FHA is planning on implementing a policy that is designed to lower their risk. They will be lowering the amount that sellers are allowed to contribute to a buyers closing costs from 6% to 3%. They have studied defaulted loans and, by a large margin, when the seller concessions are up around 6%, the default rates are higher. This may be a good thing for risk but there is something that buyers of lower end properties need to be aware of. Continue Reading »

Posted by Mark Afman under Home & Mortgage & Mortgage Blog & Mortgage Information & Real Estate | No Comments »

OK, so you may have heard that the FHA up front mortgage insurance premium (UFMIP) is raised from 1.75% to 2.25%. This is true as of April 5th. BUT, we just heard from our FHA source is Washington that FHA is actually going to consider changing that up again real soon. Now they are considering a drop in the UFMIP to 1% but then raising the Annual (read monthly) MIP to .98%. It is currently at .55%. FHA’s congressionally mandated reserves are lower then congress has mandated so they are trying to find ways of raising some funds to get those reserves back in place. I will keep you posted once we hear more. It’s an interesting time in the mortgage business.

Posted by Mark Afman under Home & Mortgage & Mortgage Blog & Mortgage Information & Real Estate | No Comments »

This past Monday, I attended a webinar on a new program that has been rolled out by CHFA (Colorado Housing Finance Authority). Well it’s sorta new. It is actually the old MRB FirstStep program taken off the shelf, dusted off, and put back on the market. If you are familiar with CHFA then you may remember back when the first time buyer program from CHFA had very competitive rates. Sometimes they were even better then regular FHA rates. Continue Reading »