Re: Petition for FHA & Other FHA refusals
From: R Philip Dowds (rpdowdscomcast.net)
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 07:45:59 -0700 (PDT)
Seems like the FHA is a little out of touch with the concept of public service. 
 This is what gives government a bad name.

On Mar 28, 2014, at 7:58 AM, Diana Carroll <dianaecarroll [at] gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm one of the main folks in our community that deals with getting
> mortgages for our buyers.  Unfortunately, we have never succeeded in
> getting an FHA mortgage for any of them.  Most Mosaic Commons purchases
> fail their "test" in many regards -- some of our units are deeded
> restricted/affordable, which FHA won't do.  (which is its own aggravating
> issue, since the charter of their loan program is to make housing
> affordable to the exact people that our affordable homes are built for).
> And many of our units over the cost FHA allows, or the buyers are over the
> income limits.
> 
> But we have had a couple buyers who in theory would have qualified, so we
> did look into it.
> 
> In order to get an FHA loan, your association needs to be approved.  It
> used to be you could get a one-off "spot approval" but they removed that
> option a few years ago, so now you need to go through a certification
> process.  FHA approval is not guaranteed, and they aren't required to tell
> you the reason for non-approval.
> 
> I had several illuminating conversations with the Mass Housing Authority
> and other agencies in our area that help with financing for low/moderate
> income buyers -- and a couple indicated "off the record" that FHA had a
> policy of denying applications on which the word "cohousing" appeared.
> 
> We did try to contact FHA directly to ask, but I was never able to actually
> get in contact with someone above the level of "grunt" who just said "Apply
> for approval and let's see what happens". (Downside being: process is
> expensive and time consuming!)
> 
> So...we never went through the expense/trouble of applying.
> 
> So I'm not sure you are going to get certain verification that FHA has a
> policy against cohousing. It might be more instructive to ask on this list
> if anyone HAS gotten FHA approval for their association.
> 
> Diana



R Philip Dowds
Cornerstone Village Cohousing
Cambridge, MA


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