I may have forgotten in my last post to address one of the questions I posed. Why did the FHA raise it’s limit on lending to $417,000 in 2008? Well, I know congress had this on their plate for some time, and had been thinking about raising the limit from then $326,000 in early 2008. If you read my last post it goes pretty deep into the economy and house prices in California. The question remains, if house prices may have gone down taking away some of the gains over the last years why the increase in the limit? In keeping true to our goal of giving you the truth about the market, I wanted to explain why the rate increase still helped California’s seniors. Before the credit crunch the median home price in California was above 500k. As a result, many of the senior homeowners who got a reverse mortgage, had to get what is called a Jumbo Reverse Mortgage. Whereas these were not bad loans, the options available to them were limited. (Think back to IndyMac bank who failed this year, they stopped many of the Jumbo packages from being sold) there are still options for Jumbos…
In the mean time the mean house price remains at $380,000, today, 40% off the high of $642,000 from only 18 months ago.- Chuck Ponzi
having the rate increase to 417k while mean home prices in California remain at 380k the window of opportunity has opened for some seniors who would not have qualified for HECM’s before. Call for more details (800) 681-3340
Tags: california reverse mortgage lenders, fha reverse mortgage, housing bubble
