Reverse Mortgage Guide

The figures for the first half of HUD’s fiscal year are now available and they show substantial reverse mortgage activity.

According to HUD’s report, during the first six months of the fiscal year (in the world of government accounting, the fiscal year starts October 1st), the Department had received 762,266 single family program applications (up almost 150 percent from 2007), including 73,709 HECM applications.

On the approval side of the ledger, the FHA endorsed 351,615 forward mortgages as well as 55,218 reverse mortgages.

What these figures show is that the FHA program is enjoying huge demand because many toxic loans are no longer available. Also, investors want the safety of mortgage-backed securities which include loans made with sane underwriting standards.

In addition, of course, it looks as though the reverse mortgage program is going to have another banner year. Last year there were 108,287 reverse mortgages endorsed by HUD, this year we already have 55,218 even though higher loan limits have not been available to reverse mortgage borrowers.

(Source: FHA)

While maximum single-family FHA loan limits have been doubled for 2008, that has not been the case with FHA reverse mortgages. They remain stuck at 2007 levels, not good news for many households in high-cost areas that would like to access more equity than is now possible.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 12:19 am and is filed under Reverse Mortgage . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.