So there are even more changes coming for lenders and borrowers.  One that will help make borrowing easier.  FHA loans, which are an entry level loan for MANY borrowers, is about to change how it does business.  For starters, they will be changing their limit on how much they can lend to be equal to the ‘Conventional Conforming’ limit.  For Maricopa County Arizona, that limit is $417,000.  As you can imagine, this gives FHA borrowers much more buying power.  Typically, borrowers were limited to around the $250,000 range.  Also, they are reducing the required minimum down payment to 1.5% down from 3%.  This makes the hard topic of down payments slightly more within reach.  For a $200,000 home, the down payment changes from $6000 to $3000.  Down payment gifts will still be allowed.  FHA makes it much easier in that it is not driven as much by a borrower’s credit score.  Hopefully, soon these will take affect after our Congress is done with fine tuning them!

All in all, there have been many changes that have made loans much harder to get.  Hopefully these types of changes will offset some of the difficulties.  Stay tuned for more developments…..