One Of President Trumps First Acts Will Cost Homeowners Millions Of Dollars

[Miles Archer]

One Of President Trump’s First Acts Will Cost Homeowners Millions Of Dollars

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-cut-mortgage-insurance_us_5882765ee4b0e3a73568f0a4?tt04peymcm84r6bt9

WASHINGTON ― With one of his first orders, President Donald Trump made it more expensive for working- and middle-class Americans to buy their first homes. The move will increase costs for 750,000 to 850,000 Americans in the next year alone, according to the National Association of Realtors.

The Obama administration had said last week that the Federal Housing Administration would drop the cost of mortgage insurance it sells by almost a third to 0.60 percent. But after Trump took office, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees the FHA, told lenders the fee cut was off. The reversal of the reduction will mean that homebuyers who borrow $200,000 under the program will see their mortgage insurance fees go up by $500 a year relative to what the Obama administration had ordered, according to figures released by the FHA when the cut was announced.

The reduction was intended to help partially offset the cost of rising mortgage rates and was scheduled to go into effect on Jan. 27. The government sells the insurance in case borrowers default.

The mortgage industry’s main lobby group said when the cut was announced that it looked forward to working with the new administration on the issue. Congressional Republicans attacked the move, saying it would cut into the reserves the FHA held against defaults.

[SFnomad]

1. We have to pay for the upcoming tax cuts for billionaires somehow n/t

[SummerSnow]

3. Exactly, so m any people will lose their homes. Even those who voted for him.

[SFnomad]

4. If $40 per month (on a $200K home) is the difference between keeping and losing a home

they probably have no business buying that home in the first place. That is the type of thing that got us into the last housing crisis; so many people purchasing homes they shouldn't have.

[haele]

5. It's not the difference between keeping and losing a home per se.

It can also be the difference between having a home and a 401K or just having a home. Or sending your talented kid to music camp, or getting a tutor.
It's the compounded loss of money over time at the lower to lower-middle income levels. $40 a month may not be difficult this month, but six months from now, that's $240 that could be saved to pay to register the car, or pay the county license fee for a small business venture...things that can be necessary to advance to a better future. Or it could have been put in a savings account for a rainy day fund, for repairs and replacement.
This was a "break" for lower income people. Now, it's back to "you can't afford that".

Haele

[SFnomad]

6. The person I replied to stated ... "Exactly, so m any people will lose their homes."

I stand by my post, which has nothing to do with the things you're bringing up (not that they aren't issues as well.)

[ginnyinWI]

2. Just heard this on NPR

Those voters don't know what they have just elected. They'll find out.

[Hoyt]

7. If the GOPers had proposed the reduction, we'd be yelling that the FHA reserves would be depleted

while another housing bubble is looming. We gotta find more than this to gripe about, and there will be plenty to criticize.