HUD Acts to End 'Flipping'

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is taking a major step toward preventing an abusive lending practice known as flipping that has left thousands of unsuspecting home buyers on the hook for properties worth far less than what they owe on them.

Effective June 2, the Federal Housing Administration will no longer insure mortgages on properties that have been sold more than once in 90 days. And if a repeat sale occurs between 91 and 180 days, lenders will be required to obtain an additional and independent appraisal.

The new rules are designed to stop "flipping," a maneuver in which speculators buy a rundown property, often at foreclosure, make a few cosmetic repairs, and sell them, sometimes within days, at artificially inflated prices.

Sometimes the houses are sold to fictitious buyers and then resold again and again at ever higher prices until they carry mortgages that far greater than their actual worth.

Then, when the monthly payments stop, if they have been made at all, lenders take over the properties and file claims with the FHA, which guarantees to make lenders whole if borrowers fail to meet their obligations.

Often when flipping schemes are discovered, sellers, lenders and appraisers are found to have been working together in the scam.

The new rule "represents a major step in our efforts to eliminate predatory lending practices," said HUD Secretary Mel Martinez.

FHA-insured mortgages are considered the financing of last resort for first-time, low and moderate-income and immigrants borrowers who don't meet the requirements set by conventional lenders. Without the FHA to back their loans, they would be forced to either pay higher rates and fees from so-called "subprime" lenders or wait until they can solve their credit issues.

The new policy was applauded by both lenders and community activists.

"It's excellent," said Armand Cosenza, president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, whose members originate some 60 percent of all home loans. "There's no doubt that flipping is a major, major problem," the Cleveland mortgage broker said. "The sad part is, it applies only to FHA loans. It should be expanded to cover all loans."

Greg Jefferson of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, called the long-awaited move "a good step" in addressing one particular form of predatory lending.

But Jefferson, whose group is the nation's largest community organization with some 600 neighborhood chapters in 45 states, said there are a "number of other ways people can be victimized that remain unaddressed at the federal level."

He also said he'd like to see the government offer some form of assistance to buyers who already have been cheated and are still paying off inflated mortgages, even as their substandard homes are deteriorating around them.

There are some exceptions to the new anti-flipping rules. FHA-insured mortgages will still be available on houses taken back by HUD and then resold as well as on properties purchased by an employer or relocation company.

Otherwise, resales occurring 90 days or less following acquisition will not be eligible for an FHA-insured loan. Repeat sales executed within three months "imply pre-arranged transactions that often prove to be among the most egregious examples of predatory lending practices," HUD said.

For resales between 91 and 180 days, HUD will require lenders to provide additional documentation of value if the new purchase price exceeds the old price by more than 50 percent.

This threshold is high enough not to adversely affect legitimate rehabilitation efforts, HUD explained, but low enough to "still deter unscrupulous sellers, lenders and appraisers from attempting to flip properties and defraud home buyers."

In localities where HUD determines an inordinately high number or substantial pattern of abuses is taking place, a second appraisal will be required if the sales price has increased by 5 percent or more within the previous 12 months.