FHA Loans

David · Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 754 Location: Atlanta, GA

For first time homebuyers or people with a lower income, most likely you can get for a loan insured by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). FHA's mortgage insurance programs helps people become homeowners by lowering the cost of their loan.

It is possible to get an FHA loan with a down payment of 3% of the loan amount, or even less! You are allowed to get the down payment as a gift from friends or family, and can even finance many of the closing costs.

An FHA loan should definitely be considered for a first loan.

squirrel · Joined: 29 Jul 2004 Posts: 11 Location: Bucharest, Romania

Is it difficult to obtain? Which are the conditions that have to be fullfilled?

David · Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 754 Location: Atlanta, GA

FHA Loans are pretty easy to obtain. I don't know all of the specifics, but they are the most common loan for first time home buyers.

BECCA9892003 · Joined: 20 Jan 2005 Posts: 400 Location: Altoona, PA

FHA loans can also be the longest hardest loan to obtian for a new borrower due to the restraints the put on the properties..

David · Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 754 Location: Atlanta, GA

BECCA9892003 wrote: FHA loans can also be the longest hardest loan to obtian for a new borrower due to the restraints the put on the properties..

Really? What sort of restraints are common?

BECCA9892003 · Joined: 20 Jan 2005 Posts: 400 Location: Altoona, PA

they require the property to be in certian compliance..so the longest part of the loan is finding a house already approved..or getting the seller to make improvements or changes to their house to then get it FHA approved...with 100% financeing being available for as low as a 580 score..no real reason to go FHA unless you have to

Haplo · Joined: 20 Jan 2005 Posts: 2422 Location: Springfield, IL

I totally disagree with that statement ;)

I've had nothing but success with FHA and overall they've been pretty easy. It just depends on the borrower and the property. Our FHA rates here are just a touch higher than our conv/conf so I don't really push for them, but it really does allow for some flexibility that may not be available otherwise.

of course it does get annoying if that one silly thing comes up about the house..

lodge1 · Joined: 29 Jan 2005 Posts: 7 Location: Houston, TX

80% of our business in 04 was FHA, almost every one of those loans required the borrowers to put $0 into the house. We made 5 points on each one (1 orig 4 ysp), 496 of them to be exact. 70% of that business was from builders who have their own in-house finance companies, but ended up paying all the borrowers closing costs and putting up the money for the downpayment assistance of 3%.