rates are significantly lower than fixed 30-year alternatives, with no teasers or negative amortization involved. In some cases, they also come with other attractive terms, such as more flexible underwriting standards.

According to data supplied by Dan Green, a loan officer with Waterstone Mortgage Corp. in Cincinnati and author of TheMortgageReports.com blog, the rate spread between 5-1 hybrid ARMs and 30-year fixed-rate loans has widened to around 1.625 percentage points.

To illustrate, say you're interested in a $250,000 conventional loan to buy a house. You've got a FICO credit score of 740 and want to close in 45 days. You could opt for a 30-year fixed loan at 4.75%, requiring a monthly principal and interest payment of $1,304. Alternatively, you could opt for a 5-1 ARM fixed at 3.125%, costing $1,071 in principal and interest per month — a $233 saving.

But now check out the niche where hybrid ARMs really shine: jumbo and super-jumbo mortgages. Generally jumbos range from $417,000 to $729,750, depending on home prices in your local market. Super jumbos can go into the millions.

Say you need a $450,000 mortgage with a 45-day closing and you have a FICO score of 740. According to Green, you should be able to get a 30-year fixed-rate jumbo for around 5.625%. Monthly principal and interest on a fixed-rate jumbo would total $2,590 a month.

Compare that with a $450,000 hybrid 5-1 ARM: 3.5% for the initial five years, requiring $2,020 a month in principal and interest. That's a rate spread of 2.125 points — "the best we've seen in years," Green said. "It's very aggressively priced" by banks that want to originate the loans to hold in their own portfolios.

The savings go even higher in the super-jumbo space — a $1-million 5-1 ARM goes for 3.5% and saves a borrower $1,266 a month compared with a competing fixed-rate 30-year loan at 5.6%.

Cathy Warshawsky, president and senior loan officer of Bay Area Loan Inc. in San Jose, cites another advantage for some jumbo borrowers — special enhancements in payment terms. For example, a client of Warshawsky's needed a $950,000 mortgage at the lowest rate and monthly payment. She signed him up for a 5-1 hybrid at 5.75%, interest-only.

None of this is to suggest, of course, that hybrid adjustables make financial sense for everybody. They don't. But if you fit one of the niches — you need a jumbo, you know you're likely to be transferred or you expect to sell the house within five to seven years — they merit a serious look.

By Kenneth R. Harney January 30, 2011 kenharney@earthlink.net
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

Govt's Loan Modification Program Crippled

Govt's Loan Modification Program Crippled by Lax Oversight and Deference to Banks:
With millions of homeowners still struggling to stay in their homes, the Obama administration’s $75 billion foreclosure prevention program has been weakened, perhaps fatally, by lax oversight and a posture of cooperation—rather than enforcement—with the nation’s biggest banks. Those banks, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and Citibank, service the majority of mortgages.

Despite a dismal showing for the program, rising complaints from homeowners, and repeated threats from officials, the government has levied no penalties against even the most error-prone banks and mortgage servicers. In fact, despite issuing public warnings for more than a year about imposing penalties, the Treasury Department told ProPublica this week they don’t even have the power to punish servicers for wrongfully denying help to homeowners. Instead of toughening the program, Treasury has actually loosened it in the face of industry lobbying.

Over the past year, ProPublica has been exploring why the government’s program has helped so few homeowners. Over the coming weeks, we will be detailing how the administration quietly retreated from a plan to get tough on banks, why the mortgage servicing industry lacks incentives to invest in helping homeowners, how the industry succeeded in thwarting oversight, and what reforms could lead to more help for homeowners.

The stories are based on newly disclosed data, lobbying disclosures, dozens of interviews with insiders, members of Congress, and others. Today’s story looks at the timidity of Treasury’s oversight, a conclusion echoed in a government report Wednesday.

“At some point, Treasury needs to ask itself what value there is in a program under which not only participation, but also compliance with the rules, is voluntary,” says the new report, from the special inspector general for the TARP. “Treasury needs to recognize the failings of [the program] and be willing to risk offending servicers. And if getting tough means risking servicer flight, so be it; the results could hardly be much worse.”

The administration launched the program nearly two years ago, in early 2009, promising it would help three million to four million troubled American borrowers rework the terms of their mortgages. Amid widespread reports that servicers have been wrongly rejecting homeowners, losing paperwork, and otherwise breaking the program’s rules, it appears the program will fall far short. The Congressional Oversight Panel now estimates fewer than 800,000 homeowners will ultimately get lasting mortgage modifications.

