More than 790,000 persons were served by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) in 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The Annual Report to Congress Regarding the Financial Status of FHA’s Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund for Fiscal Year 2024 was released along with this announcement.
The performance of the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund (MMI Fund), which provides funding for the FHA Single Family mortgage insurance programs, is discussed in the report along with the activities of the programs during fiscal year 2024.
“Under the Biden-Harris Administration, we have expanded access to homeownership” said HUD Agency Head Adrianne Todman. “Despite high housing costs and a challenging market, we made historic reforms to help hundreds of thousands of Americans buy and keep a home.”
Key Findings: FHA’s Impact in 2024
- Mortgage Availability: FHA insured a total of 766,942 forward mortgages during fiscal year 2024. In the last four fiscal years under the Biden-Harris Administration, FHA has helped facilitate mortgage financing or refinancing for more than 3.9 million individuals and families through its forward mortgage insurance programs.
- Senior Support: Many seniors benefited from FHA-insured financing, with 26,501 obtaining FHA-insured Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECMs) in fiscal year 2024. More than 173,000 seniors were able to age in place with the help of the HECM program during the last four fiscal years.
- First-Time Homebuyers: 82.64 percent of FHA-insured forward purchase transactions by loan count, or 498,363 mortgages, went to first-time homebuyers in fiscal year 2024. Over the past four years, approximately 2.3 million borrowers with FHA-insured home purchase mortgages were first-time homebuyers. This is eight out of every 10 FHA borrowers.
- Diversity in Borrowers: In fiscal year 2024, 31.66 percent of FHA-insured forward mortgages, or 242,796 mortgages, were made to borrowers who self-identified as borrowers of color. This is an increase of 18,500 mortgages by count and an increase of 1.03 percentage points by share of forward mortgages from FY 2023. Notably, 16.77 percent, or 128,601 mortgages, were for Hispanic borrowers and 12.08 percent, or 92,622 mortgages, were for Black borrowers. In the past four years under the Biden-Harris Administration, FHA has served more than 1.2 million borrowers who self-identified as borrowers of color.
- Helping Homeowners Facing Hardships: Approximately 332,000 homeowners with FHA-insured mortgages requested and received for the first time an FHA forbearance – a temporary pause or reduction in their mortgage payment – in fiscal year 2024. FHA helped more than 592,000 borrowers this past fiscal year to stay in their homes through FHA home retention solutions. This is in addition to the 2.7 million forbearances granted and 1.7 million home retention solutions offered since 2020.
- Delinquency Rate: As of September 30, 2024, FHA’s serious delinquency rate – those mortgages where the borrower is 90 or more days behind on their mortgage payment – remained consistent with pre-pandemic levels at 4.15 percent. This is an increase of less than one percentage point from the rate’s historical low of 3.52 percent in May 2024, but down 7.75 percentage points from its high of 11.90 percent in November 2020.
- Capital Ratio: The MMI Fund showed very strong performance in fiscal year 2024, with an overall capital ratio of 11.47 percent as of September 30, 2024, an increase of 0.96 percentage points from fiscal year-end 2023. The stand-alone capital ratio of the forward mortgage portfolio stood at 10.88 percent. The FHA Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) portfolio stand-alone capital ratio stood at 24.50 percent.
- MMI Fund Capital: The MMI Fund now holds $173 billion in MMI Capital, a $27.5 billion increase from fiscal year 2023. FHA’s Insurance in Force grew to $1.5 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2024, representing a $123.8 billion increase from the previous fiscal year.
- Portfolio Size: FHA’s insured portfolio contained approximately 7.81 million single family forward mortgages and 287,000 HECMs at the end of fiscal year 2024, emphasizing FHA’s substantial role in the housing market.
Notwithstanding a market still limited by rising interest rates and a shortage of available housing, HUD built on its efforts during the previous three years of the Biden-Harris Administration to eliminate obstacles to homeownership and carry out its responsibility of offering sustainable and reasonably priced access to mortgage credit in fiscal year 2024. Over 793,000 homeowners and homebuyers, including over 26,000 seniors who secured a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) throughout the fiscal year, were able to access mortgage financing thanks to FHA in fiscal year 2024.
Furthermore, FHA kept offering a very useful suite of resources to assist borrowers who were still recuperating from the pandemic’s effects, experiencing natural disasters, or dealing with other financial difficulties in staying in their homes.
FHA maintains a highly robust, well-capitalized insurance fund, according to the annual report. The MMI Fund’s capital ratio was 11.47 percent as of September 30, 2024, up 0.96 percentage points from fiscal year 2023. The MMI Fund’s total capital increased from $27.5 billion to $172.8 billion as a result. Furthermore, as of September 30, 2024, FHA’s substantial delinquency rate—the proportion of mortgages in its portfolio that are 90 days or more past due—was 4.15 percent, which is comparable to rates before the COVID-19 epidemic started.
“The exceptional team of public servants at FHA and throughout this Administration continued to deliver a world-class mortgage program to support the nation’s homebuyers in fiscal year 2024,” said Federal Housing Commissioner Julia Gordon. “Through our work, we have demonstrated that FHA cane facilitate homeownership and wealth-building opportunities for hundreds of thousands of households and provide support for homeowners facing hardships while maintaining a financially sound Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund.”
The report emphasizes how crucial FHA is in helping groups that the private mortgage market does not sufficiently serve. This year, first-time homebuyers accounted for almost 82 percent of FHA purchase mortgage insurance endorsements. As in previous years, borrowers of color received a far larger percentage of FHA’s overall endorsements than did other market participants.
The latest data available for the calendar year 2023 shows that 16.7 percent of FHA’s total mortgage volume was made to Black borrowers, about 2.5 times the market average, and 22.85 percent was made to Hispanic borrowers, nearly twice as high. Lastly, data from the calendar year 2023 shows that nearly half of all rural homebuyers received mortgages insured by FHA.
To read the full report, click here.
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