Skip to content

Scotsman Guide 1/26/16 – Mortgage industry divided over further cuts to FHA insurance premiums

 

“I can’t handicap how likely it is that they would do this, or how seriously they are looking at it right now,” said Scott Olson, executive director of the Community Home Lenders Association, which lobbies on behalf of nonbank lenders. “The last time there was no real public indication that they were seriously looking at it.”

 
Olson said the administration has no reason not to lower the premiums. Credit scores of the average FHA borrower strengthened slightly in 2015, and serious delinquencies declined to 5.86 percent, the lowest level since last decade’s financial crisis.   
“The evidence from the last move was that it was extremely successful in terms of creating more volume; that is, making loans more affordable to borrowers,” Olson said. “We already know that this worked. The second part of that is that the fundamentals of FHA are strong.”