The trend is your friend, or so I'm told.  Mortgage rates going up?  Watch the trend.  Rates going down????  Watch the trend.  I got into the business in 1994, but got serious with it in 1996.  Needless to say, FHA was it!  There were conforming loans, jumbo loans as well as V.A. loans.  Sub-prime loans were really nothing but an idea.  Nooooooooo, lending was FHA in the mid 90's

Come turn of the century (I love saying "turn of the century") conventional loans ruled and sub-prime loans all but ruled what used to be an FHA market.  Lite-doc, Alt-A and no doc loans came and it really became a pre-cursor to the market's sub-prime blow up.  As I've discussed before there were so many contributors to the mortgage collapse.  While this post isn't about this I do feel that it warrants to know that everyone contributed to this collapse.  This includes:

• Lenders
• Appraisers
• Realtors
• Attorneys
• Title Companies
• Wall Street
• Publicly Traded Mortgage Companies

But, again....alas, I digress.  The trend was FHA....by about 2003, there was talk by Congress thinking of abolishing, eradicating or fading out FHA.  The trend was away from FHA and to many, the demise of FHA was imminent. 

FHA is back in all it's raging glory right now.  In fact, I've been in the business for 15 years now and FHA has never looked stronger.  Really, FHA is THE KEY to

Home ownership & the Economic Recovery for the United States. 

Here's why.....

First, home ownership never looked better than it does right now through FHA.  There really isn't a better alternative for first time home buyers than FHA.  For instance,

• No first time homebuyer loan allows less money down except for USDA (rural housing) of which most people nationally don't qualify for;
• The down payment is only 3.5%.  Can you beat that?
• The entire down payment can come in the form of a gift;
• There are no income restrictions.  You can make $1 per year or $10 billion dollars per year.  Either is acceptable.  You just need to qualify;
• You can have a co-signor who doesn't reside in the property sign for you even though they won't live in the property;
• Mortgage Insurance....It doesn't get any cheaper than FHA's.  Private mortgage insurance for conventional loans....well, let's just say that a convoluted formula exists that really only the PMI companies know, but the factor (the number that determines how much the borrower pays) is much higher than FHA. 

Secondly - Economic Recovery!

The truth of the matter is this.  FHA is the key to the economic recovery for the United States.  How can I make such a bold statement?   The fact of the matter is this.  What's the thing that has taken the United States out of every recession and or depression?  Real Estate!  Every recession and depression has ended when Real Estate has taken off. 

The strongest mortgage out there is FHA.  FHA is the key.  The first time home buyer stimulus will be a major component of this and the word is that some form of this bill will be renewed or extended.  The United States needs to have real estate properties move.  In order to do that we need the best product out there.  The trend is our friend, and for now....FHA is that means that the key to the recovery is making sure that FHA is well protected.  There are problems with FHA and the viability is being scrutinized by HUD and through Congress.  Guidelnes may change.  In fact they will, but FHA is here to stay.