The FHA home loan guidelines should see significant changes in 2010. Look for credit score and down-payment requirements to rise. FHA rates for January 4th, 2009 are down as the conforming thirty-year fixed mortgage rate is right at 5%. The conforming fifteen year fixed mortgage rate is at 4.45% and the conforming 5/1 ARM is up slightly to 4.14%. The 10 year treasury rate yield has pulled back slightly today which is a strong indicator that mortgage rates are going to be stable to down. It will be interesting to see how FHA mortgage rates and the 10 year treasury rate yield move over this first week of January.
In recent FHA news, the House just passed HR 3288, home loan legislation which would continue 2009 FHA loan limits through 2010 for owner ocuupied purchase and refinance loans. However, the bill did state that HUD will be reducing loan limits for FHA reverse mortgage loans that are available to senior homeowners who are at least 62 years of age.
HUD is now approved to insure FHA home loans worth up to $400 billion. This is a significant rise from $315 billion last year. The mortgage bill also mandates that FHA mortgage loan limits from fiscal 2008. This means the FHA loan limits will still allow loan amounts up to $729,750 in certain areas.
Gone are the days when HUD could copy Fannie or Freddie when setting FHA loan limits for the counties in the 50 states. No more can HUD say “ditto” when it comes to home loan limits, because Fannie and Freddie are silent and appear to be disenchanted with the government bail-outs that have ran-sacked the mortgage industry over the last 3 years. So with 2010 FHA loan limits all set, consumers looking to FHA for home financing have real numbers to work with. It also helps FHA lenders and brokers, because banks usually won’t roll out new loan programs with government loan limits up in the air. Consumers have been blessed with record low FHA mortgage rates in 2009 and this is clearly good news for FHA rates in 2010. When considering refinancing or a purchase mortgage, check with HUD for local loan limits set by county for each state.
Mortgage buyer, Freddie Mac, announced that FHA rates dropped to 4.98% from 5.03 % a week earlier. The interest rate drop was just short of the record low 4.96 % touched the week of January 15th. Bloomberg reported that the average U.S. rate on a thirty-year fixed mortgage fell this week as the Federal Reserve announced it would double purchases of mortgage debt as part of its effort to lower rates and lure homebuyers to the market.
The Federal Reserve announced yesterday that it plans to buy up to $300 billion of Treasuries and increase purchases of mortgage-backed bonds. Falling real estate and stock prices, record home-loan defaults and job losses have cut demand for new and existing homes in the U.S. The nation’s jobless rate rose to 8.1 % in February as employers reduced payrolls by 651,000, according to the Labor Department.
Home loan delinquencies jumped to a seasonally adjusted 7.88 % of all loans in the fourth quarter, the highest in records going back to 1972, the Mortgage Bankers Association said March 5th home loans in foreclosure rose to 3.30 %, also an all-time high.

