“The Federal Housing Administration won’t be able to earn its way to financial health this year, increasing the chance it will need a taxpayer bailout, based on an updated forecast from Moody’s Analytics, which provides the agency’s housing-market analysis.
The U.S. government mortgage-insurer, which guarantees $1.1 trillion in home loans, had been counting on “robust growth” in home prices to help rebuild its insurance fund after paying out $37 billion to cover defaults the past three years, according to its annual report to Congress, filed in November.
It won’t get that growth until 2014, according to the latest outlook from Moody’s Analytics. One measure of the market, the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index, will decline 2 percent in fiscal 2012, said Celia Chen, a Moody’s Analytics housing economist who updated her estimate after providing the housing-market forecast for the FHA’s annual actuarial report. Moody’s Analytics hasn’t taken a position on the FHA’s future solvency, said Mark Zandi, the company’s chief economist, in an e-mail.
“The FHA’s economic projections are surreal,” said Andrew Caplin, a New York University economics professor who has testified to Congress on the agency’s finances. “They must believe there will be very few readers in Congress able to critically review such a complex report.”
Actuaries’ Projections
In their annual review, the FHA’s actuaries — risk analysts who specialize in insurance — used earlier projections that called for increases of 1.2 percent in 2012 and 3.8 percent in 2013. The agency, which backs mortgages that cover as much as 96.5 percent of a home’s value, is sensitive to changes in home prices. While the insurance fund’s 2012 outlook called for net growth of about $9 billion, that will drop if home prices decline, according to the FHA’s November report.
By law, the fund is supposed to hold 2 percent of its portfolio in reserve; as of Sept. 30, it held only 0.24 percent, or $2.6 billion, according to the report….”
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