The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) facilitated access to mortgage credit for over 793,000 homebuyers and homeowners in fiscal year 2024, according to the Annual Report to Congress Regarding the Financial Status of FHA’s Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund (MMIF).
Nearly 767,000 of those loans were forward mortgages. In the last four fiscal years, the FHA has now facilitated a purchase or refinance mortgage for over 3.9 million households.
The FHA’s insured portfolio contained approximately 7.81 million mortgages and 287,000 home equity conversion mortgages at the end of the fiscal year.
The FHA also continued to serve as an accessible entry point to homeownership for many Americans, with 82.64% of the agency’s purchase loans (498,363 mortgages) going to first-time homebuyers in fiscal year 2024. Over the past four years, roughly 2.3 million borrowers using FHA loans were first-time homebuyers, equating to about eight out of every 10 FHA borrowers.
The FHA also remained the leading source of financing for minority borrowers. In fiscal year 2024, 31.66% of FHA mortgages (242,796 mortgages) were made to borrowers who self-identified as borrowers of color, up by 1 percentage point from the prior fiscal year. Among FHA loans, 16.77% went to Hispanic borrowers and 12.08% went to Black borrowers.
Adriane Todman, acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), noted in her foreword to the report that, by share of volume, the FHA served nearly 2.5 times the number of Black borrowers and almost twice the number of Hispanic borrowers than other market participants.
“These are not just numbers or data points, these are people — real families — who deserve the opportunity to access programs designed to serve them when they need it most,” Todman continued, adding that the FHA’s work to offer mortgage payment relief helped over 592,000 homeowners with financial hardship keep their homes in the past fiscal year.
“Through our work, we have demonstrated that FHA can facilitate homeownership and wealth-building opportunities for hundreds of thousands of households and provide support for homeowners facing hardships while maintaining a financially sound Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund,” said Julia Gordon, Federal Housing Commissioner.
The annual report also revealed what HUD described as “a strong, well-capitalized” MMIF, with a capital ratio of 11.47% as of Sept. 30, up by 0.96 percentage points from fiscal year 2023. It marks the ninth straight year that the fund’s capital ratio has surpassed its 2% statutory minimum.
The MMIF now contains some $172.8 billion in total capital for fiscal year 2024, up from $145 billion last year.
