Mortgage bankers funded $28.1 billion of Federal Housing Administration-backed single-family loans in December, a slight gain from the previous month.
Included in that figure is $1.7 billion of FHA guaranteed reverse mortgages.
During the month, FHA approved just 21 FHA 'Short Refinance' loans with lenders submitting another 30 short refi applications for endorsement.
Under the FHA short refi program, underwater conventional loans are refinanced into new FHA-insured loans -- after the investor writes down the principal amount of the mortgage to a 97.75% loan-to-value ratio. The combined LTV cannot exceed 115%.
In December nearly 50% of FHA endorsements involved purchase money loans. First-time homebuyers accounted for 73% of all approved borrowers.
FHA also reported an uptick in seriously delinquent loans during the month. The percentage of government insured loans that are 90 days or more past due jumped to 8.8%, compared to 8.3% in November. (FHA originally reported an 8.7% serious delinquency rate for November but later revised it down to 8.34 %.)
