FHA Reform Makes it Through the Senate

The Senate’s FHA Modernization Bill, S 2338 flew through with a 93 to 1 vote yesterday. The House previously passed its own slightly different FHA reform bill in September. The measure will now go to a committee to work out compromises between the two competing version before the final draft is forwarded to the Oval Office for signature.

Two of the key issues are:

1. Raises the maximum FHA loan amount to $417,000, putting it in parity with conventional loan limits.
2. Lowers the required down payment to 1.5% from 3% (the House version eliminates the down payment requirement altogether)

Passage of this legislation to modernize FHA would complete a series of reforms that began a couple of years ago as FHA began eliminating many of the disincentives that drove buyers and sellers to subprime mortgages.

No longer are pest reports and clearances automatically required for all structures, and the old FHA “non allowable” costs have been virtually eliminated. With the increased loan limits and falling prices, these consumer-friendly loans will be available to more homeowners and will fill the ugly void left by the departure of the sub prime lenders.

Did you know that most lenders today are not approved to do FHA loans? And unless a lender was in the business before 2000, it isn’t likely they’ve ever done a single FHA or VA loan. Do you really want to trust your escrow or your client’s escrow to someone like that?

So ask your lender: Are you HUD approved?

More importantly, ask: how many FHA loans have you actually done?

If you don’t like the answer, Contact me for a quote or apply for a loan here. I do mortgage loans in most of the western U.S., and I’ve been doing FHA & VA loans for almost two decades.