The FHA released the details of the new, lower cost FHA mortgage insurance program (MIP) that President Obama announced last week. The new program will begin Jan. 26, 2015 and will reduce cost of the monthly FHA mortgage insurance payments significantly.
Currently, FHA mortgage insurance on most 30 year fixed FHA loans is at a rate of 1.35% per year. With the new guidelines, the mortgage insurance rate will be 0.85% per year. On a $200,000 FHA loan, that is a savings of $84 per month, or about $1000 per year.
If you are looking to buy a home, you should be able to start the pre-qualification process now. As long as the FHA case number is pulled on January 26th or later you’ll get the new, lower MIP rate. Contact us on our home purchase page for that.
If you have an FHA loan now, this is a good time to look into streamlining your FHA loan to a lower interest rate and take advantage of the lower MIP. The FHA streamline refinance program is extremely user friendly and can result in tremendous savings. If you have a non-FHA loan now, a cash out FHA refinance can make sense as well in some cases. Contact us in the sidebar for more info on FHA refinance programs.