An early problem for the program was that banks and other mortgage servicing companies were quickly letting homeowners into the program on a trial basis, but failing to make decisions regarding hundreds of thousands of homeowners while multiple government deadlines passed.

To push banks to solve the problem, senior Treasury official Michael Barr, who has since left the department, warned in a November 2009 conference call with journalists that if the banks didn't clear their backlogs, the firms would "suffer consequences." Treasury issued a press release the same day saying banks could face “monetary penalties and sanctions.”

It turns out Treasury had already taken most penalties off the table.

The program rests on contracts that Treasury drafted and banks signed onto. To participate in the program and receive potentially billions in government incentives, banks and mortgage servicers agreed to offer homeowners modifications under guidelines subsequently drawn up by the government. In exchange, they would receive $1,000 for a completed modification and up to $4,000 if the loan continued to perform.

The contracts say Treasury can withhold or claw back incentive payments to servicers when they violate the contract. Members of Congress and homeowner advocates have long pushed Treasury to issue such penalties. There have also been calls within Treasury itself.

Around the same time that Barr and other officials were making public threats, Treasury staffers were looking at reports showing that some banks were modifying virtually no loans. Frustrated, they called at an internal meeting for withholding payments to the worst offenders or imposing fines, according to a person familiar with those discussions. But the staffers were walked back by Treasury lawyers, who said the government was only party to a commercial contract with servicers and not acting as their regulator.

Despite Treasury officials appearing before Congress and elsewhere warning of potential penalties, the department told ProPublica after months of questioning that its hands are tied. Treasury now says it has a very narrow authority to withhold incentives under the contracts. Only in cases where the servicer incorrectly granted a modification and claimed a payment can Treasury withhold or claw back a payment as a punishment.

That interpretation of the contracts means that if a homeowner was wrongfully denied help through the program, there is no possible financial penalty.

“There is no provision in the contract that permits Treasury to assess punitive fines or penalties for a servicer's failure to modify a loan, for an improper modification of a loan, or for failure to adhere to any other program requirements,” said a Treasury spokeswoman.

Experts say Treasury is handcuffing itself. Alan White, a law professor at Valparaiso University, called Treasury’s interpretation of its own contracts “extremely crabbed.” Treasury does have the power to punish servicers for broad violations by withholding incentive payments, he said, and it could also sue servicers for not fulfilling the contract.

Additionally, Treasury has the power to change the contracts, said Julia Gordon from the Center for Responsible Lending. (The Sandler Foundation is a major funder of both the Center and ProPublica, which operate independently of each other.)

The reason Treasury hasn’t changed them, Gordon said, is that Treasury is afraid servicers would drop out of the voluntary program, known as the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), in the face of real penalties.

"If servicers don't get paid for future modification activity, there is a risk that they will be less inclined to continue completing HAMP modifications or to follow HAMP guidelines to evaluate homeowners for all loss mitigation options before referring them to foreclosure," said a Treasury spokeswoman.

Instead of getting tough with servicers, Treasury says they work with banks to make sure problems are fixed.

When government audits of banks' modification practices revealed they were frequently breaking the rules, Treasury officials worked through a process they call "remediation."

One audit, conducted on Treasury's behalf by the government-supported mortgage company Freddie Mac, found that 200,000 struggling homeowners had not been told they were eligible for the program, as servicers are required to do. Auditors also found 15 of the largest 20 participating servicers were incorrectly using the Treasury formula that determines if homeowners qualify for the program.

Rather than imposing penalties, Treasury simply asked the servicers to contact the homeowners that had been missed and rerun the numbers for those who had been wrongfully denied because of the formula error.

"The servicer says, 'you've caught me this time,' but it doesn't improve widespread non-compliance because there's no real penalty," said Alys Cohen of the National Consumer Law Center.

Dawn Patterson, Treasury's chief of compliance for the program, explained that the idea was to allow servicers time to get "their programs built, their processes more shored up." Patterson says Treasury is continuing to use that approach.

Treasury’s own records call into question the impact of those efforts. Documents obtained by ProPublica via a Freedom of Information Act request show homeowner complaints to a Treasury-sponsored hotline have actually increased during the past year. The most common complaint is that the servicer has violated the program's guidelines.

