FHA Loan Limits Maybe Changing In West Chester, Liberty Township & Mason Ohio
FHA loan limits may be changing this fall in Butler & Warren Counties, including places like West Chester, Liberty Township & Mason Ohio. The question is, does it really matter to the housing market? On the face of it, it would seem to be a big deal. Having the FHA mortgage loan limit changing from a current level of $337,500 to a smaller loan limit of $271,050 in Butler & Warren County is a big change, actually almost a 20% drop in the loan limit. So that is big.
But, as I said before, does it really matter? A look inside the housing numbers for areas in Butler County like West Chester, Liberty Township and Mason OH indicates it may not be that big of a deal. So far in 2011, there have been 50 closed sales in the $280,000 – $350,000 price range (the range that would be eliminated by the loan limit reduction) in West Chester & Liberty Township. Of those 50 closed sales, 8 of the buyers used FHA financing which is 16% of the sales. In Mason, there were also 50 closed sales in that range in 2011 and just 6 of those buyers used FHA financing which is of course 12% of the sales. (Disclaimer: the sales data referenced here came from the Greater Cincinnati Multiple Listing Service).
So, will the housing market be negatively impacted by the change that is set to occur. The housing sale numbers in West Chester, Liberty Township & Mason would seem to indicate that they would not be. The fact is some of the homebuyers that did use FHA financing in this price range, may have done so because they could use this lower down payment mortgage program (3.5% down payment) not because they needed to. It is very likely that at least some of these homebuyers could have made a larger downpayment if they would have needed to.
Why is this change in the FHA loan limits set to take place at the end of September? To get the federal government out of the mortgage business is the answer. They want the mortgage market to move back towards private investors buying mortgages and reduce the overly large percentage that are now being bought by the federal government. The long term impact of this policy change may very well be higher interest rates, but then, those are inevitable anyway!
This isn’t to say that other areas of Ohio and our country may be more directly impacted by this change, but the impact in West Chester, Liberty Township and Mason, Ohio should be very small.
You comments and questions are always welcome!
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