FHA loans will be a little more expensive on Monday than they were on Friday

In case you didn't know, you can get a fixed-rate mortgage with less than 20% down. You can even get a conventional, 30-year loan up to about $636,000 for as little as 5% down.  Most of these loans are guaranteed by the Federal Housing Administration, or FHA, which we also refer to as Fannie Mae.  The catch is, and always has been, that you need mortgage insurance if you are putting down less than 20% -- and that can add a lot of money to your monthly payment.

The good news was that the mortgage insurance rate was reduced recently, which means a significant savings for home buyers.  But that was last week.  The bad news is that the new administration's Housing and Urban Development Department raised the insurance rate back up to where it was yesterday.😭This erases a savings of about $1500 annually for FHA buyers in L.A.  Read about it here from today's L.A. Times.