FHA’s MMIF Capital Reserves Rise in Fiscal Year 2024

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) today released its annual report to Congress that shows the agency’s capital reserve ratio of its Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund (MMI Fund) ended the fiscal year (Sept. 30, 2024) at 11.47%, a 0.96 percentage point increase from the previous year. This is well above the congressionally mandated 2% capital ratio.

The total capital in the MMI Fund stands at $173 billion, a $27.5 billion increase from fiscal year 2023. Additionally, FHA’s serious delinquency rate — the percentage of mortgages in its portfolio that are 90 or more days delinquent — was 4.15% as of Sept. 30, 2024, consistent with rates prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a news release, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) said that FHA facilitated access to mortgage credit for more than 790,000 home buyers and home owners, including more than 26,000 seniors who obtained a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) during the fiscal year.

The MMI Fund report notes that more than 82% of FHA purchase mortgage insurance endorsements in fiscal year 2024 went to first-time home buyers. Over the past four years, approximately 2.3 million borrowers with FHA-insured home purchase mortgages were first-time home buyers. This is eight out of every 10 FHA borrowers.

According to the most recent data available from calendar year 2023, the percentage of FHA’s volume of mortgages made to Black borrowers, 16.7%, was almost two and a half times the rate of the rest of the market, and for Hispanic borrowers, at 22.85%, it was almost double that rate.

Finally, according to calendar year 2023 data, close to half of all rural home buyers obtained mortgages insured by FHA.