FHA Multifamily Volume Crosses the $10 Billion Mark

Never in the history of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has there been such demand for FHA-insured financing to build, rehabilitate or refinance multifamily apartment properties. FHA has announced that it has endorsed $10.5 billion in multifamily rental housing loans since last October, with another month-and-a-half remaining in the fiscal year. To date in 2011, the FHA has endorsed nearly 1,100 multifamily loans, more than seven times the number of loans the agency endorsed just three years ago. This historic loan activity also breaks the $10 billion threshold for only the second time in FHA’s history of endorsing multifamily loans. To help meet this growing demand, FHA has published updated underwriting and program guidance to help accelerate and coordinate the processing of new loan applications. “FHA has never been more relevant in making sure the multifamily apartment marketplace continues to function even during these tough economic times,” said Carol Galante, FHA’s acting commissioner. “While we’re seeing record volume, we also recognize we have to accelerate the time it takes us to process these applications so we continue to meet this demand at the very time the market needs us the most.” The FHA has also published its revised Multifamily Accelerated Processing (MAP) Guide which is intended to cut the time required to approve loan applications and to assure consistent application of program requirements and credit standards across all HUD processing offices. FHA’s new MAP Guide delegates more underwriting responsibility to approved “MAP lenders” and includes all relevant guidance published by FHA since the MAP Guide was last updated in 2002. This new Guide consolidates all necessary underwriting and program requirements in one document and addresses concerns raised by those seeking updated standards.