WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is temporarily suspending a 5-year-old rule intended to deter property flippers as part of an effort to help speed the sale of foreclosed properties.
For one year, the Federal Housing Administration will no longer impose a 90-day waiting period before foreclosed properties can be sold and receive government-backed loans.
The policy was put in place in 2003 to deter property "flipping" schemes, in which buyers are overcharged for foreclosures or other distressed properties. But the surge in vacant properties resulting from borrowers who were unable to afford their mortgages has become a far more pressing concern.
"A glut of foreclosed and abandoned homes harms neighborhoods, frustrates homebuyers and delays a community's recovery," FHA commissioner Brian Montgomery said in a prepared statement.
The new policy "will allow homebuyers to purchase these homes in much greater numbers and ease the excess supply of unsold homes," Montgomery said.
Nationwide, 261,255 homes received at least one foreclosure-related filing in May, up 48 percent from the same month last year and up 7 percent from April, foreclosure listing company RealtyTrac Inc. said Friday.
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