From our RMLS™ comes this information regarding FHA:RMLSUpdatesHeader

We all know that FHA Loans have increased in the past few years with the changing market, but how much? I recently ran some numbers on financial terms, a required field in RMLSweb, that may shed some light. These numbers are for the Portland metro area (Clackamas, Columbia, Multnomah, Washington and Yamhill counties).

As you can see, sold listings with the financial terms “FHA” have increased in the RMLS™ Portland market area from just 1.2% in 2007 to 28.1% of sales through October 2009. These numbers are closely in line with national levels; a recent report stated that FHA loans are up to 30% this year from 3% in 2006.

Although buyers utilizing FHA financing has increased dramatically, the preferred method of financing (by 49.3% of sales) in the Portland metro area is still conventional financing. HUD is considering increasing the downpayment for FHA from the minimum of 3.5% to 5% for buyers. By the first of the year 2010, we should know whether this will take effect or not. I feel this is bad timing for this increase. The housing market hasn’t begun to improve or rebound sufficiently as yet, and to make it more difficult for buyers to purchase isn’t something the real estate industry, or buyers and sellers of houses, need at this point. The home buyer tax credit extension for first-time home buyers and for move-up buyers couldn’t come at a worse time. With winter storms throughout the U.S. and the holiday season, the time to purchase is dwindling away rapidly for anyone wishing to utilize that credit. Personally, I don’t see where that will help with an uptick in sales at this time of the year. Creative Commons LicenseALL ABOUT…..Portland.Oregon.Real Estate, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative askfirst1Works 3.0 Unported License. © Copyright 2008-2009 Betty Jung. All Rights Reserved. Use of this article, photos and images without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws. Based on a Blog at WordPress. (For more local and national real estate information, go to http://www.bettyjung.com/).