Annual report to Congress highlights FHA’s leading role in supporting affordable home financing for first-time homebuyers and borrowers of color, providing assistance to struggling homeowners, and addressing housing supply and affordability.
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) today released its Annual Report to Congress on the financial status of its Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund (MMI Fund), which is used to operate FHA Single Family mortgage insurance programs, authorized under Title II of the National Housing Act. The report highlights FHA’s significant role in supporting affordable mortgage financing for first-time homebuyers and borrowers of color while continuing to assist homeowners affected by the COVID-19 pandemic to keep their homes. It also underscores FHA’s work to support increased housing supply and affordability while reducing barriers to fair and equitable homeownership.
FHA’s achievements in fiscal year 2022 are supported by a strong MMI Fund, as demonstrated by the Fund’s capital ratio of 11.11 percent as of September 30, 2022.
“I’m so proud of FHA’s work to make homeownership possible for our nation’s underserved households and communities,” said Federal Housing Commissioner Julia R. Gordon. “Behind the bottom-line numbers are some two million individuals and families who were able to achieve homeownership or stay in their homes through hard times thanks to assistance from FHA.”
As the report notes, FHA helped more than one million homeowners who were behind on their mortgage payments to obtain an FHA COVID-19 Forbearance and/or an FHA COVID-19 Recovery option to stay in their homes despite the dislocations caused by the pandemic. In FY 2022, FHA reduced the number of serious delinquencies – mortgages 90 or more days past due – by almost half, ending with a serious delinquency rate of 4.77 percent on September 30, 2022. This number had reached more than 11 percent during the height of the COVID-19 crisis.
In addition to its focus on helping homeowners recover from the financial effects of the pandemic, the report speaks to FHA’s work throughout the past fiscal year to reduce barriers to homeownership and increase housing supply and affordability. New policies include allowing the use of positive rental history as a factor in FHA first-time homebuyer mortgage underwriting assessments; revised guidance for calculating effective income for borrowers with employment gaps due to the pandemic; and program modifications to FHA’s property disposition programs to provide priority purchase opportunities for owner-occupant buyers.