Condos

Condos

There have been and they are going to be more changes to the condo financing market. First FHA was going to take away the spot-on approvals, and then it decided it was not going to do it, now they are back to getting rid of it. If you are a prospective condo buyer, the best thing you can do for yourself, is check to see if it is FHA approved. You can do that by going to this link, https://entp.hud.gov/idapp/html/condlook.cfm.

It is easy; either enter the name of the condo project or the city and state, and click on “submit”. If it is not, it will be difficult to get thru FHA as a spot on approval. I few weeks ago I mention that the spot-on approval was a great alternative for non-FHA approved condos. That is not the case anymore. I know it seems quick, but trust me, in this market, guidelines are changing daily. The biggest issue you will run into is that the banks that say they can do a spot-on approval will require a condo cert completed. The one question that causes problem is, they want to know how may units are insured by FHA. Since it is not approved, FHA does not keep track of those statistics, and you will have to rely on the condo management company. They do not track that information, and your option will be to do a property search for each unit to see what type of loan they have. If the project is 4, 6 or 10 units, it’s doable. If you are working with a project that has 400 condos, it is not feasible. Your next best option is a conventional loan with MI. That will probably max you at 90 loan-to-value. More changes are coming on 12/07/09 and also in January, please stay tune.

DC Metro Area, Sr. Mortgage Broker
Fairfax County Homes