FHA’s Annual Report Spotlights Agency’s Role in Supporting Underserved Home Buyers

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) last week released its 2024 Annual Report to Congress. The report finds FHA continued to play a critical role in supporting home financing for first-time home buyers and underserved borrowers in fiscal year 2024 (FY24). Other highlights include FHA’s efforts to help homeowners impacted by Covid and the status of FHA’s Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund (MMIF).

In FY24, FHA endorsed 766,942 forward mortgages, a nearly five percent increase from FY23. Seventy-nine percent (603,040) of the forward mortgages FHA endorsed were home purchase loans. More than 82 percent of home purchase mortgages went to first-time home buyers, compared to 50 percent in the market as a whole. Borrowers of color accounted for 32 percent of FHA borrowers in 2024. Compared to other market participants, FHA served 2.5 times as many Black borrowers by share of its total forward mortgage insurance endorsements than the rest of the market and two times as many Hispanic borrowers by share.

Nearly 40 percent of FHA borrowers in FY24 received down payment assistance, the same level as last year. This includes 17 percent who received assistance through state housing finance agencies or other government programs.

FHA’s seriously delinquent rate (loans 90 or more days past due) at the end of FY24 was 4.15 percent, an increase from 3.93 percent at the end of FY23 but still well below the peak of 11.9 percent during the Covid pandemic.

The total economic value of the MMIF, which funds FHA’s forward mortgage and home equity conversion mortgage programs, increased 16 percent in FY24 to $173 billion. The MMIF’s capital ratio increased from 10.5 to 11.5 percent, nearly six times higher than its statutory minimum.

According to data from NCSHA’s State HFA Factbook, 53 percent of HFA single-family program loans in 2023 were insured by FHA.