Servicers have also at times been uncooperative with the government’s own auditors. Even getting the right documents from servicers has "been a cumbersome process," the head of the government's audit team, Paul Heran, said last year at an industry conference. It seemed, he added, the task was often relegated to low-level staff who didn’t understand the requests. Another manager in the unit, Vic O’Laughlen, said servicers tended to respond with “at best fifty percent of what we’re expecting to see.”

A Treasury spokeswoman said that "servicer operations, especially in larger organizations, are complex," and producing the documents can be difficult.

The government’s oversight has also been hampered by a lack of transparency by Treasury itself. The department has kept its audits of servicers secret. It also does not have a written policy for how it would address rule violations by banks, an omission criticized in a Government Accountability Office report last year and not yet addressed. Treasury says it does have a process for dealing with banks' noncompliance, just not a written one.

The lack of oversight has been particularly damaging, since mortgage servicers have little incentive to do modifications on their own.

Servicers handle homeowner payments for investors who own the loans. Since servicers don’t own the vast majority of the loans they service, they don’t take the loss if a home goes to foreclosure, making them reluctant to make the investments necessary to fulfill their obligations to help homeowners.

"By every metric, the failure of the largest servicers to carry out the program is obvious," said Prof. White. The noncompliance has gone unpunished, he said, because "Treasury staff are preoccupied with friendly relations with the banks. Sometimes it seems the banks own Treasury.”

Meanwhile, the industry has continued to lobby for changes in the program.

Last summer, Treasury significantly weakened a tool that would have helped keep servicers accountable after officials met with industry lobbyists, documents show.

When banks entered the program, they agreed to certify annually that they've followed the rules of the program. But lobbyists from the Financial Services Roundtable and the Mortgage Bankers Association suggested adding exemptions.

Instead of certifying that banks had followed all the rules, the industry proposed that they could ignore problems affecting less than five percent of homeowners eligible for the program. In the case of Bank of America, which handles more mortgages than any other bank, that meant the bank would not have to report an error that occurred nearly 20,000 times.

The industry also suggested that no matter how widespread a problem, servicers could assert they were complying with the law as long as they pledged to fix problems "to the extent practicable." The previously unreported proposal was disclosed through an administration policy of releasing lobbying contacts related to the TARP.

Later that month, the Treasury revised its certification requirements, making them similar to those the industry sought. Under the new rules, servicers can define for themselves what violations were significant enough to disclose.

The new policy is "not only like putting the fox in charge of the hen house," said Cohen of the National Consumer Law Center, "but asking the fox to fine itself for each chicken eaten."

A Treasury Department spokeswoman said the industry's lobbying did not affect the final guidance, because Treasury was already going to make several of the servicers' suggested changes. It was never the department’s intention that “a servicer submit a list of every individual instance of non-compliance.” If servicers give themselves inappropriate leeway, she said, Treasury would work with them to address the problem.

Unless servicers fear real penalties, the troubled program is unlikely to improve, said Richard Neiman, New York state's chief bank regulator. "There needs to be a greater effort on enforcement, on assigning sanction and fines where there has been noncompliance. We cannot rely solely on servicers to police themselves."

-Thursday 27 January 2011 by: Paul Kiel and Olga Pierce

All republished content that appears on Truthout has been obtained by permission or license.

FHA extends suspension of 'anti-flipping' rule for another year

The rule was intended to prevent speculators from defrauding the government, but it also stifled the purchase and renovation of foreclosed homes by legitimate investors.For years the federal government prohibited the use of Federal Housing Administration mortgage financing by buyers purchasing homes from sellers who had owned the property for less than 90 days. The idea was to prevent speculators from defrauding the government through quick flips of houses — often involving straw buyers and corrupt appraisers — at wildly inflated prices.

One side effect of that policy had been to stifle purchase-and-renovate projects by legitimate, small-scale investors who buy houses after foreclosure or loan defaults and then resell them in substantially improved condition. In many parts of the country, first-time and moderate-income buyers often sought to buy these fixed-up houses using FHA-insured mortgages with 3.5% down payments, but were prevented from doing so by the "anti-flipping" rule.
This left large numbers of foreclosed, vacant houses sitting unsold and deteriorating, with negative effects on the values of neighboring properties.

