Mortgage bankers funded $28.1 billion of Federal Housing Administration-backed single-family loans in December, a slight gain from the previous month.
Included in that figure is $1.7 billion of FHA-guaranteed reverse mortgages.
The agency approved just 21 "short refinance" loans in December, with lenders submitting another 30 short refi applications for endorsement. Under the short-refi program, underwater conventional loans are refinanced into new FHA-insured loans after the investor writes down the principal to a 97.75% loan-to-value ratio. The combined LTV cannot exceed 115%.
In December nearly 50% of FHA endorsements involved purchase money loans. First-time homebuyers accounted for 73% of these.
The FHA also reported an uptick in seriously delinquent loans during the month. The percentage of government insured loans that are 90 days or more past due jumped to 8.8%, from 8.3% in November.
The FHA originally reported an 8.7% serious delinquency rate for November but later revised it down to 8.34%.
