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Updating Loan Prospector to Align With Federal Housing Administration Revised Down Payment RequirementsMarch 3, 2009

On March 17, we updated Loan Prospector to reflect the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) revised requirements for Statutory Investment down payment. As announced in the September 5, 2008 Mortgagee Letter 2008-23, FHA increased the Statutory Investment for all purchase transactions from 3.0 percent to 3.5 percent for FHA Case Numbers issued on or after January 1, 2009. 

New Submissions and Resubmissions

Based on the September 5, 2008 Mortgagee Letter 2008-23, initial submissions and resubmissions of FHA loans with FHA Case Numbers issued on or after January 1, 2009, are subject to the 3.5 percent FHA down payment requirement. 

On March 17, Loan Prospector was updated to reflect this new requirement.

As a result, if the FHA Statutory Investment requirement is less than the required 3.5 percent, all new submissions and resubmissions of FHA loans through Loan Prospector, regardless of the FHA Case Number issue date, receive the following purchase restriction feedback message on the FHA TOTAL Mortgage Scorecard Full Feedback Certificate:

Message Code Feedback Message Purpose
PUR FB Review FHA Statutory Investment Requirement for eligibility This message will be returned for a FHA loan with a loan purpose of purchase, and the minimum down payment is less than the FHA statutory investment requirement, which is determined by the gross purchase price multiplied by 3.5 percent.


You may disregard this message for resubmissions of loans with FHA Case Numbers issued before January 1, 2009. Loans with FHA Case Numbers issued before January 1, 2009, require only the 3.0 percent minimum down payment.

Please note the FHA Case Number must be entered on or before the last submission or FHA will not accept the loan. Keep in mind Loan Prospector is unable to determine the issue date based on the input FHA Case Number, so this informational feedback message is provided to assist you with data validation.

Updates to Existing Feedback Messages

On March 17, to align with this change, we continue to return the following feedback messages on the FHA TOTAL Mortgage Scorecard Full Feedback Certificate, as applicable.

Message Code Feedback Message Purpose
LPN BR The FHA Statutory Investment Requirement for this loan is $~FHAStatInv~. Dynamically display value indicating the 3.5 percent amount calculated as the minimum statutory investment.
LPN BS The FHA Minimum Down Payment submitted for this loan is $~DownPmt~. Dynamically display the down payment amount you entered or was calculated by your loan origination system (LOS).


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