Last January, FHA Commissioner David H. Stevens announced a one-year suspension of that rule, permitting qualified buyers to obtain FHA mortgages on properties that were acquired by rehabbers less than 90 days before. The plan, set to expire at the end of this month, came with safeguards for purchasers, including inspections and multiple appraisals in some cases to document the amounts spent by investors on the improvements.

Vicki Bott, deputy assistant secretary for single-family housing at the FHA, confirmed in an interview that the agency expects to continue the policy for another year. Not only have first-time buyers responded overwhelmingly to the opportunity to buy "turnkey" renovated homes with low down payments, she said, but they have performed well on their mortgage obligations.

"Obviously we have concerns about flipping in general," Bott said, but the FHA has seen none of the fraud problems, defaults and re-foreclosures that cost the agency millions in insurance payouts in earlier years.

Investor Paul Wylie, who with a group of partners and contractors specializes in acquiring, renovating and reselling foreclosed and distressed houses in the Los Angeles area, says the government's policy "has been a very positive approach" because "it recognizes the role that [private investors] can play in helping the housing market get back on its feet."

In the L.A. market, Wylie said, FHA financing accounts for 40% of all home purchases and 60% of purchases in predominantly Latino and African American communities.

Buying foreclosed houses "comes with a lot of risk factors," Wylie said. "There's no title insurance. We don't have a good idea of the extent of the defects" inside properties that have been sitting vacant or vandalized for months. Some houses come with delinquent property taxes, which Wylie's group typically must pay.

Then again, the profit opportunities can be significant as well. Most of the Wylie group's houses sell for more than 20% higher prices than Wylie paid at acquisition — a quick turnaround gain that potentially works for buyers, sellers, neighborhoods and, yes, the FHA itself.

kenharney@earthlink.net

Distributed by Washington Post Writers Group

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

Home prices in many U.S. markets hit bottom

Home prices in many U.S. markets hit bottom in the third quarter, but some large metropolitan areas, particularly in Florida, are still in trouble, according to data from Local Market Monitor.

The real estate analytics company said home price data may be skewed because of recent halts of foreclosure sales as servicers reviewed possible documentation problems.

Local Market Monitor reported a "definite bottom" in Southern California, specifically the San Francisco Bay area, where the average home price stands at $642,159, a 17% drop from the peak in the third quarter of 2006. Analysts forecast that price to hold over the next year and possibly increase 1% over the next two years.

Home prices in Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, Honolulu and Boston also bottomed out in the third quarter.

The biggest drop over the next year is set to occur in the Daytona Beach, Fla. area, where Local Market Monitor said prices should drop another 11%. A number of other Sunshine State cities — Jacksonville, Lakeland, Ocala, Orlando and Cape Coral — should all see prices drop by 5% or more over the next year.

"Our 12 month forecast is still very modest, because the job situation is still weak, but it won't be a surprise if home prices in these markets actually do better," according to the report.

Local Market Monitor reported three Texas areas, Austin, Forth Worth and Dallas, have seen good job growth and "have the potential to beat forecasted price increases over the next year."
-Housing Wire, Dec. 10th, 2010

FTC clamps down on mortgage modification scammers

Criminal enterprises posing as do-gooders who promise to get you out of the mortgage jam you're in: They claim they can persuade your lender to cut your monthly payments, forgive all penalties, slash your interest rate and even get your loan balance reduced. If your lender won't cooperate, they say they'll perform "forensic audits" on your mortgage and convince a court that your entire loan transaction should be canceled because of technical mistakes in the paperwork.
Bogus firms always insist on getting your money upfront — often thousands of dollars — and then do little or nothing.
The agency plans to ban almost all upfront payments, institute mandatory disclosure rules and place new restrictions on lawyers.
-Kenneth R. Harney, November 28, 2010, L.A.Times

Credit scores to be revised amid soaring mortgage defaults

Found in the LA Times this article from Ken Harney

Reporting from Washington —

With foreclosures soaring — and homeowners with unblemished payment histories abruptly walking away from their houses with no warning to lenders — the two major producers of credit scores have begun changing how they evaluate consumers' risks of default. The revisions could affect you the next time you apply for a loan.

In late October, both Fair Isaac Corp., developer of the FICO score, which dominates the mortgage field, and VantageScore Solutions, a joint venture by the three national credit bureaus and marketer of the competing VantageScore, outlined modifications they were making to handle the vast credit disruptions caused by the housing bust, the recession, high unemployment and behavioral changes by consumers.

