For the first time this year, Fannie Mae announced significant updates to its mortgage underwriting guidelines.

The changes include newer, harsher ARM qualification standards, the elimination of a once-popular loan product, and tighter rules for interest only mortgages. 

Fannie Mae made its official announcement April 30, 2010.  The changes will roll out to home buyers and homeowners in Chicago and everywhere else over the next 12 weeks.

The first guideline change is tied to ARMs of 5 years or less. 

Mortgage applicants must now qualify based on a mortgage rate 2% higher than their note rate.  For example, if your mortgage rate is 5 percent, for qualification purposes, your rate would be 7 percent.

The elevated qualification payment will disqualify borrowers whose debt-to-income levels are borderline.

The second change is Fannie Mae’s elimination of the standard 7-year balloon mortgage.  Balloon mortgages were popular early last decade.  Lately, few borrowers have chosen them, though.  Mostly because rates have been relative high as compared to a comparable 7-year ARM.

And, lastly, Fannie Mae is changing its interest only mortgages guidelines.

Effective June 19, 2010, Fannie Mae interest only mortgages must meet the following criteria:

1. The home must be a 1-unit property
2. The home must be a primary residence, or vacation home
3. The borrower’s FICO must be 720 or higher
4. The mortgage must be a purchase, or rate-and-term refinance. No “cash out” allowed.

Furthermore, borrowers using interest only mortgages must show two full years of mortgage payments “in the bank” at the time of closing.

Earlier this year, Fannie Mae-sister Freddie Mac announced that as of September 2010, it will stop offering interest only loans altogether.

Between Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the FHA, and other government-supported entities, the U.S. government now backs 96.5% of the U.S. mortgage market.  So long as mortgage default rates are high, expect approvals for all borrower types to continue to toughen.

The economy’s improving but lending standards are not. Nationally, banks are making mortgage approvals harder to come by.

Underwriting guidelines are tightening.

The data comes from the Federal Reserve’s quarterly survey to its member banks.  The Fed asks senior bank loan officers around the country to report on “prime” residential mortgage guidelines over the most recent 3 months and whether they’ve tightened.

For the period October-December 2009:

• Roughly 1 in 4 banks said guidelines tightened
• Roughly 3 in 4 banks said guidelines were “basically unchanged”

Just 2 of 53 banks said its guidelines had loosened.

Combine the Fed’s survey with recent underwriting updates from the FHA and generally tougher standards for conventional loans and it’s clear that lenders are much more cautious about their loans than they were, say, in 2007.

Today’s Oak Park home buyers and would-be refinancers face a bevy of new borrowing hurdles including:

• Higher minimum FICO scores
• Larger downpayment requirements for purchases
• Larger equity positions for refinances
• Lower debt-to-income ratios

So, if you’re on the fence about whether now is a good time to buy a home, or make that refi, consider acting sooner rather than later.  It doesn’t necessarily matter that mortgage rates are low, or that there’s an up-to-$8,000 home purchase tax credit for households that qualify.  With each passing quarter, fewer and fewer applicants are eligible to take advantage.

Securing an FHA mortgage is about to get more expensive.

The FHA announced Wednesday that it is making a few policy changes to reduce their overall risk.

It will mean tougher approvals and higher costs to secure a mortgage approval for those who wait.

As listed in the official announcement, there are 3 major guideline updates for the FHA:

1. Upfront mortgage insurance premiums are increasing to 2.25% from 1.75%
2. Minimum 10% down payments for those with less than a 580 FICO
3. Seller concessions are being limited to 3%, down from today’s allowable 6%

The FHA has also appealed to Congress to raise an FHA borrowers’ monthly mortgage insurance premiums.   The reason the FHA vs Conventional comparisons keep favoring FHA is that the premiums are so low.

It’s clear that the Federal Housing Administration needs to clean up their portfolio and yet balance their mission of creating affordable mortgage loans.

They are also going to start improving the quality of their lenders.  They are introducing a “termination clause” to attack the problem where it starts.  Should certain lenders represent a disproportionate number of the bad loans, they will lose their right to originate FHA loans.

As a result, home buyers can expect tougher FHA underwriting in 2010.  This won’t be as much due to the guideline changes, but more due to the “termination clause.”  For lenders to prevent being the “bad lender,” they will add overlays to insure that they do not have a disproportionately bad portfolio.  Examples of this already exist:  The FHA will allow 580 FICO scores, but nearly all lenders require at least 620 FICO.

The new guidelines don’t go into effect until spring, but acting now will save the up-front mortgage insurance premium monies plus lock in today’s monthly mortgage insurance payments before those too get more expensive.