Investor's Business Daily
BY DAVID HOGBERG
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
9/16/2008
In the midst of a housing crisis with its roots in easy money, Democratic lawmakers want taxpayers to once again back loans to borrowers putting up no money of their own.....
critics say down payment assistance loans are far more likely to default, raising losses for the FHA — read taxpayers.
It comes on the heels of the Treasury's takeover of quasi-private mortgage finance giants Freddie Mac (FRE) and Fannie Mae. (FNM) Taxpayers may end up paying $200 billion for the emergency move.
Down payment assistance lets buyers unable to put sufficient money down to buy a house do so anyway. Seller-funded assistance often entails the seller giving the down payment to the buyer via a nonprofit, which earns a fee.
But buyers who don't put up any of their own money default more often. Further, sellers may inflate the price in such situations, knowing FHA insurance will cover the loan if the buyer defaults. The down payment essentially is added to the price the seller otherwise would accept, critics argue.
Fully 22% of FHA-backed seller-funded assistance mortgages that were three years old were delinquent, according to a 2007 Government Accountability Office study. The compares with 13% of nonseller assistance and 9% of those without assistance.
"The sellers and banks have an incentive to cheat since they know the taxpayers will be left holding the bag."
The FHA faces other problems as well. The housing bailout requires the agency to insure up to $300 billion in subprime loans to try and curb foreclosures.
To ease pressures on homeowners, the FHA will back loans only when lenders write down the principal to 90% of the current property value.
"Congress hopes the FHA will save the housing industry, but who's gonna' save the FHA?" asks Alex Pollack, a resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and former president of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago.
"No one says it, but the FHA is the government's subprime lender."