Get a daily snapshot of market numbers and trends, delivered right to your mobile phone. Text BUSINESS to 52669.

Overall, credit industry experts agree, consumer creditworthiness has deteriorated in the U.S. since 2006 — especially among what used to be considered the credit elite, people with the highest scores. For example, a study this year by VantageScore found that the probability of serious delinquency — defined as nonpayment for 90 days or more — had increased 417% among "super-prime" borrowers between June 2007 and June 2009. Default risk during the same period rose 406% for the second-highest-rated category of "prime" consumers, and nearly doubled for those at the "near prime" scoring level.

The driving force behind the score revisions, according to Sarah Davies, VantageScore's senior vice president for analytics and research, is the "significant change in consumer credit repayment behavior" that began during the housing bust and recession.

Not only are borrowers who previously were rated outstanding credit risks far more likely to default today, she said, but many homeowners are defying long-standing credit industry assumptions by going delinquent on their first mortgage payments while continuing to pay their credit card balances and second mortgages on time. Strategic defaults, or walkaways, by high-score borrowers also have been an unexpected development, she said.

To adjust its statistical models to these new realities, VantageScore says it conducted intensive research on 45 million active credit files obtained from the databases of its joint venture partners, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. The research examined the same files — with personal identifiers removed — during set time periods between 2006 and 2009 to capture emerging behavioral patterns associated with defaults on various types of credit accounts. The resulting VantageScore 2.0, which is expected to be rolled out nationwide to lenders in January, focuses on the subtle warning signs of credit stress that might have been missed earlier and penalizes or rewards consumers with higher or lower risk scores than they would have received before.

Joanne Gaskin, director of mortgage scoring solutions for Fair Isaac, said her company's new FICO 8 Mortgage Score was based on similarly exhaustive research into consumer credit behavior changes over the last four years. When used by a lender to rate the risk of new applicants or existing mortgage customers, Gaskin says, the Mortgage Score is likely to be 15% to 25% more accurate in detecting signs of future default compared with the standard FICO model.

Though she would not discuss proprietary details about the early warning signs the new score monitors, Gaskin gave an example of how the new score might work: Say a borrower with a 720 FICO score has average balances on a first mortgage, home equity lines and other accounts that are higher than norms pinpointed by the revised scoring software. A 720 FICO is considered a good score by most mortgage lenders, often qualifying for favorable rates and terms. However, the same applicant might rate just a 680 FICO or lower if the lender used the new Mortgage Score. The lender would then have a choice: Reject the applicant, quote a higher interest rate on the mortgage or require a larger down payment.

Gaskin said the reverse could also occur: The FICO 8 Mortgage Score could come in higher than the standard FICO — indicating lower risk for the future — in situations where formerly troubled borrowers manage to put themselves back on a healthier credit track.

Experts in the credit industry say the new scoring efforts by Fair Isaac and VantageScore should prove to be a net positive for the housing and mortgage industries if they can do what they claim: spot subtle risk patterns and nascent hints of improvement.

But as a mortgage applicant you should know that your next score might not look anything like the score you thought you had. You might end up getting a better deal — or worse than you wanted — when lenders quote you rates and terms.

How to qualify for an FHA 203K loan

If you want to buy a house that needs major repairs, your best option may be an FHA 203k loan. This loan pays for the cost of the repairs by adding it to the loan.

Qualifying for this loan is like qualifying for any other mortgage. You will need to have a job, and the lender will check your debt-to-income ratio and credit score, among other things.

#1 Explain to your FHA lender that you would like to secure rehabilitation funding in addition to the purchase loan to replace or repair the home. The FHA lender will have the knowledge to begin the necessary steps.

#2 Allow a feasibility study. This is similar to an appraisal. A feasibility study consultant evaluates properties for repair and write estimates of repair costs. The written estimates are then explained and presented for your approval.

#3 Authorize the consultant to create a work write-up. A work write-up is a repair expense itemization which can financed into the loan. Once an agreed-upon loan amount is reached, an actual appraisal will be ordered based on the work write-up. The appraisal is ordered to establish an "after improvements" value on the property.

#4 Allow the lender to submit the loan to underwriting. While the loan is being approved, home builders may submit bids to compete to complete the work on your home. When the loan has final approval, a payment is made toward the property's purchase price. The remaining funds remain in escrow until the repairs or replacements are completed. Builders may be paid during the rehabilitation process as work is completed, or they will get paid all at once when all of the work is done. All repairs must be completed within six months of the purchase date.

