The origination of government-insured loans was higher last month, as was the number of outstanding insured loans. But new applications tumbled, turnaround took longer and delinquency deteriorated.
Mortgage insurance endorsements by the Federal Housing Administration were 131,258 loans for $26.1 billion during November, better than October’s 125,218 mortgages insured for $24.4 billion, the government reported Wednesday. FHA business was way down from November 2009, when 157,119 loans were insured for $28.7 billion.
Refinances accounted for 46 percent of last month’s activity, higher than October’s 43 percent.
Included in November’s originations were 6,284 condominium loans, 1,588 Section 203(k) mortgages and 1,903 manufactured housing endorsements.
The volume of endorsements for home-equity conversion mortgages was 6,559 loans for $1.7 billion, better than 5,279 loans for $1.3 billion a month earlier. A year earlier, FHA endorsed 7,738 reverse mortgages for $2.2 billion.
During the first two months of FHA’s fiscal year, volume was 256,476 loans endorsed for $50.5 billion. FHA expects to endorse 1.5 million loans for $288.7 billion by the end of its fiscal year on Sept. 30, 2011.
The turnaround process for FHA loans deteriorated to 7.3 weeks from application to closing, longer than the 6.9 weeks it took to close a loan in October.
Despite the uptick in closed loan volume, new FHA applications fell to 141,199 from the prior month’s 175,421 — suggesting December will see a decline. Refinance applications fueled the dropoff, falling 30 percent from October.
As of the end of November, 6,745,827 FHA loans were outstanding for $921.0 billion. The balance rose from 6,684,825 mortgages for $909.1 billion on Oct. 31.
Delinquency deteriorated during November, with the 90-day rate rising to 8.7 percent from 8.0 percent the prior month. But late payments were better than 9.3 percent reported for the same month last year.
The number of delinquent loans as of the end of last month was 588,947.
