FHA Secure Expansion

In a two-day hearing on proposed housing legislation, the FHA discussed proposed expansion of FHASecure, as well as the details of the new housing bill. FHA’s budget has recently taken a hit because of the assistance it has provided to homebuyers making down payments, as the loans that have been given to these homebuyers have seen high delinquency and foreclosure rates. In order to sustain the life of the FHA, officials call for an end to down payment assistance from sellers or other entities that might benefit from the transaction, and Congress has also been asked to back FHA’s ability to maintain its current mortgage insurance premium structure that directly parallels the risk of the insured loans. Further hearings continue to take place regarding the state of the housing market and the FHA.

For more information on this story, please visit:
http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/4112008_FHA_Changes.asp

Month of March Met Significant Declines in New Construction

According to a report by MSNBC, new home building projects started during the month of March declined by 11.9%, a rate that was lower than expected. Furthermore, building permit activity, which often denotes construction plans to take shape in the future, also fell by 5.8%. This report has been met with disappointment by government officials, and the declines were greater that those originally forecasted by economists.

For more information on this story, please visit: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24157082/

Home Loan Volume Increases to 2.5%

A promising new statistic for the state of the housing market was published last week by the Mortgage Banker’s Association’s weekly application survey, that the mortgage application volume had increased 2.5% as of April 11th, 2008. In addition, refinance volume rose 5.25% during the week, although purchase volume did fall 0.8%. Over half of the total mortgage applications were refinance applications, which is testament to recent action by the FHA to help homeowners refinance into a better mortgage and thus avoid foreclosure.

To read more statistics on last week’s housing market, please visit: http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/16/news/economy/mortgage_applications.ap/index.htm?section=money_realestate