Applications for mortgage loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) increased from December to January according to the agency’s Single-Family Outlook report for January as applications for both purchases and refinances increased during the month.
A total of 147,509 FHA loan applications were submitted in January, 16.1 percent higher than the 127,057 applications submitted the previous month. Applications were 16.3 percent higher than the 126,835 applications submitted in January of last year.
Loan applications for refinancing a current mortgage increased 14.4 percent from December with a total of 79,923 applications submitted in January compared to 69,880 in December. Refinance applications were 34.3 percent higher than in January of last year when 59,493 applications were submitted.
The total number of applications submitted for the purpose of purchasing a home also increased in January, climbing by 18.2 percent compared to the previous month. A total of 58,993 applications were submitted in January to purchase homes, up from 49,927 applications submitted in December. Purchase applications were still 4.1 percent lower than in January of last year when 61,547 applications were submitted.
Completed applications increased by 18.1 percent from December to January, climbing from 113,856 to 134,461. January’s loan completions were 31.8 percent higher than the 102,011 loans completed a year ago.
Loans for purchased homes accounted for 45.3 percent of all completed FHA insured loans in January with 60,924 completed, an increase of 14.4 percent from December, but 1.2 percent lower than the 61,663 purchase money mortgages in January of 2011.
Refinanced loans accounted for 50.8 percent of all completed loans in January, which was 94.3 percent higher than last year. The 68,348 loans completed in January were 20.5 percent higher than in December. FHA Streamline loans accounted for 81.3 percent of all refinances.
The average FICO score for a homebuyer securing an FHA loan in January was 695, the same as in December and down from 696 a year ago. For refinanced loans, the average FICO score in January was 701, also the same as the previous month but down from 706 a year earlier.
The number of seriously delinquent loans insured by the FHA increased by 0.5 percent from December to January and was 0.6 percent higher than a year ago.
The number of loans that were 90 days or more past due increased by 3,451 in January, bringing the total number of seriously delinquent loans in the FHA’s portfolio to 738,109. In the last year, the number of seriously delinquent loans has increased by 4,265.
The serious delinquency rate was 9.5 percent in January, unchanged from December but up from 9.8 percent in January 2012.
At the end of January, the FHA had 7,780,073 insured single-family mortgages in its portfolio with an amortized balance of $1.094 trillion.
The number of loans insured by the FHA has increased by 3.6 percent in the last year while the amortized balance has increased by 4.0 percent.
Tags: FHA, Single-family Outlook report, loan originations, purchase loans, refinance loans, FICO score, serious delinquency rate, fha streamline
Source:
HUD
Reported by Shirley Allen
