We take long-term mortgages for granted today, but it wasn’t always that way. Long ago it was likely that if you financed a home you borrowed money with a five-year “term” mortgage — and even then you needed 50 percent down. When the five years was up, you went and got a replacement loan.
But term loans have a built-in problem: They’re not always available, especially if people lose jobs or if home values decline. That was a common situation after the Great Depression, but in 1934 the newly-formed Federal Housing Administration (FHA) began offering long-term mortgage loans insured by the federal government. The result was that millions of people could get long-term mortgages with little down that would allow them to ride-out tough times.
Today the FHA mortgage program remains an important option — more than 555,000 FHA loans were originated in 2005. That’s a big number, but it’s a lot less that the 827,000 FHA loans started in 2004 or the 1.53 million originated in 2003.
Whatever the numbers, if you’re a first-time buyer or someone looking for liberal qualification standards, the FHA program is worth...
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