In April 2015 our industry and FHA instituted a financial assessment for all borrowers. This was a way to ascertain the potential borrowers’ ability and willingness to pay their property charges and also the other monthly obligations they have. It was a big change for me as an originator and required a few more documents I needed to collect from the borrower but BOY was it successful! The purpose of the FA was to lower the amount of borrowers who ended up with tax and insurance defaults and new data shows that these defaults have been cut by over 75%. Good news for the FHA mortgage insurance fund and good news for the overall health of the FHA HECM program.
