FHA Volume Sign of ‘Very Sick System’; Fannie, Freddie, FHA Account for 90% of Mortgage Market

by noreply@blogger.com (Michael Shedlock)

The US mortgage market is extremely sick and getting sicker every month. For the first time ever, the FHA is issuing more mortgages than Fannie and Freddie. The reason is the FHA has lower down payments.

Please consider FHA Home-Financing Volume Sign of ‘Very Sick System’.

FHA lending last quarter may have topped the combined volume of government-supported Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a home-lending market that’s still a “government-financed market,” David Stevens, the agency’s head, said today at a conference in New York, citing research by consultant Potomac Partners.

“This is a market purely on life support, sustained by the federal government,” he said at the Mortgage Bankers Association conference. “Having FHA do this much volume is a sign of a very sick system.”

The FHA, which backs loans with down payments as low as 3.5 percent, insured $52.5 billion of home-purchase mortgages in the first quarter, compared with $46 billion of purchases of the debt by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to data compiled by Washington-based Potomac Partners.

The FHA and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which regulators seized in 2008, have been financing more than 90 percent of U.S. home lending after a retreat by banks and the collapse of the market for mortgage bonds without government-backed guarantees.

To sell houses the government needs to give $8,000 tax credits and the government also needs to grant the mortgage as well because the private marker won't.

This is on top of the $trillion in mortgages on the Fed's balance sheet. Supposedly Bernanke will sell them at some point. Any bet the Fed buys more first?

Can I ask a simple question: Who does not have a house that wants one and can afford one, and does not need money from the government to buy one, and is not in danger of losing their job?

Supposedly there is a recovery underway. Recovery my ass.