For more specific information about this loan and the type of repairs covered: http://directlender.blogspot.com/2010/04/203k-loan-to-finance-and-rehab-property.html

FNMA Nothing Down?

found at http://affordable homeownership.info
Washington -- A policy change last week by the giant mortgage investor Fannie Mae symbolized a market transformation of huge importance to home buyers across the country. By adding zero down payment mortgages to its standard line of product offerings for the first time, Fannie Mae closed the door on an era: From colonial times through the last century, conventional home mortgages took various forms, but they always required a cash contribution by the home buyer - the mandatory down payment.
The down payment served to assure the lender that the buyer had a personal investment in the property and would be strongly motivated to pay off the debt. In the 1980s and '90s, however, down payments began to shrink. Private mortgage insurers were willing to provide back-up coverage to lenders that allowed them to offer 10 percent, 5 percent and, more recently, 3 percent down payments.

Smaller down payments, in turn, helped fuel the unprecedented housing boom of the past decade, pushing the national rate of home ownership to its current historical high of around 67 percent. Houses that were impossible for young couples to buy with 20 percent cash out of pocket became readily affordable with 5 percent down.
Last fall, Fannie Mae's competitor, Freddie Mac, announced that it would push the envelope to the next level and buy zero down payment home loans as a standard product, but Fannie cautiously held back until last week. Now, virtually anybody anywhere in the country with a good credit history can buy a house with no cash down. Fannie Mae's program is aimed at first-time buyers. The maximum loan is $275,000. The buyers needn't invest any money in the house itself, but they have to be able to cover closing costs of 3 percent.

Even the closing costs don't have to be from their own pockets, however. It can be a gift or an unsecured loan from a family member or a nonprofit agency, assistance from an employer or a grant from a local government agency. All the buyers have to do is contact any of the thousands of mortgage lenders who do business with Fannie Mae. The key criterion for applicants is a good credit history.
People who don't pay their rent on time, who max out on multiple credit cards or who fail to pay their auto or student loans need not apply. Fannie and Freddie's programs represent just part of the zero down payment opportunities now available to aggressive shoppers. Hundreds of lenders, including most of the biggest and best-known mortgage companies, offer other types of nothing-down plans. Lenders using private mortgage insurance make standard loans as high as $375,000 that represent 103 percent of the price of the house.

That means you put zero dollars down when you buy a $364,000 new house, and the mortgage also finances the closing costs, up to a total of $375,000. Andrew May, vice president of product development for United Guaranty Corp., Greensboro, N.C., says the typical zero-down home buyers his company insures are financially solid 35-year-olds buying their move-up or second home. They "want the flexibility to do what they want with their cash," he says. They prefer to invest it in assets with stronger profit potential than their house - their own business ventures, for instance, stock funds or retirement plans. "These (zero-downers) are people who understand the meaning of Ôopportunity cost,' " says May.
That is, they know that a mandatory down payment of 10 percent or 20 percent could potentially cost them substantial financial returns elsewhere. Given the choice between sinking their cash into their residence or into a higher-yielding business venture, they vote with their high-yield instincts: They go nothing-down. Other mortgage insurers also offer coverage on loans over 100 percent of home value.

The industry's biggest insurer, MGIC Investment Corp., will insure up to 103 percent for people whose FICO credit scores are above 700 and whose overall debt-to-income ratios do not exceed 41 percent. FICO scores are the dominant credit-evaluation tools used by American lenders. The acronym stands for Fair, Isaac & Co., the firm that developed the software that produces the scores. A 700 FICO, on a scale that runs from the 300s to over 900, is considered excellent credit. Is the zero-down mortgage option for you? For some people - young couples with good incomes but no savings - it may be the only way to buy the house they want.

For others, keep these points in mind: Zero-down is going to cost you more in mortgage payments every month, not just in higher principal and interest charges, but in mortgage insurance as well. In the event of a job loss or economic downturn, you could find yourself on the wrong side of the bargain, upside-down on your home debt: Your mortgage may be more than your house is worth, and you may be forced to sell for a loss.

