More Signs of Life in Real Estate
Posted On: September 28th, 2009 by James Posted In: Mortgage Insurance • Mortgage Programs
Mortgage Trust Underwriter Jamie Carter, has just passed along some interesting news to our staff. She says that Genworth Insurance a major PMI provider has just taken the Portland metro marketplace off of the “declining markets” list.
This means that we can now make conforming loans up to 95% of their appraised value.
Before this happened our access to 95% financing was mostly found through FHA loans (which go up to 96.5%). There was some insurance available, but it was very limited, and expensive.
The agency guidelines have always allowed for conforming loans over 90%, but always conditional on Private Mortgage Insurance. The PMI companies in early 2008 restricted their coverage in certain “declining market areas” by 5% across the board. So that is why we’ve seen such a dramatic shift towards FHA since then.
But now that we’re seeing this re-entry into the high LTV space from the mortgage insurance companies. Getting a mortgage in Portland just got a little bit easier.
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