FHASecure Plan for Las Vegas Homeowners

Last week Gov. Jim Gibbons and Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, put the escalating problem of homes in foreclosure under the spotlight. Gibbons called for an Oct. 4 economic summit on housing, and Buckley convened a special subcommittee on mortgage lending in Nevada.

The fallout from foreclosures has tightened credit nationwide and made it more difficult for even those with good credit to get loans unless they put down a larger down payment or pay higher interest rates. That has reduced the pool of buyers for Las Vegas homes at a time when the city has record level of inventory on the market.

Recently President George W. Bush (08/31/07) announced that HUD's Federal Housing Administration (FHA) wouldl help an estimated 240,000 families avoid foreclosure by enhancing its refinancing program effective immediately. Under the new FHASecure plan, FHA will allow families with strong credit histories who had been making timely mortgage payments before their loans reset-but are now in default-to qualify for refinancing.

Under FHASecure, borrowers that are delinquent on their mortgages as a result of interest rate resets will now be able to refinance using an FHA-insured mortgage. In many cases homeowners may be permitted to include mortgage payment arrearages into the new loan amount, subject to existing geographical mortgage limits and the loan-to-value limit shown below. Before this, only borrowers who were current on their existing loan were allowed to re-finance into an FHA-insured mortgage.

Assembly Speaker Buckley noted that it is not a bail out at the state or federal level to help first-time homebuyers who were sold Las Vegas mortgages by predatory lenders looking for higher commissions when they could have received a more conventional loan. "I think it would be wise to allow them to refinance," Buckley said. "It would not be a taxpayer bailout to allow them to have access to capital that they can repay on reasonable terms."

For more information on the FHASecure plan or to be referred to a reputable lender, please call our office at 702-985-7654 and ask to speak to one of our preferred mortgage lenders.