May 30, 2011
In our last blog post we discussed FHA minimum property requirements. Any home a buyer wants to make a serious offer on with an FHA insured loan must live up to the FHA’s minimum property standards or the loan cannot be approved.
That doesn’t mean the home must be 100% in compliance when the appraiser comes to review the property, but it does mean that any deficiencies found must be corrected prior to the loan being closed upon.
The FHA has three basic principles that guide an FHA appraiser when examining the home–it must be safe, sound, and secure. There are specific requirements in each area. For example, a home must not have stairways that aren’t equipped with hand rails, there must be no exposed wiring in the home, and the roof must have two years of life left in it at a minimum.
A leaking roof must be repaired or replaced according to the FHA assigned appraiser’s recommendations, or the loan could not be approved.
Of what FHA appraisers sometimes call “The Three S’s”, safety, soundness, and security, it’s the final “S” that creates the most confusion among buyers. It’s easy to assume that “security” refers to a home that is safe from storms and from break-ins, but what “security” really stands for in this case is the security of the loan itself.
According to the FHA, “security refers to risk to
Joe Wallace has been specializing in military and personal finance topics since 1995. His work has appeared on Air Force Television News, The Pentagon Channel, ABC and a variety of print and online publications. He is a 13-year Air Force veteran and a member of the Air Force Public Affairs Alumni Association. He was Managing editor for www.valoans.com for (8) years and is currently the Associate Editor for FHANewsblog.com.
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