A growing number of foreclosed homeowners are discovering that the road back to homeownership isn’t so steep, thanks to loans from the U.S. government, MSNBC reported.
“We were resigned to the fact that we were going to be in a rental property for a while,” said Jennifer Anderson, who lost her home less than two years ago and has now qualified for a government-backed mortgage. Although no hard data exists, many Americans seem to be quickly reentering the housing market, especially since rising national rents are beginning to close the gap between the price of a lease and a monthly mortgage payment.
Critics of the Federal Housing Administration argue that the government could be creating a second housing bubble by lending to those who have already lost a home, a charge the FHA dismisses. “Most of the loans that are getting done are for people who have really rebuilt their credit,” said Frank Donnelly, president of the Mortgage Bankers Association of Metropolitan Washington, D.C. “They have to prove it was something like a job loss that caused this and not chronic delinquency.” [MSNBC]