F.H.A. Problems Raising Concern of Policy Makers

The New York Times ran an article today highlighting the mounting problems lurking in the FHA ("FHA Problems Raising Concern of Policy Makers"). The article also contained a skematic demonstrating how the most recent mortages are the most distressed. Specifically, more than 20% of all FHA mortgages underwritten in 2008 are in default (see below).



I have included below some key quotes/takeaways from the article. While I am convinced that the FHA will end up requiring a bailout from the federal government, it is striking to me how so many of our politicians are deluded into thinking this program is actually serving a valuable function.

• David H. Stevens [Head of the F.H.A]…acknowledged that some 20 percent of F.H.A. loans insured last year — and as many as 24 percent of those from 2007 — faced serious problems including foreclosure, offering a preview of a forthcoming audit of the agency’s finances.
• It appears destined for a taxpayer bailout in the next 24 to 36 months,” Edward Pinto, a former Fannie Mae executive, said in testimony prepared for the hearing. Mr. Pinto, who was the chief credit officer from 1987 to 1989 for Fannie Mae, went further than most housing analysts and predicted that F.H.A. losses would more than wipe out the agency’s $30 billion of cash reserves.
• The government is giving as many people as it possibly can the chance to buy a house or, if they are in financial difficulty, refinance it. The F.H.A. is insuring about 6,000 loans a day, four times the amount in 2006. Its portfolio is growing so fast that even F.H.A. backers express amazement.
• The number of F.H.A. mortgage holders in default is 410,916, up 76 percent from a year ago, when 232,864 were in default, according to agency data.
• 7.77 percent of the portfolio is in default, up from 5.6 percent a year ago.
• Got to love this asinine comment from Barney Frank: Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview that the defaults were, in essence, worth it. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing that the bad loans occurred,” he said. “It was an effort to keep prices from falling too fast. That’s a policy.”
• Kenneth Donohue, the inspector general of the Housing and Urban Development Department, who is also F.H.A.’s watchdog said the drop in reserves was “a flashing red light” that the agency was not taking seriously enough…”He noted that if private lenders had raised their down payment requirements in the last two years, it raised the question, “what does the F.H.A. think it is doing by asking only 3.5 percent?”
• Chaz Fullenkamp, an automotive technician in Columbus, Ohio, got an F.H.A. loan even though he was living on the financial edge. “If I got unemployed, I’d be wiped out in a month or two,” he says. Thanks to the F.H.A., however, he is better off than he used to be. Mr. Fullenkamp used F.H.A. insurance to buy a house this spring for $179,000. The eager seller paid the closing costs and also gave Mr. Fullenkamp $2,500 in cash. He immediately applied for the $8,000 tax rebate. Even taking his down payment into account, he came out ahead. “I knew in my heart I could not really afford the house, but they gave it to me anyway,” said Mr. Fullenkamp, 22. “I thought, ‘Wow, I’m surprised I pulled that off.’ ”