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On November 4th, 2008, a final ruling was published by the Federal Register to simplify the USDA Rural Housing program’s income limit structure for the USDA Guaranteed Rural Housing Program. These income structural changes will become effective on January 20, 2009, unless they receive adverse comments by January 5, 2009. They had put an advance notice out about trying to do this on April 10, 2008 and have not yet received any adverse comments so this should be a non-issue. In essence, the current income limit structure that is based on household incomes from one to eight persons (in the household) would be restructured as follows:

In essence, the current income limit structure that is based on household incomes from one to eight persons (in the household) would be restructured as follows:

1-4 person households will be qualified using only the 4-person limit and 5-8 person households would be qualified using only the 8-person limit.

What does this mean? It means that a lot more people will be able to qualify for this program!

Current Income Structure 

Atlanta MSA Eligible Counties(Counties: Barrow, Bartow, Carroll, Cherokee, Coweta, Dawson, Douglas, Forsyth, Fulton, Heard, Henry, Jasper, Newton, Paulding, Pickens, Pike, Spalding and Walton)

County	1 Person	2 Person	3-Person	4-Person	5-Person	6-Person	7-Person	8-Person
Atlanta MSA (see above)	$57,300	$65,500	$73,700	$81,850	$88,500	$94,950	$101,500	$108,050
All other counties in GA	$49,550	$56,600	$63,700	$70,750	$76,400	$82,050	$87,750	$93,400

Counties that are Entirely Ineligible in GA for USDA Loans: (Clayton, Cobb, Dekalb, Fayette, Gwinnett, Rockdale, Bibb, Clarke, Muscogee, Richmond)

Suggested Income Limit Change

County	1-4 Person	5-8 Person
Atlanta MSA	$81,850	$108,050
All other counties	$70,750	$93,400

This will help more buyers now be able to get into more homes and reap the benefits of USDA loans.

• 0 Money Down
• No reserves required
• NO Monthly Mortgage Insurance
• Closing costs and prepaids and be financed in many instances
• Financing up to 102% of appraised value
• Repairs can be escrowed (restrictions apply)
• Many more Highlights...call to ask for more more info

NOTE: Not all homes in the above referenced county are eligible. Please contact our office to confirm if the house you are buying will be in the eligible USDA financing zone.

All First Time Homebuyers need to insure they act now to purchase a home if they can.

There is an amazing Tax Credit being issued to all First Time Homebuyers who purchase a home between April 1, 2008 and July 1, 2009.

For more information on how you may benefit, please click here.

Recently,  several Mortgage Insurance (MI) companies have published a list of housing markets that have been classified as a Declining Market.

The Atlanta MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area) is classified as a declining market on this list.

Immediately, all loans for any property that is located in a "declining market" will have an immediate 5% Loan to Value reduction, if the MI company that the lender uses is one of the companies that has published the declining market list.

While not all MI companies have published a "declining market" list, the MI companies that have not published this list have very clear guideline changes that state "if the appraiser comments that the values have been declining", the 5% LTV reduction applies to the loan. This does place a huge burden on appraisers.

If a buyer was prequalified with one of the several lenders that has already stated that 95% is the maximum loan to value for loan in the Atlanta MSA, this basically means that if a buyer qualified for one of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac's 100% loans, that buyer can now only receive a 95% loan, regardless of the fact that they qualified for a 100% loan. However, they they can still find another lender that still offers 100% loans (through a MI company that still does, for now) or their broker will need to insure they can place the loan with one of their lenders that is still doing these loans through a MI company.

These changes also affects Fannie Mae's My Community Mortgage and Freddie Mac's Home Possible loan, both of which were created to serve the lower income borrower.

For any borrowers that still need a loan with very little down, FHA is the perfect loan option for those borrowers. FHA only requires a 3% down payment, and down payment assistance is still allowed on FHA loans (for now). The current maximum Loan amount allowed on FHA loans in the Atlanta MSA is $252,890. With the recent passage of the economic stimulus package, there is speculation that the FHA loan limits for the Atlanta market could increase to the high 200's or the low 300's.

Since we, HLM Mortgage, are a broker and have access to several lenders, we do still have lenders that we work with that is still closing 100% loans in theAtlanta MSA.

I hope you have found this information to be informative and if you need further clarification, please do not hesitate to give me a call at 678-773-0651 or email me at kathy@kathydelbridge.com.

Respectfully,

Kathy Delbridge, CMPS

If you are like a great deal of homeowner's, potential homeowner's or real estate agents with potential buyers, you are probably wondering how the Economic Stimilus Package help you.

To learn more about the stimulus package and what it means, simply go to http://www.kathydelbridge.com/EconomicStimulusPackage_2008 for an overview and if you still have questions, please give me a call.

Have a great day!