Tidewater Real Estate Blog

FHA: Loan of Choice for Most Buyers

The vast majority of potential home buyers – 87 percent – plan to use a Federal Housing Administration home loan to finance their purchases, according to a new survey from the Home Buying Institute, a consulting service.

In a survey of 12,000 home shoppers, two-thirds first-time buyers – nearly 54 percent – said they preferred an FHA loan because it requires a small down payment. The remainder chose an FHA loan for these reasons:

• 19.2 percent thought the qualification process would be easier.
• 13.5 percent said they didn’t think they could qualify for a conventional mortgage loan.
• 7.7 percent said they had bad credit.
• 5.8 percent said their income was too low to qualify for a conventional loan.