FHA loans allow sellers to pay up to 6 percent of the loan amount to cover buyers’ closing costs, says Tim Pascarella, assistant vice president with Ross Mortgage Corporation in Royal Oak, Michigan. In conventional loans, sellers can only pay up to 3 percent.
“For a lot of homebuyers, that’s a big benefit,” says Pascarella. “A lot of buyers, especially first-time buyers, can save enough money for a down payment, but then they have nothing else. An FHA loan allows sellers to contribute more to closing costs.”
FHA loans are assumable
FHA borrowers have yet another advantage over conventional borrowers: FHA loans are assumable. When it comes time to sell, buyers can take over sellers’ existing FHA loans instead of taking out new mortgages at whatever the current mortgage rate is at the time. This is especially advantageous in a rising-rate environment.
“In an environment of rising interest rates, [an assumable loan] can give sellers an advantage over their neighbors,” says Dan Green, a loan officer in Cincinnati and author of TheMortgageReports.
Assuming an FHA loan isn’t always simple, though. While buyers will have to meet all the typical mortgage requirements, they may need a much larger down payment depending on the seller’s equity.
If the original mortgage balance was $200,000 and the buyer assumes the loan at a balance of $160,000, the buyer must come up with $40,000 in cash to reach the original balance. The buyer might have to take out a second loan to come up with that figure, which may or may not negate the benefit of a lower interest rate.
FHA mortgage insurance premiums
The biggest downside of FHA loans has long been the costs associated with the upfront and annual mortgage insurance premiums.
The upfront mortgage insurance premium is 1.75 percent of the loan amount. That’s $3,500 on a $200,000 mortgage loan. Although you can pay it out-of-pocket, this cost is usually added to the principal balance of your loan. So your loan amount is actually $203,500.
Then, there are annual mortgage insurance premiums to consider. Unlike Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI), which has a range of costs depending on the borrower’s credit score and down payment, FHA Mortgage Insurance Premiums (MIP) go by down payment only. Borrowers with less than a 5% down payment are charged 0.85% of the outstanding loan amount each year, while borrowers with more than a 5% down payment are charged 0.80% per year for loans with terms greater than 20 years. For a borrower with a $200,000 loan and just a minimum 3.5% down payment, this means an MIP of over $143 per month. For a borrower with great credit, that’s about $40 per month more than a similar conventional loan.
Annual MIP rates are lower for borrowers who are taking out 15-year FHA-backed mortgage loans. Borrowers putting less than a 10% down payment are charged 0.70% of the loan amount each year, and those with more than a 10% down payment are charged 0.45% of the loan amount each year.
In both cases, FHA MIP are much higher for borrowers who look to take out “jumbo” FHA-backed mortgages in high-cost markets.
If you’re looking to make only a minimum downpayment when purchasing or refinancing, it’s important to know how the intersection of costs due to mortgage insurance and interest-rate differentials will affect you. Use HSH’s FHA Calculator and low downpayment mortgage comparator to see costs over your anticipated time frame.
With conventional mortgage loans, borrowers dont have to pay for private mortgage insurance if they come up with a 20 percent down payment. Conventional borrowers can even request that private mortgage insurance be dropped once their mortgage balance falls to 80 percent of the value of their home.