Shopping around for title insurance can cut closing costs

Good reading about why you need an owner's title policy:
If you finance your home through the normal lending process, a title search will undoubtedly turn up any liens for delinquent property taxes, unpaid loans and unsettled claims by subcontractors for labor and materials.

Titles aren't exactly riddled with hidden defects, but problems sometimes arise. Some of the more common hidden deficiencies include forged deeds recorded in the name of a fictitious owner, conflicting wills filed by heirs of a previous owner who had bequeathed the property to more than one person and missing heirs who turn up years later with a legitimate claim to a house.

This is why mortgage companies insist on a search of the courthouse records. Before they lend anyone any money, lenders want to be sure that the seller really owns the property and that there is nothing to cloud the line of ownership.

One in three title searches reveals a problem — such as an unpaid contractor or a forgotten tax bill, according to the American Land Title Assn. And for the most part, those issues are resolved before closing a home sale.

Sometimes, though, something is overlooked or there's a problem that could not be found in a search of the public records. This is why lenders not only require title searches but also an insurance policy in place that protects the lenders' investment should a problem surface sometime down the road.

But most borrowers don't realize that they can shop for title insurance, just like they can shop for lenders. For the most part, buyers choose whomever their real estate agent suggests. And there's nothing wrong with that. After all, agents want a quick, clean closing as much as you do.

But if you are hoping to save some money, it often pays to look around for the best deal. Timothy Dwyer, founder of Entitle Direct, a new Web-based direct-to-consumer shopping channel, says borrowers can cut their title insurance premiums by an average of 35% by using his service.

We'll get back to that in a moment. First, although it is nearly impossible to generalize about title insurance, here are some things you need to know:

•There are two types of title insurance: the required loan policy that protects the lender and the owner's policy that protects the buyer. The borrower pays for the loan policy, but who pays for the owner's coverage depends on local custom. In much of the West the seller buys the policy for the buyer, but on the East Coast the buyer typically pays.

If you choose not to take the owner's insurance you may be asked to sign a waiver, depending on your state. But you should realize that the loan policy won't protect you should a defect in the title present itself in the future.

If there is a claim, title insurers have two options. One is to cure the title defect by spending whatever it costs to correct the problem. If the defect can't be cured, the other option is to reimburse the insured for the difference between what the property was worth without the defect and what it's worth with the defect.

For example, assume there's a defect that can be fixed by spending $25,000. If the title insurer can establish that the value of the property with the defect is above the amount owed on the loan at the time the defect is discovered, the lender has suffered no loss. And if there is no loss, then in almost all cases the claim can be denied.

At the same time, however, the homeowner will now have a property with a title defect that reduces the value of the property if it is not cured.

Also, depending upon the nature of the title defect and the terms of the loan documents, the lender may require the owner to correct the title defect. Many deeds of trust contain a provision requiring the borrower/owner to warrant to the lender that the title to the property is "clean" and to maintain it that way for the life of the loan.

If the lender has this right and exercises it, the owner would be responsible for curing the defect. If you have an owner's policy, the title insurer would pay to rectify the problem. But if you have no coverage, you would have to pay out of your pocket whatever it costs in legal fees to make the defect go away.

•Insurance rates are one-time fees that are paid at closing and are set in different ways in different places. In Florida and Texas, each company is required to charge the same rate, so there may be a zero price differential. Thus, when shopping for title coverage, you will be shopping not for price but for service and competence of the closing agent.

Elsewhere, state regulators approve rate requests. Once a rate goes into effect, an insurer can lower its rate but never raise it.

•There are different rates for different situations. There's a basic rate for the lender's policy and a reduced simultaneous rate if lender's and owner's policies are issued together.

If you are refinancing, you won't need a new owner's policy because the one you bought at closing is good for as long as you and your heirs own the property. But even if you remain with the original lender, you will need a new lender's policy because the lender wants to be sure there are no new encumbrances on the property. However, you may qualify for a reduced refinance or reissue rate, depending on your state.

•Roughly 80% of the premium goes to the closing or escrow agent, who orchestrates the entire settlement. The agent researches the title, pays off the old lender and the seller, pays recording fees and taxes, files the necessary paperwork at the local courthouse and sends the buyer's down payment to the new lender. In addition, these agents charge a fee for closing the loan.

•Shopping for service is tough enough, but shopping for the cost of title insurance is nearly impossible. That is why former investment banker Dwyer started Entitle Direct, an online platform at http://www.entitledirect.com where consumers can shop for prices. The company is licensed in 35 states, including California, and the District of Columbia. It is seeking approval in eight more states.

