Last year, the number of Federal Housing Administration endorsements fell 20 percent, and this year’s volume is projected to fall further. FHA loans outstanding nearly reached $1 trillion and will likely surpass the threshold this year. FHA late payments edged up last month but were still 70 basis points better than a year earlier.
December saw 133,603 FHA endorsements for $26.4 billion based on monthly operational data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Volume wasn’t much changed form November’s 131,258 mortgages endorsed for $26.1 billion. But it was a decline from a year earlier, when 179,155 loans were endorsed for $32.5 billion.
Included in last month’s activity were 60,884 refinance transactions for $12.9 billion and 6,554 home-equity conversion mortgages for a maximum claim amount of $1.7 billion. Volume for both loan types was about the same as the month before.
Also factored into December’s total were 1,562 Section 203(k) loans, 6.389 condominium loans and 1,966 manufactured housing loans — all within around a hundred units of November’s activity.
January endorsements are likely to fall based on new applications. December’s total applications fell to 112,500 from the prior month’s 141,199. Although HECM applications actually edged up 0.6 percent to 8,270, refinance applications tumbled by nearly a third to 46,840.
Even though FHA volume didn’t pick up, the time between application and closing increased to 7.6 weeks last month from 7.3 weeks in November.
During FHA’s fiscal-year 2011, which started Oct. 1 of last year, 390,044 loans have been endorsed for $76.7 billion. By Sept. 30, endorsements are projected to reach 1.5 million loans for $288.7 billion.
From Jan. 1, 2010, to Dec. 31, 2010, FHA endorsements totaled 1,624,836 mortgages for $302.3 billion, based on aggregated data for last year from the housing agency.
During 2009, FHA endorsed 2,022,636 loans for $375.8 billion, based on an analysis of previously reported data.
FHA mortgages outstanding climbed to 6,812,689 loans for $934.2 billion as of Dec. 31, 2010, from 6,745,827 loans for $921.0 billion at the end of September.
On Dec. 31, 2009, mortgage insurance in force stood at 5,815,006 loans for $750.3 billion.
The 90-day delinquency rate climbed to 8.8 percent at the close of 2010 from 8.7 percent on Nov. 30. Late payments were lower than 9.5 percent on Dec. 31, 2009.