Of course, if you go with Entitle, you will have to close with the agent selected by the company.

On a $750,000 house in California with a $600,000 mortgage, for example, Entitle charges $1,647 for both lender's and owner's policies issued simultaneously, whereas a competitor might charge $2,480. That's a difference of $833, or 34%.

lsichelman@aol.com By Lew Sichelman August 8, 2010

Distributed by United Feature Syndicate.

Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times

FHA loan cost is going up

FHA loan cost is going up on Sept 7th, 2010, unless you have an accepted contract by this date and your lender has a case number. (Case numbers can only be obtained if there is an address.)
Monthly mortgage insurance will increase from .50% to .90% for loans over 15 year term. (Despite the new ability to charge 1.55 percent, FHA officials say an increase to 0.90 percent would be sufficient to self-insure its loans.)
In everyday terms, assuming a $200,000 mortgage, the math to a homeowner looks as follows:
* Current Premium (0.55%) : $91.67 monthly mortgage insurance premium
* Expected Increase (0.90%) : $150.00 monthly mortgage insurance premium
* Maximum Increase (1.55%) : $258.33 monthly mortgage insurance premium
The news is not all terrible, however.
FHA has also said it plans to reduce its upfront mortgage insurance premium paid at closing from 2.25 percent down to 1.000 percent.
On the same $200,000 mortgage, that would reduces closing costs by $2,500.
However, the potential for reduced seller paid closing costs from a maximum of 6% down to 3% will mean higher entry cost and higher monthly payments for minimum down buyers.
The California Tax Credit Application Deadline is August 15,2010. Funds are limited, and not all applicants will be accepted.
All in all, several compelling reasons for minimum down homebuyers to get into contract now!

As FHA tightens requirements, Private mortgage insurance companies return to market

Beginning this month, down payment requirements on FHA-insured loans have been increased. Although borrowers with credit scores of 580 or above will still be able to make the traditional 3.5% down payment, those with lower scores will need 10% down.

In addition, the upfront mortgage insurance premium has been raised from 1.75% to 2.25%. The premium can be financed as part of the mortgage.

FHA has asked Congress for authority to increase the maximum monthly insurance fee from the current 0.5% level. The agency is seeking permission to hike the monthly charge to 1.55%, but has said it needs to raise it to only 0.9% at this time.

FHA is reducing permissible seller concessions from 6% of the loan amount to 3%. This change conforms to industry standards, and means that even if a seller were to agree to pay all of the borrower's closing costs, the borrower could count only that portion equal to up to 3% of the loan amount as if it were his own money.

Meanwhile, several private mortgage insurers have returned to backing 5% down payment loans to borrowers anywhere in the country.

Today, while FHA loans are generally considered to be the less expensive alternative, that's not always the case. Savvy borrowers would be wise to consider both before jumping to a decision.

Generally, PMI pricing is more affordable for borrowers making a down payment of 10% or more.

Source: Lew Sichelman, United Feature Syndicate 4/25/2010

FNMA to shorten waiting periods for some troubled borrowers to get new home loans

Good news for people who have given the deed on their house to the bank because of financial problems, or done a short sale to avoid foreclosure: You may not have to wait 4 to 5 years to requalify for financing to buy a home.

It could be as little as 2 years. FNMA issued a bulletin to lenders April 14, saying it is relaxing the previous rules that prevented loan applicants who had participated in short sales or deeds in lieu of foreclosure from obtaining a new mortgage for extended periods of time. The new rules are scheduled to take effect July 1.

Homeowners who've done short sales — such as under the Obama administration's new Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program — will also be able to qualify for a mortgage in as little as two years.

The fine print: To qualify for a new loan in the minimum two years, most of these borrowers will need to come up with down payments of at least 20%.

However, if borrowers can demonstrate that their mortgage problems were directly attributable to "extenuating circumstances" — such as loss of employment, medical expenses or divorce — they may be able to qualify for new loans with minimum 10% down payments in just two years.

The main potential complication is in FNMA's credit rehabilitation requirements. To qualify for a new mortgage, FNMA expects borrowers to reestablish their credit enough to get passing grades from the company's automated underwriting system, which considers credit bureau data among other factors.

Source: Kenneth Harney, Washington Post Writers Group 4/25/2010